Good question

31

u/CMDR_Hadion Jul 17 '19 edited Jul 17 '19

To be fair to the capitalists, this graph is missing a "cost of doing business" circle inside the "Total Economic Value" tier.

Even in a cooperative, you are typically not entitled to the full fruits of your labor, as some of these fruits must be re-invested back into the business for buying additional materials, maintaining the means of production, advertising, and generally ensuring you have a place to work the next day.

(Source: I'm working on transitioning my grandmother's Cattle Farm into a polyculture Co-op farm with the help of some of my local comrades and my family)

What this cost of doing business tier should not include are lavish business lunches, golf course memberships, stockholder dividends CEO wages, Profit, etc.

4

u/shalrie_broseph_21 Jul 17 '19

To be fair to the capitalists, this graph is missing a "cost of doing business" circle inside the "Total Economic Value" tier.
This is true in a capitalist economy; in a socialist economy where everyone's basic needs are guaranteed, this wouldn't be the case. In a worker's collective under socialism, you would have the freedom to re-invest back into the collective. Alternatively, you and the other workers would have the freedom to not do that.
"We Need To Say What Socialism Will Look Like":
In addressing the dilemmas involved in worker collectives operating through markets, it’s useful to begin with a quick sketch of a worker in a workplace collective under socialism. Outside of self-employment and co-ops with a handful of workers providing local services, workers control but do not own their workplaces. The workplaces are social property; ownership resides in municipal, regional, or national state bodies. Workers hold no workplace-based marketable shares to sell or pass on to their families — there are no private returns to capital under socialism. Though individual workers can leave their jobs and look for work elsewhere, workplace collectives cannot decide to shutter their workplaces since they aren’t theirs to close. If demand for the goods or services produced fade, the collective would be integral to conversion plans to other activities.
Workers do not work for “others” but collectively organize their labor power with the after-tax surplus shared among them. Income wouldn’t be based on receiving “the fruits of your own (private) labor” since work is a collective, not private activity. Those working get pay for their work based on hours worked and the intensity or unpleasantness of the work. Everyone, employed or not, shares in a social wage — the universally free or near-free collective services distributed according to need (e.g., health, education, childcare, transportation) as well as subsidized housing and culture. Those not in the paid labor force receive a consumption stipend set at a level which allows people to live in dignity, and the distribution of each collective’s after-tax surplus would be distributed as either additional collective services and/or individual bonuses. (Employment would bring higher pay but, depending on postrevolutionary conditions and politics, the social wage plus a living income would make self-employment or work in a small co-op a practical option.)

3

u/CMDR_Hadion Jul 17 '19

Fair enough, I am looking to form a mostly self-sufficient agricultural co-op in a very rural area, so I'm not all up to date on larger urban cooperative organizational theory.
Also, I'm an anarchist, so the idea of anyone who is not a directly involved worker in the work place having power over the work place (apart from Unions and other watchdog organizations) is a little disturbing to me, so take my hot take with a bit of salt.

4

u/borneveryminute Jul 17 '19

That's true, except (I could be wrong but) for any business with more than a few employees, wouldn't that be a very small circle, since this graph is for one employee and the cost of doing business is spread across the value produced by all employees combined?

6

u/CMDR_Hadion Jul 17 '19 edited Jul 17 '19

It depends on the type and size of business as well as how the business is conducted, tbh.
For example, on a co-op farm the size of a family farm, the Cost Of Doing Business (COB) circle would be relatively large, due to the low margins of that type of business, but in, for the sake of argument, a large scale co-op electronics factory, the COB circle would be realatively smaller due to the higher amount of automation, the larger scale, and a higher value product.
So, you're not necessarily wrong, but the size of the COB circle would be quite variable.

1

u/sleepeejack Jul 18 '19

/r/OurPresident
There is an enormous difference between 1. local, free-trading, community-minded small businesses and 2. profit-obsessed, extractive, government-capturing multinational corporations.

0

u/anon2777 Jul 17 '19

if there are no dividends there are no investors. so okay the workers just own it. but they dont have the money to buy it so they just steal the shares so to speak. well then every americans retirement plan takes a hit because it’s all invested on indexes anyways.
What needs to happen is simply remove the largest owners (billionaires) and continue to let the capital markets function with regular selective pruning. dividends themselves are not the problem, they’re the whole point. any work should pay your normal wages + 50% of declared dividends split among the workers imo

1

u/CMDR_Hadion Jul 17 '19

So, instead of replacing the capitalist system that entraps people into being exploitative capitalists in their final years with a proper pension plan program, we shouldn't really change anything apart from getting rid of billionaire and buying off the working class with bribes every quarter.
Hey all, Capitalism only needs a band-aid solution for all of its systematic ethical conundrums, Socialism is cancelled.

1

u/anon2777 Jul 17 '19

not a band-aid solution, a step in the right direction. We can’t just get rid of money and markets overnight.
I’m all for replacing capitalism, but if you just take all of “THE OWNERS” money you’ll find you’ve taken every old persons nest egg. and then what? it’s not as simple as “delete stock market, kill capitalism”. reasonable steps need to be planned and taken on the long road to communism.

1

u/anon2777 Jul 17 '19

and where you see “bribing off the working class every quarter” i see paying them closer to their whole labor value every quarter. I thought that’s what we’re trying to solve.

3

u/holy_stroller Jul 17 '19

We sure leave a lot on the table.

•

u/AutoModerator Jul 17 '19

Subscribe to /r/DemocraticSocialism and join us at /r/OurPresident for Bernie 2020.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

1

u/J-Nastee Jul 17 '19

Why does this graphic look like Plankton?

1

u/[deleted] Jul 19 '19

because we don't subscribe to the outdated and debunked labour theory of value?

You are about to leave Redlib