An #EconomicDemocracy is a market economy where most firms are structured as #WorkerCoops.
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Worker co-ops don’t necessarily have full worker ownership of the means of production because a worker coop can lease means of production from a third party. It is not socialist. Nor do I mean to suggest it is capitalist. It can’t be capitalism as it has no capitalists as you correctly point out. Since you recognize that it is technically correct to say a worker co-op market economy has private property, you recognize
Capitalism ≠ private property @asklemmy
When I said capitalists there I meant liberal defenders of capitalism.
A market economy of worker coops has private property, so can’t be socialist. Market socialism is a misnomer and unnecessarily associates with a label people already have preconceived notions about @asklemmy
The normative basis of private property, which capitalists claim to adhere to, is people’s inalienable right to appropriate the positive and negative fruits of their labor. Capitalism routinely violates this principle in the employment contract. Satisfying the principles of private property would require that all firms be worker cooperatives. The principles of liberalism imply anti-capitalism. It is entirely compatible to be a liberal and an anti-capitalist @asklemmy
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Many liberals are anti-worker, but the political philosophy of liberalism is not inherently anti-worker. Liberal anti-capitalists like David Ellerman illustrate this using liberal principles of justice to argue for a universal inalienable right to workers’ self-management and abolition of the employer-employee relationship @asklemmy
The workers are factually responsible for using up the inputs to produce the output. Imputing the positive and negative product, which together make up the whole product, to the employer is a denial of that basic fact. The whole product’s value is the profit.
It is possible to have investment in capital and getting return on investment in an economy consisting exclusively of worker coops.
Not all anti-capitalists are communists
LVT taxes the unimproved value of land, so we are talking about land itself not what is built on top of it such as housing. Since land is a product of nature, the supply of it is perfectly inelastic
LVT taxing the empty lot next door at the same rate as a multimillion dollar hotel is exactly what makes it so efficiency enhancing because it give land owners economic incentives to use their land productively rather than just holding it and waiting for it to appreciate in value. With LVT, prices would exclude the value of the land.
LVT can be combined with other policies and taxes. You have to look at the whole package of policies to determine progressivity. LVT+UBI is progressive
It meets the definition of a progressive tax.
The broader Georgist program involves aggressive taxation of government-granted monopolies like IP, which both Musk and Bezos are indirectly beneficiaries of.
LVT is 1 policy meant to solve 1 problem. It can be combined with other policies that address other problems.
The labor theory of property, a negative application of which provides a moral rationale for LVT, also provides a justification for an inalienable right to worker democracy
Land value tax is progressive. Due to land’s inelastic supply, this tax cannot be passed on to others. People that own lots of land bear the entire burden of the tax. Charging for unimproved land value encourages building denser on more valuable land. This increases housing supply thus making housing more affordable
LVT is 1 policy. It can be combined with other policies. LVT is not an avoidable tax
Private ownership of labor implies the ability to alienate and transfer it for present or future benefits. Such a procedure is not possible because labor is de facto non-transferable. People can have private ownership over the products of labor, but they cannot own their labor because labor is inalienably theirs
Worker-owned companies are certainly rooted in anti-capitalist thought, but they aren’t inherently socialist in the 20th century sense because they are compatible with private property
Some Georgists don’t believe in ownership of labor because that inherently implies property rights in people. These Georgists recognize the same labor theory of property, which provides an ethical justification for common ownership of land and natural resources, also provides a critique of capitalist property relations and an argument for an inalienable right to workplace democracy.
See: https://www.ellerman.org/rethinking-common-vs-private-property/
Land value tax would solve this when combined with a UBI from the revenue it generates
You can’t fully experience liberty unless everyone is free
The whole product is the legal rights to the produced outputs and the liabilities for the used-up inputs not value. The employer legally owns the outputs and is legally liable for the used-up inputs.
FOSS can use quadratic funding. Not arguing for complete market abolition.
The workers are de facto responsible for production. By the principle that legal and de facto responsibility should match, the workers should jointly receive the whole product of the firm. The workers can delegate in a coop
Marx thought that control rights over the firm were attached to ownership of capital rather than being logically separately acquired in the employer-employee relationship.
“It is not because he is a leader of industry that a man is a capitalist; on the contrary, he is a leader of industry because he is a capitalist. The leadership of industry is an attribute of capital, just as in feudal times the functions of general and judge were attributes of landed property.” – Marx
Marx made mistakes though. For example, he assumed that the right of appropriating the whole product of a firm and control rights to direct the workers in the firm were attached to the ownership of capital. In reality, capital can be rented out just as labor can be hired. It is really the employer-employee contract that is at the core of capitalist appropriation. Ownership of capital just increases bargaining power to get favorable contract terms such as the employer contractual role
Perhaps, but there isn’t a good reason to place such a restriction on worker co-ops. Worker co-ops shouldn’t be forced to buy the entire thing when a segment of its services would do.
Liberals as a group tend to support capitalism. Liberalism as a political philosophy can have implications that claimed adherents don’t endorse. After mapping out all the logical implications of liberal principles, it becomes clear that coherent liberalism is anti-capitalist @asklemmy