Is it time to dispose of capitalism?

[UniversalCommons]

Statistically worker owned businesses outproduce businesses that are run by a single boss. This includes employee stock ownership. People don't think of this as employee ownership but it is. There is a more than 2% improvement in performance in employee owned companies. Compounded over many years this can be quite significant.
https://www.nceo.org/articles/research- ... erformance

I think this is why there is such opposition to partnership or cooperative based businesses with skilled labor. It is easier to control people in commoditized jobs with low wages.

Doesn't employee ownership by shares tie individual workers to the same company?

If they're allowed to keep their shares after they leave, who are they allowed to sell the shares to? If they can't, then all they have are voting rights in the company.

If they're NOT allowed to keep shares (for long) then does the business itself buy them back, or does a new employee have to "buy a job"?

Generally ESOPs are a small percentage of the value of a company. They are not the full pay of the company. There is a salary, and then there are shares vested over time.
It only ties a person to the company for as long as it takes for the shares to vest. There are two types of shares which are often given out vested shares which can be sold immediately, and unvested shares which can be sold after a period of time. You lose if you leave early. Generally, the shares are not paid for by you. You are not spending money you don't have yet. Once the shares are vested, they can leave the company, or they can choose to leave and not get the shares. Initially vesting might be for a couple of years. They can sell the shares to whoever will buy them unless the shares are restricted. There are different legal arrangements. There are quite a few companies where the value of the vested shares is quite large. Many publicly traded companies have ESOP plans with stocks that can be traded on the market.

Employee ownership comes in a variety of forms, partnerships, cooperatives, employee stock options.

Something to think about is that it would encourage longer term investment strategies. Tieing people to a particular company for a short period might not be a bad thing. It used to be people stayed at a company because of a pension. There are advantages to being part of a retirement system that vests over time. It creates stability. We like to think of stocks as something that get sold immediately. They aren't. A lot of stocks pay dividends. There is a huge cost in recruiting and retaining people. There is another aspect of ESOPs. There is a huge demand for certain types of workers. A company can quite literally be destroyed if an outside recruiter promises someone better pay then hires a large amount of staff away. Corporate raiding is a real thing.
https://employeeownedamerica.com/2019/0 ... companies/

[Anskerdank]

I think it depends. In all honestly, I think it's time not to get rid of it, but rather reform it. Toughen up against big corporations, tax the rich more and the poor less, but still allow a relatively free market economy

[Picairn]

Despite all the talks about capitalism declining and collapsing, I have not seen a great socialist or commmunist revolution turning the capitalist world upside down since the October Revolution of 1918. Ever since the USSR died communist movements have pretty much become defunct. Even after the Great Recession of 2008, the only big revolutions that happened were the Arab Spring and the rise of right wing populism post-2011 migrant crisis.

I believe that the reasons communism remains unpopular is because of the negative reputation that it is associated with totalitarian Stalinist/Maoist regimes, and that social democracy has taken the mantle as a preferable, less bloodshed, less violence alternative to rampant neoliberalism and brutal communism.

[A-Series-Of-Tubes]

Doesn't employee ownership by shares tie individual workers to the same company?

If they're allowed to keep their shares after they leave, who are they allowed to sell the shares to? If they can't, then all they have are voting rights in the company.

If they're NOT allowed to keep shares (for long) then does the business itself buy them back, or does a new employee have to "buy a job"?

Generally ESOPs are a small percentage of the value of a company. They are not the full pay of the company. There is a salary, and then there are shares vested over time.
It only ties a person to the company for as long as it takes for the shares to vest. There are two types of shares which are often given out vested shares which can be sold immediately, and unvested shares which can be sold after a period of time. You lose if you leave early. Generally, the shares are not paid for by you. You are not spending money you don't have yet. Once the shares are vested, they can leave the company, or they can choose to leave and not get the shares. Initially vesting might be for a couple of years. They can sell the shares to whoever will buy them unless the shares are restricted. There are different legal arrangements. There are quite a few companies where the value of the vested shares is quite large. Many publicly traded companies have ESOP plans with stocks that can be traded on the market.

