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
I agree that employment is voluntary in the legal sense. Voluntary transaction occur if both parties perceive that they will benefit from the arrangement. The problem is that responsibility can’t be transferred.
You know that there is no de facto transfer of de facto responsibility happening in the employment contract. If you thought that a transfer of de facto responsibility occurs in employment, you would think that the employer is solely legally responsible for crimes committed
Employment is a voluntary transaction, but there has to be some corresponding factual transfer to actually fulfill the contract. No such de facto transfer of de facto responsibility occurs to match the assignment of legal responsibility in the employment contract. The contract is not ever fulfilled nor is it, in principle, fulfillable. The only arrangement where legal and de facto responsibility match is a worker coop. Labor is nontransferable at a factual level. You accepted as much
The tenet that legal and de facto responsibility match, when applied to property theoretic questions, is the tenet that people have an inalienable right to appropriate the positive and negative fruits of their labor. The latter is the principled basis of property rights. Since employment violates the former principle, it also violates the latter. Employment contracts violate property rights’ principled basis.
Labor isn’t transferable.
The foundations of capitalism need destroying
Thank you for making my argument for me. Now, what morally relevantly changes when workers cooperate to produce a widget on behalf of the employer instead of committing crimes for the employer? Do they become non-conscious non-responsible robots? No.
Legal responsibility matching de facto responsibility implies that all firms should be mandated to be worker coops, and rules out employer-employee contracts. In worker coops, the workers are jointly legally responsible for the results
I’m aware of the standard line.
De facto responsibility can’t be transferred from the employees solely to the employer to match the legal responsibility assignment in the employer-employee contract. A thought experiment showing this is to consider an employer and employee cooperating to commit a crime. The employee can’t argue that they sold their labor, and are not responsible. The law correctly applies the principle of legal and de facto responsibility matching. Both are criminous
An employer, in principle, can hire both labor and capital, so they don’t have to own capital. In practice, employers tend to be corporations that own capital due to bargaining power.
Workers consent to employment terms, but they can’t fulfill them. The problem is that consent is not a sufficient condition to transfer de facto responsibility.
Abolishing employment doesn’t infringe on property rights. Employment contracts infringe on labor’s property rights to the fruits of labor
@politics
Workers are de facto responsible for creating the opportunities that employers gate keep. Employers violate workers’ inalienable rights. The workers are de facto responsible for using up inputs to produce outputs, but the employer gets sole legal responsibility for the positive and negative results of production. This violates the principle that legal and de facto responsibility should match.
No one is responsible for creating land. Landlords deny everyone’s equal claim to land
Whether there is a power imbalance between customer and provider is dependent on how competitive the market is. When providers have market power, consumers can form associations to collectively bargain down providers’ prices.
Is there an enshittification example without IP?
Enshittification usually happens with monopolistic firms not competitive markets.
What would you replace markets with specifically?
Quadratic funding lets public goods be free. I can’t see how it’s extractive @memes
The only way incentives based on outcome work is when people produce directly for their own use. For cases where people produce for others, the profit motive helps coordinate people to produce. Power imbalances can be avoided by collectivizing means of production across multiple coops.
Enshittification requires IP monopolies. Economic democracy shouldn’t have IP monopolies. Instead, it should secure software freedom. Digital public goods should be funded through quadratic funding @memes
Why is the profit motive terrible in your view? What should we replace the profit motive with?
What is the benefit to pro-market anti-capitalists to challenging that particular preconceived notion? It creates an unnecessary roadblock when pro-market anti-capitalists can just describe themselves as radically democratic liberals, who want to extend democracy into the workplace @memes
I want to convince leftists that there is no benefit to pro-market anti-capitalists referring to themselves as socialist. It is an unnecessary association that only comes with downsides @memes
It was a good question. I am limited in response length because I am on Mastodon.
In terms of social dynamics of a stateless society, The Possibility of Cooperation by the game theorist Michael Taylor uses game theory to argue against the Hobbesian case for the state. Radical Markets by E. Glen Weyl covers how to do common ownership with minimal administration @memes
I know how leftists define it, but when communicating with non-leftists, it doesn’t help in understanding the economic democracy position.
The strongest critique of a system is that the ideology used to justify it, after mapping out its logical implications, is actually opposed to it @memes
When people think of socialism they think of central planning in an authoritarian government, this has nothing to do with economic democracy and is its opposite.
I prefer the term economic democracy for the system I advocate.
It’s not just optics. The arguments for economic democracy are based on the liberal theory of inalienable rights. These arguments demonstrate that capitalism is illiberal and violates liberal principles @memes
In an economy of worker coops, there is democratic control, but it is decentralized in nature @memes
Anti-capitalism ≠ socialism @memes
I was describing a company to produce buses i.e. the actual vehicle. Not for driving buses. The alternative to what I describe as the problem with capitalism is to structure all firms as worker cooperatives. In a worker cooperative, the basic tenet of justice is satisfied i.e. legal and de facto responsibility match @memes
Market economies aren’t exclusive to capitalism. A postcapitalist society could use markets in some places.
It is capitalism’s defenders, who are unscientific. Basic facts are unmentionable to capitalism’s supporters. The fact that only persons can be responsible and things no matter how causally efficacious can’t be responsible for anything is unmentionable in an economic context. The employer’s appropriation of 100% of the positive and negative fruits of labor is obfuscated
@unpopularopinion