If the employer has the legal right to appropriate the positive and negative fruits of their labor, then the workers have legally alienated their right to appropriate the positive and negative fruits of their labor to the employer violating their inalienable rights. The workers have to first jointly appropriate the positive and negative fruits of their labor. This appropriation essentially implies a worker co-op mandate

@noncredibledefense

An inalienable right is one that can’t be given up or transferred even with consent. This is because the right is tied to the person’s de facto personhood. Like political voting rights, workers’ right to appropriate the fruits of their labor is inalienable. Workers can’t exchange their labor for a paycheck because, at a non-institutional level, labor is de facto non-transferable even with consent. What really happens is that inputs are transferred to workers

@noncredibledefense

A country where worker coops aren’t legally mandated is illiberal because it violates workers’ inalienable rights. It denies workers’ private property rights over the positive and negative fruits of their labor.

The government is already involved in the legal structure of firms, so I don’t see how a worker co-op mandate could be considered as more government involvement. It seems to me like different government involvement

@noncredibledefense

Worker co-ops don’t necessarily involve the workers owning the means of production as worker cooperatives can lease means of production from third parties. Who owns the means of production doesn’t determine which legal party is the firm. The firm is a contractual role determined by the direction of the hiring contracts.

A market economy where all firms are legally mandated to be worker co-ops is not capitalism

@noncredibledefense

Remember: anti-capitalism ≠ socialism

Democratic worker co-ops are postcapitalist, but are also non-socialist because they are perfectly compatible with markets and private property. I’m suggesting that Sanders is authentically anti-capitalist, but he conflates his anti-capitalism with being socialist in a category error and thus buys into a false dichotomy.

All firms must be legally mandated to be worker coops on classical liberal inalienable rights theory grounds

@noncredibledefense

I agree that giving alienable voting shares to workers isn’t anti-capitalist. It becomes anti-capitalist when the voting rights over management and corporate governance are inalienable meaning they are legally recognized as non-transferable even with consent.

Here is a talk by people involved with Bernie Sanders politically about how all companies should be democratically controlled by the workers: https://youtu.be/E8mq9va5_ZE

Sanders supports worker co-op conversions

@noncredibledefense

I agree he is not a socialist in the 20th century sense, but he clearly says that workers should have ownership stake in companies, which is not a capitalist sentiment. He advocates for employee ownership of companies. I also am aware of who his economic advisors on these issues are and they are very much anti-capitalist

@noncredibledefense

Bernie Sanders is a proper anti-capitalist not just social democratic capitalist. See: https://berniesanders.com/issues/corporate-accountability-and-democracy/

@noncredibledefense

2/2

If a worker voluntarily commits a crime for their employer, that is still inalienably their decision. Yes, the employer told them to do it, and that gave them a reason to do it, but having a reason doesn’t absolve them of guilt or responsibility for their actions

@technology

1/2

A group of people is de facto responsible for a result if it is a purposeful result of their intentional joint actions. The pure application of the norm that legal and de facto responsibility match is to deliberate actions. The workers joint actions that use up inputs to produce outputs are planned and deliberate. They meet the criteria for being premeditated. The workers are not under duress in normal work, and consent to the employer-employee contract.

@technology

I’m not a socialist because I think markets are useful and haven’t seen a planned economy proposal that seemed plausible. Worker co-ops and unions aren’t socialism in 20th century sense because they are technically compatible with markets and private property.

An economic democracy is a market economy where all firms are worker co-ops, so I was speaking about managers in a worker co-op

@technology

5/5

Creating or joining a worker coop is a much more actionable political step that someone could take then completely transforming the government. If the worker coop movement grows big enough, it could acquire the economic power to purchase it own lobbyists to influence the political process to hopefully pass those reforms

4/5

It is irrelevant that some workers don’t want to be held responsible for the positive and negative results of their actions (the whole result of production). Responsibility can’t be transferred even with consent. If an employer-employee cooperate to commit a crime, both are responsible. This argument is establishes an inalienable right i.e. a right that can’t be given up or transferred even with consent like political voting rights today

3/5
The idea that the employer is production’s whole result’s just appropriator due to the risk they bear is tautological and circular reasoning. Risk, in this case, refers to bearing the liabilities for used-up inputs, which is production’s whole result’s negative component. It ignores the joint de facto responsibility of workers in the firm for using up inputs to produce. By the norm of legal and de facto responsibility matching, workers should get the whole result of production

2/5

The empirical evidence I have seen on worker coops and employee-owned companies seems to suggest that worker-run companies are slightly more productive.

I oppose socialism as I think markets are useful. I advocate economic democracy

In an economic democracy, the employer-employee contract is abolished, so workers automatically legally get voting rights over management upon joining a firm.

1/5

Worker coops can have managers. Managers’ interests can be aligned with the long term interests of the firm by giving them non-voting preferred shares as part of their compensation. Managers will make sure workers they are managing perform. The difference is that these managers are ultimately accountable to the entire body of workers and are thus their delegates.

Profits/wages don’t have to be divided equally among workers.

I’m going to use multiple toots since I’m on Mastodon

Your reforms sound good, but aren’t pragmatic. Today’s system requires you to have lobbyists to push an agenda through. Who is going to fund the lobbyists to make these reforms happen.

Also, even in an ideal capitalism, there is still an injustice at the heart of the system. The employer-employee contract violates the tenet of legal and de facto responsibility matching. The workers are jointly de facto responsible for production, but employer is held solely legally responsible.

@technology

There are other alternatives to capitalism besides Authoritarian Marxist-Leninist states. An example would be Georgist economic democracy. Some policies in such an economy:

1. All firms would be legally mandated to protect the inalienable right to worker democracy by structuring as democratic worker coops. There would thus be no haves appropriating 100% of the fruits of the have nots’ labor

2. 100% land tax and carbon tax

3. PCO for all capital

4. Guaranteed minimum income

@technology