Employee ownership comes in a variety of forms, partnerships, cooperatives, employee stock options.

Something to think about is that it would encourage longer term investment strategies. Tieing people to a particular company for a short period might not be a bad thing. It used to be people stayed at a company because of a pension.

An arrangement which suited employers, and may have suited isolated workplace unions. Lifetime employment with one company suited some people, but not others, which is why such pension investments are transferrable or even entirely government-owned.

Not a tangent. A financial penalty for leaving (or being fired) would be a deal-breaker for me. Shares that can't be traded outside the company, are literally "company money" and would constitute a disincentive to leave.

There are advantages to being part of a retirement system that vests over time. It creates stability. We like to think of stocks as something that get sold immediately. They aren't. A lot of stocks pay dividends.

That's more like it. Additional income for workers the longer they stay. Possibly tax deductible as investment income.

There is a huge cost in recruiting and retaining people. There is another aspect of ESOPs. There is a huge demand for certain types of workers. A company can quite literally be destroyed if an outside recruiter promises someone better pay then hires a large amount of staff away. Corporate raiding is a real thing.
https://employeeownedamerica.com/2019/0 ... companies/

Worker loyalty might give the ESOP company a slight advantage, but that just increases the price for a raider. Trying to hold them off by tying the worker to investments in the company isn't likely to win their loyalty, it just gives a raider the opportunity to offer a big bonus up front and a less impressive wage to keep their new worker. If they're starting up they will have no taxable income in the next year, and don't care how much they lose in one-off payments. The tax system shouldn't allow those loses to be deducted in future years, but it does.

Raiders are a problem I can't solve, but I would concentrate on building loyalty by will of the majority, and the workers having faith in their own company.

[UniversalCommons]

There have been a number of Color Revolutions mainly to remove corrupt governments or institutions. Many are in the former Soviet Republics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_revolution

The focus is not replacing systems of government, but cleaning things up and making elections fair.

[USS Monitor]

In the United States, the resentment towards a vague "elite" among a vaguely-defined "regular people" has risen dramatically since 2000. Occupy Wall Street, the Tea Party movement, the 2016 election of Donald Trump, and the January 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol can all be ascribed to the overarching resentment of working-class people towards their ruling overlords.

It's misleading to present the Tea Party and the Jan 6 attacks as working class movements.

The Tea Party was primarily wealthy people wanting to hoard their wealth rather than seeing it taxed to pay for government programs to help other people. Any anti-elitist elements were against the academic and political elites, not against financial elites.

The Jan 6 riot had very little to do with economic issues of any kind. It was more about political partisanship and cultural grievances. The rioters belong to the same tradition as the Confederacy, the White League, or various segregationists, etc. that have engaged in voter suppression and occasional mob violence ever since black people were given the right to vote. They're reviving an old conflict that predates Marx and modern capitalism, if you trace it back through all the pre-Civil War bickering about slavery. There may have been some disgruntled workers in the mob, but there were also some very wealthy people who expected their "respectability" to protect them from any consequences.

[Picairn]

There have been a number of Color Revolutions mainly to remove corrupt governments or institutions. Many are in the former Soviet Republics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_revolution

Color Revolutions are often counter-revolutionary themselves. After a decade of them (2010s - today), has any country become better off? Aside from Tunisia in the Arab Spring, I can't recall any other one.

[Old Tyrannia]

News just in: socialists believe that the end of capitalism is nigh. In other news, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.

[UniversalCommons]

However, these are attempts at change. They are nonviolent for the most part. I can see the potential for violent revolution if the corruption, lack of equity and participation are not corrected. People are becoming more aware of their governments. It would be a different style of revolution. People seem to be more interested in participatory democracy right now than communism.
The Zapatistas for example were more interested in becoming a larger part of democracy than violent revolution in Mexico.
http://teaching.quotidiana.org/our/2006 ... itics.html

You could also argue that Occupy Wall Street was more about greater democratic participation as well. It was not a movement to overthrow the government.

