this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2024
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~pssst, worker run co-ops~
Nah, fuck that.
I don't want my salary dependent on how we are doing on a monthly basis.
If I create my own company, sure. But I can kinda control it.
If there are a thousand other people voting for dumb stuff and I loose a third of my income, I'm gonna loose it.
Also if we are doing equal splits, college is actually useless. Why would I waste my time becoming an engineer, if I could have earned the same money the whole time instead. Even worse with american college, where you not just loose all the salary from not working but also like 10-20,000 in tuition.
Who said anything about equal splits?
There are a number of worker owned co-ops out there, and precisely none of them are run like you describe.
Did some research (read the wiki).
Seems like working at a co-op sacrifices wage stability and maybe wage amount in favor of job-security.
It solves some issues, but gives way to new ones.
While the jobs seem to be more secure, they also grow slower, so hire less.
This suggests to me, that the workload can also vary with the wage.
Overall I wouldn't like it. I like planning my stuff. If once in a blue moon I get layed off, I can make new plans. But adjusting ervery month sounds exhausting.
Worker coops aren't perfect, but they are more stable and provide better jobs than Capitalist businesses. You're essentially saying you want to live in a dictatorship at work because having a voice is too complicated, and pretend the dictator isn't going to make terrible decisions.
Additionally, you seem to believe you would make less money in a worker co-op, despite the fact that in a Capitalist business, you must give up a larger portion of that which you create to the owner, who holds all the power.
Well, that's what unions and regulations are for. Plus if they piss me off, I can just leave and work somewhere else.
Unions and Regulations are a force against the dictatorial control of Capitalists, but do not make the playing field equal. Capitalists still retain ownership, and thus power.
Leaving one dictator for another dictator willing to employ you is not freedom enough to justify the existence of the dictator.
At the end of the day I'm selling labor and if they're an asshole I'm not selling. They don't control me or my life.
There is an argument for "unskilled" labor, tho. If you don't have enough leverage, to get a good job, making the one you have better with democracy might work. You just also take on more risk by sharing ownership.
You're selling your labor power for less than it is worth, even the nicest Capitalist steals from you and leaves you with no control over at least 40 hours per week.
All labor is labor, skilled labor is just compressed unskilled labor represented by the training required to recreate it expressed over the expected working lifetime of a worker.