Communism: Discussion on practicalities

[Fatimida]

you asked him why he has "not put more effort into learning English", despite the fella speaking it at an autonomous level. Effort is pretty well clear there, man.

I asked him that because he said he misunderstood what Huang was trying to argue for.

[Conservative Republic Of Huang]

you asked him why he has "not put more effort into learning English", despite the fella speaking it at an autonomous level. Effort is pretty well clear there, man.

I asked him that because he said he misunderstood what Huang was trying to argue for.

I'd wager way less than half of native English speakers know what "syndicalism" means.

[Kubra]

you asked him why he has "not put more effort into learning English", despite the fella speaking it at an autonomous level. Effort is pretty well clear there, man.

I asked him that because he said he misunderstood what Huang was trying to argue for.

I see. French and English share a lot of vocabulary, but the same meaning between words is not always preserved. As such, english to french learners and vice versa can be prone to these sorts of misunderstandings.

[Fatimida]

I'd wager way less than half of native English speakers know what "syndicalism" means.

Not especially educated on it but from what I know it's the achievement of a socialist society by methods such as strikes.

I see. French and English share a lot of vocabulary, but the same meaning between words is not always preserved. As such, english to french learners and vice versa can be prone to these sorts of misunderstandings.

I'm sorry for any interpreted attacks against him.

[Kubra]

I'd wager way less than half of native English speakers know what "syndicalism" means.

Not especially educated on it but from what I know it's the achievement of a socialist society by methods such as strikes.

I see. French and English share a lot of vocabulary, but the same meaning between words is not always preserved. As such, english to french learners and vice versa can be prone to these sorts of misunderstandings.

I'm sorry for any interpreted attacks against him.

Well, let's say we all had a misunderstanding, I too apologise. We could not be proud english speakers if we could not befuddle each other at least with every second statement, no?

[Fatimida]

Well, let's say we all had a misunderstanding, I too apologise. We could not be proud english speakers if we could not befuddle each other at least with every second statement, no?

This site and Discord are probably the only sites I regularly use English on.

[New haven america]

his English is fine, man. How's your french, Anglo?

I never said it was bad and I'm not from an English-speaking country.

Last time I checked Canada was an English speaking country, so...

[New haven america]

Last time I checked Canada was an English speaking country, so...

Dual language. French and English. In Quebec the primary language is French. But you probably know.

Yes, I did.

So why did you explain it?

[Fauzjhia]

I asked him that because he said he misunderstood what Huang was trying to argue for.

I'd wager way less than half of native English speakers know what "syndicalism" means.

MIght also, people do not have same definition of (communism)
an economy organized around worker coops --- Personally, I call it Communist.

Imagine you and me start a co-op. It does well and brings in dozens of other workers. But democratic decisions take it ways I do not agree with. Exploiting customers, evading taxes, or polluting 4eg.

I can walk away with nothing, just give up my share of the profitable business I helped build?

Luckily you allow opt out. I opt out on day one. I'd rather work for a blatant bourgeois who doesnt lie to me about the surplus value I give up to them. Non-transferrable value is illusory. The majority of workers would prefer to raise wages so high your co-op will go bankrupt then whistle as they walk away. Companies owed money will never trade with a co-op again!

There would still something called the law in a communism society that make such poor economic action, fraud, and it can be punished
In our current system, pretty much all organizations are small tyrannies, and while we get democratic rights, we don't have those rights in a company
I don't believe in a stateless society, we need a organization of justice.

[Page]

Shares? Being part of a worker coop does mean you have partial ownership, but its nontransferable. It has to be tied to the job. You can't just sell your share; you own the company in the sense that you have a right to vote and share in profits, but all that is ex officio of your position as a worker-owner. In worker coops, job advancement isn't really a thing since there is no management class, so there is no getting promoted up the management chain.

Imagine you and me start a co-op. It does well and brings in dozens of other workers. But democratic decisions take it ways I do not agree with. Exploiting customers, evading taxes, or polluting 4eg.

I can walk away with nothing, just give up my share of the profitable business I helped build?

Luckily you allow opt out. I opt out on day one. I'd rather work for a blatant bourgeois who doesnt lie to me about the surplus value I give up to them. Non-transferrable value is illusory. The majority of workers would prefer to raise wages so high your co-op will go bankrupt then whistle as they walk away. Companies owed money will never trade with a co-op again!