[Diahon]

There have been a number of Color Revolutions mainly to remove corrupt governments or institutions. Many are in the former Soviet Republics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_revolution

Color Revolutions are often counter-revolutionary themselves. After a decade of them (2010s - today), has any country become better off? Aside from Tunisia in the Arab Spring, I can't recall any other one.

rojava?

[Washington Resistance Army]

Color Revolutions are often counter-revolutionary themselves. After a decade of them (2010s - today), has any country become better off? Aside from Tunisia in the Arab Spring, I can't recall any other one.

rojava?

Much worse off. The most stable and livable areas of Syria are those under Assad's control.

[Coanin]

News just in: socialists believe that the end of capitalism is nigh. In other news, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.

it took a lot longer for feudalism to get replaced by capitalism than capitalism has existed. it's not like we live at the end of history or anything, things can still happen.

[Arisyan]

Yes yes a thousand times yes! its the only way we're gonna solve the climate crisis, thats for sure.

[Repubblica Fascista Sociale Italiana]

Color Revolutions are often counter-revolutionary themselves. After a decade of them (2010s - today), has any country become better off? Aside from Tunisia in the Arab Spring, I can't recall any other one.

rojava?

Rojava is absolutely chaotic, not to mention the persecution of Arabs in its territories

[National Capitalist United States]

Yes, capitalism has failed in almost every country.

Damn, I didn't know Sweden and Switzerland were failed countries, along with the rest of the world

[National Capitalist United States]

My grandkids will have grandkids before a revolution happens

[Compassionate Centrist Christians]

It's clear to me that neither economic system can work because we can't ever have a perfect world. An ENTIRE new system that would work is the only way to go but I'm not sure what that would look like. This is already in the works to some extend:
https://time.com/5930093/amsterdam-doughnut-economics/

[Coanin]

It's clear to me that neither economic system can work because we can't ever have a perfect world. An ENTIRE new system that would work is the only way to go but I'm not sure what that would look like. This is already in the works to some extend:
https://time.com/5930093/amsterdam-doughnut-economics/

that system is literally just rebranded social democracy, which is just capitalism

[UniversalCommons]

There is always the idea that a revolution will happen not because of ideology, but because we will build machines that are not completely controllable, a mix of artificial intelligence, climate change, and super cheap production which will force people to redesign the system. It would not be a bloody revolution, but an overhaul of society. We'll get Trekonomics where capitalism doesn't quite work anymore. There are a lot of different types of capitalism, green capitalism, social democracy, and other things. Social democracy is one of the better choices.

https://www.unilad.co.uk/technology/hum ... udy-shows/

I wonder what it will be like when there will be multiple different A.I. all with completely different agendas and programming which we cannot control.

[New Bradenia Ghost]

I think it needs to be desposed soon, but I think it shouldn't be Socialism as a replacement, since both Capitalism and Socialism failed (like look at Venezuela and what happened), it should probably be Anarchism to replace it

[Repubblica Fascista Sociale Italiana]

I think it needs to be desposed soon, but I think it shouldn't be Socialism as a replacement, since both Capitalism and Socialism failed (like look at Venezuela and what happened), it should probably be Anarchism to replace it

[Atheris]

I certainly wouldn't miss capitalism if something better than it can feasibly be realized and maintained, but so far it's the best economic system we have for economic and societal growth.

[Adamede]

If the marxists could create a system that doesn’t result in the deaths of millions and authorities governments sure.

[Cordel One]

If the marxists could create a system that doesn’t result in the deaths of millions and authorities governments sure.

Did that, glad to have you on our side

[The Astrocracy]

Yeah, that's prpbably not going to happen anytime soon, unless you plan on convincing enough people howe and why an alternate system will work better.

Also, I don't see the January 6 attack as an example of "working class vs. rulers"; those people were perfectly fine with a rulling elite as long as they were conservatives paying them lip service, but when that was threatened by a new administration, they decided to "take things back"