99.9% of all institutions in my life are at best feudal orders, run by aristocrats so far removed from my life that they wouldn’t even know how to survive without their armies of servants, nannies, and assistants. Democracy needs to extend beyond the state. Democracy must be present in every part of our society, or it will, as it has now, inevitably become nothing more than another oligarchy for and by the rich.
Recommended readings:
Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire.
Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon.
Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber.
Blackshirts and Reds by Michael Parenti.
Neocolonialism by Kwame Nkrumah.
Anarchism and other Essays by Emma Goldman.
Recommendations from the comments:
/u/BallShapedMan - The Dictator’s Handbook by by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith
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Based as fuck. Organizing a union is bringing democracy into the authoritarian dictatorship folks call work. Organizing a tenant union is bringing democracy to the commons. All heirarchy is bad, because all heirarchies seek to remove democracy
All heirarchy is bad
Unless it’s democratically elected hierarchy, right?
Sort of. Think for example, of consent-based policing. There are some tasks police do that are genuinely good and worthwhile. However, if there is not a democratic process to bar people from being in those roles of power after abusing them, then it’s still a bad heirarchy.
Different example: say there’s an elected steward of the commons in a library economy who fails to uphold their duties of automating the means of production. It would still be a bad heirarchy if this problem cannot be resolved by democratic means.
Edit: I forgot about the solution to preventing these problems: unions. They would serve a drastically different role, obviously. But their purpose would still be to facilitate these democratic actions through direct action and organizing.
No need for hierarchy, it is different than designated leadership and roles.
How is it different? That doesn’t seem obvious to me.
Leaders and organizers and stuff will always be necessary even in an anarchist society, but those roles shouldn’t be given the reverence and special treatment that they currently are. They’re important roles, and should be respected and cooperated with just like any other role, but if they’ve proven themselves to be unworthy of that there should be democratic processes to replace them. People in leadership roles shouldn’t be earning 10+x what everyone else is, and they shouldn’t be able to hold onto power the way they currently are
no. power centralized in the beaurocratic state apparatus is also oppressive. electoral politics are a sham, and democracy is impotent when the capital owning class can simply buy influence.
if 9 people vote to kill the 10th, is that just?
I’d like to add to your reading list The Dictators Handbook.
Fantastic read on the mechanics of politics and how democracy and autocracy are similar in more aspects than we imagine.
That’s one I haven’t read yet, I’ll check it out, thanks for the recommendation!
I’d love to hear what you think as you make your way through it. I’ve also added some of the books you recommend to my reading list. I’m always looking for my next mind blowing book!
Thank you for providing a reading list! People be like: “read theory”
And then theory nerds be like: “what you wanna read theory? Don’t, it’s a waste of time, and unnecessary to be rhetorically effective”
And I’m like :3
I work in continuous improvement, think Henry ford stuff.
If the workers had their say nothing would improve and the business would be a disaster.
“No not doing that” “why?” “Well we always did it this way and it works so we aren’t changing” " the other way has been proven to work better" “doesn’t matter we always done it this way so we aren’t changing”
“We are working 9-5 no more shift work” “the machines will idle for 2/3rds of the day. That’s horribly inefficient and are products will be uncompetitive and we will get closed down”
“We aren’t using that new machine” “why it is digital and uses machines to create accuracy 10x better than a person.” “I spent 40 years learning how to do it manually that’s the way I’m doing it and all the new kids are going to learn when I teach them”
“Look at this machine it makes 10x the output as a traditional team” “no it uses 9 people instead of 10. Someone will get made redundant we aren’t using it”
The only reason this happens is that capitalism ties survival to labour. Automation should be liberating us, and yet the structures of capitalism and “protestant work ethic” cause it to do the opposite :/. People would act this way because otherwise the greater efficiency acts as a detriment to their survival ability.