So, about raising the wages so high, why hasn't that happened yet? Why is the minimum wage relative to inflation and cost of living falling every year?

[Conservative Republic Of Huang]

Shares? Being part of a worker coop does mean you have partial ownership, but its nontransferable. It has to be tied to the job. You can't just sell your share; you own the company in the sense that you have a right to vote and share in profits, but all that is ex officio of your position as a worker-owner. In worker coops, job advancement isn't really a thing since there is no management class, so there is no getting promoted up the management chain.

Imagine you and me start a co-op. It does well and brings in dozens of other workers. But democratic decisions take it ways I do not agree with. Exploiting customers, evading taxes, or polluting 4eg.

I can walk away with nothing, just give up my share of the profitable business I helped build?

Luckily you allow opt out. I opt out on day one. I'd rather work for a blatant bourgeois who doesnt lie to me about the surplus value I give up to them. Non-transferrable value is illusory. The majority of workers would prefer to raise wages so high your co-op will go bankrupt then whistle as they walk away. Companies owed money will never trade with a co-op again!

The profit motive works in the exact same way in a co-op, if actually a little weaker.

Also, for a normal corporation to engage in bad practices, only one or two people at the top have to be heartless, which is doubly easy, since they get most of the profit. For a worker coops, half or more have to be heartless, and they get little reward from it.

Also, workers aren't dumb. Co-ops literally exist in the real world, and by any metric, outperform the traditional model. Workers can judge their own self-interest very well, and won't just ruin the co-op. For once, what's good for the business is good for them.

https://www.thenews.coop/37480/sector/retail/cooperative-membership-hits-1-billion-worldwide/

“According to a new report by the Worldwatch Institute, approximately 1 billion people in 96 countries now belong to a cooperative.

The report's author, Gary Gardner, writes that cooperatives are low-profile but powerful economic actors, with the world's 300 largest ones generating revenues in 2008 of more than $1.6 trillion.”

“If direct shareholders, who own stock as individuals, are considered alone, they are outnumbered three to one by cooperative member-owners. In fact, 13.8% of the world population is a member of at least one cooperative, in contrast to the 5% who are direct shareholders. Looking at national figures, some countries have a very high proportion of cooperative membership, for example: Ireland (approximately 70% of the population), Finland (60%), Austria (58%), Singapore (50%), Switzerland (46%), Sweden (45%), Norway (44%), and Canada (40%).

The report notes that cooperatives are particularly strongly represented in the financial realm. A 2010 World Bank report found that credit union branches account for 23 percent of bank branches worldwide and serve 870 million people, making them the second largest financial services network in the world.”

https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/up ... _craig.pdf
This shows that while cooperative firms are on average less efficient (production/hour of work), this can be due to the longer hours that were measured for the cooperative firms. It, in essence, concludes that cooperatives and unionized workplaces are about equal in productivity as traditional non-unionized firms. It should also be noted that cooperative and unionized firms were significantly more efficient with resources (production/log) than traditional firms and that tendency can not be so easily chalked up to longer hours.

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... a-analysis
“To aggregate findings and provide potential direction for future theoretical development, we conducted a meta-analysis of 102 samples representing 56,984 firms. Employee ownership has a small, but positive and statistically significant relation to firm performance ( = 0.04). The effect is generally positive for studies with different sampling designs (samples assessing change in performance pre-employee–post-employee ownership adoption or samples on firms with employee ownership), different performance operationalisation (efficiency or growth) and firm type (publicly held or privately held).”

http://library.uniteddiversity.coop/Coo ... vement.pdf
“After 1 year, 50-60% of corporations fail while only 10% of cooperatives do.”

