An #EconomicDemocracy is a market economy where most firms are structured as #WorkerCoops.
Who defines permitted contracts in a free market? Some right libertarians suggest that “free” markets include the “freedom” to sell labor by the lifetime or sell voting rights in the state.
“The comparable question about an individual is whether a free system will allow him to sell himself into slavery. I believe that it would.” – Robert Nozick
The theory that invalidates such contracts is the theory of inalienable rights. It has recently been shown to apply to capitalist employment
"We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor.” – Abraham Lincoln
This quote captures the differing understandings and notions of liberty between these different political groups
A moneyless society that scales up to billions of people is unlikely to be possible
Postcapitalist alternatives that use currency to facilitate trade between actors without social ties seem much more plausible
@asklemmy
This would be joint self-employment as in a worker coop
The employer-employee contract
It violates the theory of inalienable rights that implied the abolition of constitutional autocracy, coverture marriage, and voluntary self-sale contracts.
Inalienable means something that can’t be transferred even with consent. In case of labor, the workers are jointly de facto responsible for production, so by the usual norm that legal and de facto responsibility should match, they should get the legal responsibility i.e. the fruits of their labor
Capitalism is a system of property relations and labor relations. It is conceivable to not have those property relations and labor relations in a firm. However, a corporation doesn’t do that as the employer solely appropriates the entire positive and negative result of production i.e. the property rights to the produced outputs and liabilities for the used-up inputs. In a worker coop, the workers jointly appropriate the fruits of their labor. Capitalist property relations aren’t present @memes
Huh, there are worker coops and 100% ESOPs as alternatives to capitalism that can exist within capitalism @memes
Include, in your politics, actionable steps. The most important step is to create worker coops and supporting institutions, so you aren’t giving the fruits of your labor to capitalists with what you do everyday @memes
It treats persons like things by not holding them responsible for the results of their actions.
That principle would mean that workers should jointly own the produced outputs and jointly owe the liabilities for the used-up inputs as in a worker cooperative.
An intuition pump for the tenet would be situations where the law doesn’t fail to apply the principle. Consider an employer and employee committing a crime together.
Consent doesn’t transfer responsibility.
Capitalism doesn’t qualify as free market activity then. Capitalism inherently involves treating persons as things. In the firm, the workers are jointly de facto responsible (DFR) for production, but the employer gets sole legal responsibility for the positive and negative results of production. This violates the principle of legal and de facto responsibility matching. DFR isn’t de facto transferred, but legal responsibility is. Morally, this is an institutional fraud
@memes
Employers steal the entire fruits of your labor as well. The fruits of workers’ labor consist of the liabilities for the used-up inputs combined with the property rights to the produced output. Both of these are entirely held by the employer. This assignment violates the ethical principle that legal and de facto responsibility should match. You and your fellow workers are jointly de facto responsible for producing the product, but the employer has sole legal responsibility for it
@lemmyshitpost
Not yet.
Copyfarleft has not had a whole movement built up around it, and no one has standardized the licenses.
Such a license would allow commercial use by worker cooperatives. I understand that software freedom as it has been defined excludes such licenses, but I would argue that this position is wrong. There is nothing unfree about preventing firms based on workplace autocracy from exploiting the commons and the workers that work on the commons and the workers in their own firms @linux
@drwho The difference in my mind is that AGPL doesn’t come with a builtin business model to fund the legal fights when they become necessary. Such a copyfarleft license does by charging capitalist firms a licensing fee for using the software. These funds can then be used for paying project developers and funding license enforcement for those that choose to use the software without paying the licensing fee @linux
What I am suggesting is using a license that disallows capitalist firms completely from using the software not AGPL, which still allows them to use the software as long as they provide source code. In other words, copyfarleft that only extends use rights to non-capitalist commons-based economic entities-like worker coops. The project can then dual license to capitalist firms charging them for the right to use the software. This would give them a source of funding to fund any legal fights @linux
Why not use a license that prevents capitalist firms from even using the software?
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
Counter-example to your claim of non-existence of anti-capitalist liberalism: https://www.ellerman.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Classical-Liberal-JurisprudenceJune2018.pdf
@memes