None of what you said is an argument against worker democracy, but an argument against the fundamental models of capitalism and “”“free”“” market ideology . (or more generally, any system and ideology which gatekeeps access to basic resources behind their perceived ability to provide “value” or perform labour).
It’s too inefficient to be worker ran. Not everyone is capable of running a busines and understanding what it entails.
I think we should push for a 4 day work week standard personally. And move towards ubi.
If workers benefitted from the profits of their own industry, they would have similar motives as capitalists have to maximize efficiency, if not more so. If turning a profit meant they benefitted, they would attempt to make the more stuff for less work. This would avoid the squeezing of workers to improve efficiency while also giving the workers an incentive to not have too many people in their industry. They would tend towards having as few workers as necessary in order to make them earn a larger cut of the profit. If they have too many workers, people would leave to other industries or companies that have better wages, stabilizing the wage of the original industry or company.
The main issue that would arise would stem more from unions having an effective monopoly on an industry. They would organize like a cartel to lower quality and stifle innovation. Monopoly is what would lead to what you describe, not who has a say in how things are run. Capitalism already tends towards monopoly, and so would an industry wide union.
A strategy that could address those issues would be banning all non worker owned businesses while also enforcing anti trust laws and promoting competitive markets. This would happen at the same time as the government having an exponential progressive wealth tax and income tax. Stocks would be taxed and converted into a national capital stock that would then be distributed evenly to citizens. A certain amount of this national stock would not be taxed, depending on things such as how much capital exists in the country. If a new company wanted capital to fund their business, they’d have to appeal directly to individuals to use their capital, or appeal to a regulated agency that handles other people’s capital for certain uses.
Of course, basic human needs would be socialized, including things such as: healthcare, housing, food, water, protection, and other things critical to survival. The more critical the need, the more support it’ll get from the government.
Objections to a plan like this such as “people can’t be exceptional” are shallow and weak. You can still become famous, rich, or powerful, but not without the support of others. You can control an entire large company, but if you stop serving the interests of the workers or the members of the public that invested their capital in you, then you’ll get replaced. You can earn a ton of income from being a valuable worker, but only so much of that income can be horded like a fucking dragon. No single individual could own an overly opulent mansion or superyacht, but they could rent it for some time if they have a high enough income and liquidate some of their capital.
The way workers benefit is by cheaper goods and the fact they have a job because they aren’t out competed by other countries.
Also a lot of the other stuff I strongly agree with.
Just I think it needs to happen with capitalism. Everything else is far too inefficient.
Cheaper goods don’t matter when you’re forced to work in unpleasant or even dangerous conditions. No amount of dirt cheap goods can make up for that suffering.
Competition with other countries is a problem. However, this would also be a problem with any workers rights laws in any country. This competition would also have the effect of forcing worker owned businesses to innovate or be out competed. They would need to increase automation to increase efficiency or increase quality to have their industry out compete those where this system isn’t in place. There’s only so much you can lower working conditions or pay until there are demands for better conditions or a better system. Eventually, the efforts to suppress an unhappy populace will cost more than paying workers more or redistributing wealth. The end goal is to create the most sustainable, wealthy, and happy system possible to outlast opposition.
The real Achilles heel of this plan is that the rich won’t want to give up a dime, and there will need to be tremendous popular support. It’ll also require amending property rights, as many have the erroneous assumption that property necessary for survival and achieving a reasonable level of security and happiness is just as worthy of protection as a billionaire’s superyachts. This would be a huge change in how the law thinks of human rights, and it will not happen unless a lot of things change first.
Capitalism as is doesn’t work. We need to bend it, or it’ll break us. Efficiency, the economy, even the government only matter and only have value in the capacity to which they serve us. If the economy or the government isn’t serving someone’s self interest, they have every reason and every right to demand change. We need to bend these non human systems until they serve everybody.
Capitalism works it’s politics that doesn’t. That’s what needs changing.
Just look at places like Sweden pre 2015. Capitalist country. Very happy place. Great place to live.
Capitalism working.