“After 5 years, 90% of Co-ops remain open while only 3-5% of standard corporations do”

https://wol.iza.org/articles/does-emplo ... mance/long
“Employee ownership has attracted growing attention for its potential to improve economic outcomes for companies, workers, and the economy in general, and help reduce inequality. Over 100 studies across many countries indicate that employee ownership is generally linked to better productivity, pay, job stability, and firm survival—though the effects are dispersed and causation is difficult to firmly establish. Free-riding often appears to be overcome by worker co-monitoring and reciprocity. Financial risk is an important concern but is generally minimized by higher pay and job stability among employee owners.”

http://library.uniteddiversity.coop/Coo ... vement.pdf
“In spite of all of the legal and cultural barriers (the mythologies about cooperative survival and superiority of competition) and occasional conversion, cooperatives have been surprisingly successful in the United States and other parts of the world. In Western Europe and North America, those firms that have remained co-ops have achieved 30 percent of market share. At both the beginning and the end of the twentieth century, the cooperative movement has shown the way out of economic disaster.”

https://www.nceo.org/assets/pdf/Economi ... ugh_EO.pdf
“[ESOPs and worker co-ops] generate 2.5% more new jobs per year AND Have a workforce that is ⅓ to ¼ as likely to be laid off”

https://democracycollaborative.org/lear ... ways-scale
“Coops make $652 billion in revenue, hold around $3 trillion in assets, and employ nearly one million people in the U.S., showing that coops are already successfully contributing to the U.S. economy.”

“Worker coops can increase worker incomes by 70-80%, have 9-19% greater levels of productivity, have 45% lower turnover rates, and are 30% less likely to fail in the first few years of operation”

[Duvniask]

Imagine you and me start a co-op. It does well and brings in dozens of other workers. But democratic decisions take it ways I do not agree with. Exploiting customers, evading taxes, or polluting 4eg.

I can walk away with nothing, just give up my share of the profitable business I helped build?

Luckily you allow opt out. I opt out on day one. I'd rather work for a blatant bourgeois who doesnt lie to me about the surplus value I give up to them. Non-transferrable value is illusory. The majority of workers would prefer to raise wages so high your co-op will go bankrupt then whistle as they walk away. Companies owed money will never trade with a co-op again!

The profit motive works in the exact same way in a co-op, if actually a little weaker.

Also, for a normal corporation to engage in bad practices, only one or two people at the top have to be heartless, which is doubly easy, since they get most of the profit. For a worker coops, half or more have to be heartless, and they get little reward from it.

Also, workers aren't dumb. Co-ops literally exist in the real world, and by any metric, outperform the traditional model. Workers can judge their own self-interest very well, and won't just ruin the co-op. For once, what's good for the business is good for them.

https://www.thenews.coop/37480/sector/retail/cooperative-membership-hits-1-billion-worldwide/

“According to a new report by the Worldwatch Institute, approximately 1 billion people in 96 countries now belong to a cooperative.

The report's author, Gary Gardner, writes that cooperatives are low-profile but powerful economic actors, with the world's 300 largest ones generating revenues in 2008 of more than $1.6 trillion.”

“If direct shareholders, who own stock as individuals, are considered alone, they are outnumbered three to one by cooperative member-owners. In fact, 13.8% of the world population is a member of at least one cooperative, in contrast to the 5% who are direct shareholders. Looking at national figures, some countries have a very high proportion of cooperative membership, for example: Ireland (approximately 70% of the population), Finland (60%), Austria (58%), Singapore (50%), Switzerland (46%), Sweden (45%), Norway (44%), and Canada (40%).

The report notes that cooperatives are particularly strongly represented in the financial realm. A 2010 World Bank report found that credit union branches account for 23 percent of bank branches worldwide and serve 870 million people, making them the second largest financial services network in the world.”

https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/up ... _craig.pdf
This shows that while cooperative firms are on average less efficient (production/hour of work), this can be due to the longer hours that were measured for the cooperative firms. It, in essence, concludes that cooperatives and unionized workplaces are about equal in productivity as traditional non-unionized firms. It should also be noted that cooperative and unionized firms were significantly more efficient with resources (production/log) than traditional firms and that tendency can not be so easily chalked up to longer hours.

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... a-analysis
“To aggregate findings and provide potential direction for future theoretical development, we conducted a meta-analysis of 102 samples representing 56,984 firms. Employee ownership has a small, but positive and statistically significant relation to firm performance ( = 0.04). The effect is generally positive for studies with different sampling designs (samples assessing change in performance pre-employee–post-employee ownership adoption or samples on firms with employee ownership), different performance operationalisation (efficiency or growth) and firm type (publicly held or privately held).”

http://library.uniteddiversity.coop/Coo ... vement.pdf
“After 1 year, 50-60% of corporations fail while only 10% of cooperatives do.”

