"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

@linux

I made a post in this community of a moral argument for mandating employee-owned companies. It isn’t based on a gut feeling. It is based on the theory of inalienable rights. Here is a link to that post:

https://lemmy.world/post/17963706

@general

Can you give an example in the case where investors hold non-voting preferred shares?

I’m not sure how cross posting works from Mastodon to Lemmy. I thought I had to do that to get boosted by the group

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

@asklemmy

Why do investors defeat the whole purpose? @general

While many socialists supported worker coops in the interim, an economy of exclusively worker coops comes more so from the classical laborists such as Proudhon.

@general

There are 2 risk reduction strategies commitment-based and diversification based. The diversification-based strategy is the usual spread your eggs across many baskets strategy, but there is also a commitment-based dual strategy where you put your eggs in a few baskets and watch over them carefully.

Workers in coops can share risks with investors with non-voting preferred shares and other financial instruments. They can diversify by investing in other worker coops non-voting shares

@general

There would still be limited liability. Furthermore, they can share risks with investors, and self-insure against risk as well @general

Capitalism’s defining institutions are

1. The employer-employee contract
2. Private ownership of the means of production
3. Private property in land

The alternative to capitalism I propose, Georgist economic democracy, abolishes 1 and 3. 2 continues formally but there is widespread collective ownership of the means of production. Markets continue to exist to help coordinate production and allocate resources. Many defenders of capitalism incorrectly conflate capitalism with markets @general

What do you mean by capitalism? @general

Perhaps, but there isn’t a good reason to place such a restriction on worker co-ops. Worker co-ops shouldn’t be forced to buy the entire thing when a segment of its services would do.

Liberals as a group tend to support capitalism. Liberalism as a political philosophy can have implications that claimed adherents don’t endorse. After mapping out all the logical implications of liberal principles, it becomes clear that coherent liberalism is anti-capitalist @asklemmy

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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

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Many liberals are anti-worker, but the political philosophy of liberalism is not inherently anti-worker. Liberal anti-capitalists like David Ellerman illustrate this using liberal principles of justice to argue for a universal inalienable right to workers’ self-management and abolition of the employer-employee relationship @asklemmy

Being anti-capitalist doesn’t immediately imply being a communist. There are other alternatives to capitalism such as Economic Democracy.

This is also a straw man fallacy

I disagree. There are plenty of examples of liberal anti-capitalists such as David Ellerman

Capitalism is the opposite of democracy. In a capitalist firm, the managers are not accountable to the governed (i.e. workers). The employer is not a delegate of the workers. They manage the company in their own name not in the workers’ name. Managers do not have to have dictatorial control. It is entirely possible to have management be democratically accountable to the workers they govern as in a worker cooperative.

Capitalism v. Communism is a false dilemma. There are other options.