“After 5 years, 90% of Co-ops remain open while only 3-5% of standard corporations do”

https://wol.iza.org/articles/does-emplo ... mance/long
“Employee ownership has attracted growing attention for its potential to improve economic outcomes for companies, workers, and the economy in general, and help reduce inequality. Over 100 studies across many countries indicate that employee ownership is generally linked to better productivity, pay, job stability, and firm survival—though the effects are dispersed and causation is difficult to firmly establish. Free-riding often appears to be overcome by worker co-monitoring and reciprocity. Financial risk is an important concern but is generally minimized by higher pay and job stability among employee owners.”

http://library.uniteddiversity.coop/Coo ... vement.pdf
“In spite of all of the legal and cultural barriers (the mythologies about cooperative survival and superiority of competition) and occasional conversion, cooperatives have been surprisingly successful in the United States and other parts of the world. In Western Europe and North America, those firms that have remained co-ops have achieved 30 percent of market share. At both the beginning and the end of the twentieth century, the cooperative movement has shown the way out of economic disaster.”

https://www.nceo.org/assets/pdf/Economi ... ugh_EO.pdf
“[ESOPs and worker co-ops] generate 2.5% more new jobs per year AND Have a workforce that is ⅓ to ¼ as likely to be laid off”

https://democracycollaborative.org/lear ... ways-scale
“Coops make $652 billion in revenue, hold around $3 trillion in assets, and employ nearly one million people in the U.S., showing that coops are already successfully contributing to the U.S. economy.”

“Worker coops can increase worker incomes by 70-80%, have 9-19% greater levels of productivity, have 45% lower turnover rates, and are 30% less likely to fail in the first few years of operation”

Both of the underlined sentences are quite amusing. Do you honestly, in your heart of hearts, believe that "what's good for business" isn't going to end up being "heartless"? What reason do you have to think there is little reward in ruthlessly pursuing profits? Cooperatives will have precisely the same incentives to exploit other groups, other countries, the environment, etc for their own financial gain. They are beholden to the same pyrrhic race to the bottom as all other firms are. The fact that you have democratized the firm has not changed the fundamental logic at play - the things that must be done to survive and remain secure (not to mention thriving, due to greed), as a firm, as shareholders, as capitalists, are the same.

[Kowani]

The profit motive works in the exact same way in a co-op, if actually a little weaker.

Also, for a normal corporation to engage in bad practices, only one or two people at the top have to be heartless, which is doubly easy, since they get most of the profit. For a worker coops, half or more have to be heartless, and they get little reward from it.

Also, workers aren't dumb. Co-ops literally exist in the real world, and by any metric, outperform the traditional model. Workers can judge their own self-interest very well, and won't just ruin the co-op. For once, what's good for the business is good for them.

https://www.thenews.coop/37480/sector/retail/cooperative-membership-hits-1-billion-worldwide/

“According to a new report by the Worldwatch Institute, approximately 1 billion people in 96 countries now belong to a cooperative.

The report's author, Gary Gardner, writes that cooperatives are low-profile but powerful economic actors, with the world's 300 largest ones generating revenues in 2008 of more than $1.6 trillion.”

“If direct shareholders, who own stock as individuals, are considered alone, they are outnumbered three to one by cooperative member-owners. In fact, 13.8% of the world population is a member of at least one cooperative, in contrast to the 5% who are direct shareholders. Looking at national figures, some countries have a very high proportion of cooperative membership, for example: Ireland (approximately 70% of the population), Finland (60%), Austria (58%), Singapore (50%), Switzerland (46%), Sweden (45%), Norway (44%), and Canada (40%).

The report notes that cooperatives are particularly strongly represented in the financial realm. A 2010 World Bank report found that credit union branches account for 23 percent of bank branches worldwide and serve 870 million people, making them the second largest financial services network in the world.”

https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/up ... _craig.pdf
This shows that while cooperative firms are on average less efficient (production/hour of work), this can be due to the longer hours that were measured for the cooperative firms. It, in essence, concludes that cooperatives and unionized workplaces are about equal in productivity as traditional non-unionized firms. It should also be noted that cooperative and unionized firms were significantly more efficient with resources (production/log) than traditional firms and that tendency can not be so easily chalked up to longer hours.

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... a-analysis
“To aggregate findings and provide potential direction for future theoretical development, we conducted a meta-analysis of 102 samples representing 56,984 firms. Employee ownership has a small, but positive and statistically significant relation to firm performance ( = 0.04). The effect is generally positive for studies with different sampling designs (samples assessing change in performance pre-employee–post-employee ownership adoption or samples on firms with employee ownership), different performance operationalisation (efficiency or growth) and firm type (publicly held or privately held).”

http://library.uniteddiversity.coop/Coo ... vement.pdf
“After 1 year, 50-60% of corporations fail while only 10% of cooperatives do.”

“After 5 years, 90% of Co-ops remain open while only 3-5% of standard corporations do”

https://wol.iza.org/articles/does-emplo ... mance/long
“Employee ownership has attracted growing attention for its potential to improve economic outcomes for companies, workers, and the economy in general, and help reduce inequality. Over 100 studies across many countries indicate that employee ownership is generally linked to better productivity, pay, job stability, and firm survival—though the effects are dispersed and causation is difficult to firmly establish. Free-riding often appears to be overcome by worker co-monitoring and reciprocity. Financial risk is an important concern but is generally minimized by higher pay and job stability among employee owners.”

http://library.uniteddiversity.coop/Coo ... vement.pdf
“In spite of all of the legal and cultural barriers (the mythologies about cooperative survival and superiority of competition) and occasional conversion, cooperatives have been surprisingly successful in the United States and other parts of the world. In Western Europe and North America, those firms that have remained co-ops have achieved 30 percent of market share. At both the beginning and the end of the twentieth century, the cooperative movement has shown the way out of economic disaster.”

https://www.nceo.org/assets/pdf/Economi ... ugh_EO.pdf
“[ESOPs and worker co-ops] generate 2.5% more new jobs per year AND Have a workforce that is ⅓ to ¼ as likely to be laid off”

https://democracycollaborative.org/lear ... ways-scale
“Coops make $652 billion in revenue, hold around $3 trillion in assets, and employ nearly one million people in the U.S., showing that coops are already successfully contributing to the U.S. economy.”

“Worker coops can increase worker incomes by 70-80%, have 9-19% greater levels of productivity, have 45% lower turnover rates, and are 30% less likely to fail in the first few years of operation”

Both of the underlined sentences are quite amusing. Do you honestly, in your heart of hearts, believe that "what's good for business" isn't going to end up being "heartless"? What reason do you have to think there is little reward in ruthlessly pursuing profits? Cooperatives will have precisely the same incentives to exploit other groups, other countries, the environment, etc for their own financial gain. They are beholden to the same pyrrhic race to the bottom as all other firms are. The fact that you have democratized the firm has not changed the fundamental logic at play - the things that must be done to survive and remain secure (not to mention thriving, due to greed), as a firm, as shareholders, as capitalists, are the same.

not disagreeing with any of this (i actually think it was you who brought me to this position)
but i think there's a depiction of many on the left of workers as "good, exploited people" and CEO's or the board of directors or whoever as "heartless exploiters" without considering really the why of this fact besides "they're disconnected from the day-to-day effects of the business itself"
you see it too in the american leftist who says something like "well small businesses aren't really all that bad" (to be clear part of that is just PR concessions because small business owners are a politically and culturally powerful subgroup) without realizing that they're stuck in the exact same race to the bottom as a result of the laws of the market itself
to borrow from an analysis of illuminati conspiracy theorists, they imagine some shadowy cabal arranging all the world's ills because of a hole in their vision, that capitalism is a good system, just ruled by the wrong people
the "worker co-ops will save us all" crowd might not agree with the idea that capitalism is a good system, but they have still fallen prey to the same trap-the "wrong people" (or class of people, i suppose) are in charge

but as recruitment strategy and emotional link, the evil ceo is much more compelling than "vast system of production and competition"

[Fauzjhia]

Both of the underlined sentences are quite amusing. Do you honestly, in your heart of hearts, believe that "what's good for business" isn't going to end up being "heartless"? What reason do you have to think there is little reward in ruthlessly pursuing profits? Cooperatives will have precisely the same incentives to exploit other groups, other countries, the environment, etc for their own financial gain. They are beholden to the same pyrrhic race to the bottom as all other firms are. The fact that you have democratized the firm has not changed the fundamental logic at play - the things that must be done to survive and remain secure (not to mention thriving, due to greed), as a firm, as shareholders, as capitalists, are the same.

We do not say cooperatives are all rainbows and sunshines,
I do not believe in stateless communism, but its a necessary base to begin with.

a base on which we can add, environmental concerns and etc.

[Duvniask]

Both of the underlined sentences are quite amusing. Do you honestly, in your heart of hearts, believe that "what's good for business" isn't going to end up being "heartless"? What reason do you have to think there is little reward in ruthlessly pursuing profits? Cooperatives will have precisely the same incentives to exploit other groups, other countries, the environment, etc for their own financial gain. They are beholden to the same pyrrhic race to the bottom as all other firms are. The fact that you have democratized the firm has not changed the fundamental logic at play - the things that must be done to survive and remain secure (not to mention thriving, due to greed), as a firm, as shareholders, as capitalists, are the same.

We do not say cooperatives are all rainbows and sunshines,

So what are you saying?

I do not believe in stateless communism, but its a necessary base to begin with.

a base on which we can add, environmental concerns and etc.

What does that even mean?

[Conservative Republic Of Huang]

Both of the underlined sentences are quite amusing. Do you honestly, in your heart of hearts, believe that "what's good for business" isn't going to end up being "heartless"? What reason do you have to think there is little reward in ruthlessly pursuing profits? Cooperatives will have precisely the same incentives to exploit other groups, other countries, the environment, etc for their own financial gain. They are beholden to the same pyrrhic race to the bottom as all other firms are. The fact that you have democratized the firm has not changed the fundamental logic at play - the things that must be done to survive and remain secure (not to mention thriving, due to greed), as a firm, as shareholders, as capitalists, are the same.

not disagreeing with any of this (i actually think it was you who brought me to this position)
but i think there's a depiction of many on the left of workers as "good, exploited people" and CEO's or the board of directors or whoever as "heartless exploiters" without considering really the why of this fact besides "they're disconnected from the day-to-day effects of the business itself"
you see it too in the american leftist who says something like "well small businesses aren't really all that bad" (to be clear part of that is just PR concessions because small business owners are a politically and culturally powerful subgroup) without realizing that they're stuck in the exact same race to the bottom as a result of the laws of the market itself
to borrow from an analysis of illuminati conspiracy theorists, they imagine some shadowy cabal arranging all the world's ills because of a hole in their vision, that capitalism is a good system, just ruled by the wrong people
the "worker co-ops will save us all" crowd might not agree with the idea that capitalism is a good system, but they have still fallen prey to the same trap-the "wrong people" (or class of people, i suppose) are in charge

but as recruitment strategy and emotional link, the evil ceo is much more compelling than "vast system of production and competition"

Worker co-ops may not be an end-all be-all, but you can't just dismiss them. They are by far the most realistic, and most beneficial first step there can be. I can't find it now, but I do remember reading a paper which indicated that the profit motive is much more dampened in worker co-ops, which in turn dampens the majority of the negative aspects of capitalism which come from that. I don't think I need to explain how they are more equitable and less exploitative in terms of surplus value theft.

Most importantly, worker co-ops lay the foundation for a direct democratic tradition. They can serve as incubators of direct democracy, introducing it as a viable alternative to representative democracy to the general population to accelerate progress towards direct democracy in the political sphere.

Once worker co-ops are established as the fundamental unit of society, there's a lot of directions to go in. Many syndicalists advocate for a decentralized planned economy. There's also mutualism, or by building up the systems of mutual aid, the co-ops can wither away into anarcho-communism. The point is, I know they aren't perfect. But they are such a massive, beneficial step, that opens up so many possibilities for further advancement, that you can't just dismiss it as equally replicating the structures of capitalism and pooh-pooh it.

[Fauzjhia]

We do not say cooperatives are all rainbows and sunshines,

So what are you saying?

I do not believe in stateless communism, but its a necessary base to begin with.

a base on which we can add, environmental concerns and etc.

What does that even mean?

It mean I believe a communist system should based around workers-cooperatives and build around it.
but also, that we will need a real state, if we want the system to work correctly, to limit the impact of business on the environment, to protect democracy and worker's rights in the business and etc. We will need a government.