I agree that giving alienable voting shares to workers isn’t anti-capitalist. It becomes anti-capitalist when the voting rights over management and corporate governance are inalienable meaning they are legally recognized as non-transferable even with consent.

Here is a talk by people involved with Bernie Sanders politically about how all companies should be democratically controlled by the workers: https://youtu.be/E8mq9va5/_ZE

Sanders supports worker co-op conversions

@noncredibledefense

Instead, we should implement new mechanisms for funding public goods like news such as quadratic finance. Quadratic finance is a non-market mechanism that enables a decentralized ecosystem of self-organizing public goods producers such as newsrooms. It overcomes the collective action problem of donation-based models by considering the number of people contributing as well as the amount of money contributed. Newsrooms with a large base of popular support receive greater funding

@canada

I agree he is not a socialist in the 20th century sense, but he clearly says that workers should have ownership stake in companies, which is not a capitalist sentiment. He advocates for employee ownership of companies. I also am aware of who his economic advisors on these issues are and they are very much anti-capitalist

@noncredibledefense

Bernie Sanders is a proper anti-capitalist not just social democratic capitalist. See: https://berniesanders.com/issues/corporate-accountability-and-democracy/

@noncredibledefense

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

Software companies usually form as worker coops directly rather than using an ESOP mechanim

Here is a list worker coops: https://www.usworker.coop/directory/

There are some software companies in there under technology

Worker coops can delegate decision-making to managers and executives. This can ensure speedy decision-making. Having workers control the firm doesn’t mean that every decision must be made by referendum. There can be delegation and more representative democracy

@politicalmemes

Liberalism refers to both a coherent political philosophy and a historical political tendency. The former liberalism is anti-capitalist. Yes many historical liberals were pro-capitalism, but this position makes their liberalism incoherent.

Private property rests on the principle that workers have an inalienable right to appropriate the positive and negative fruits of their labor. Capitalism violates this norm. Locke was wrong

A market economy of worker coops isn’t socialism

@politicalmemes

There are anti-capitalist liberals though

@politicalmemes

deleted by creator

deleted by creator

https://www.nceo.org/articles/employee-ownership-100

@politicalmemes

deleted by creator

The coin flip is inherently part of policy, and it is bad policy to decide on policies with a coin flip

Inalienable rights are moral rights that can’t be given up or transferred. It doesn’t mean that the legal system can’t fail to enforce the right such as by legally treating it as alienable like capitalism does in the employment contract. If the legal system doesn’t grant it, that’s a bad legal system.

Moral concepts have an objective sense that is unknowable.

@politicalmemes

You can’t get good policy without democracy because democracy is part of all good policy. Non-democracy violates inalienable rights, which makes it inherently bad policy

@politicalmemes

How can this be a rejection of the far left when Harris campaigned as a moderate (e.g. Cheney)? If republican voters are going to think Democrats are communist regardless of how moderate the Democrats are, maybe moderating isn’t a good strategy. If the only choice is between right-wing and lite right-wing, right-wing voters will choose the real thing. Even then, Trumpists will still call democrats communists.

Many left polices are popular when they aren’t labelled as left

@theonion

2/2

If a worker voluntarily commits a crime for their employer, that is still inalienably their decision. Yes, the employer told them to do it, and that gave them a reason to do it, but having a reason doesn’t absolve them of guilt or responsibility for their actions

@technology

1/2

A group of people is de facto responsible for a result if it is a purposeful result of their intentional joint actions. The pure application of the norm that legal and de facto responsibility match is to deliberate actions. The workers joint actions that use up inputs to produce outputs are planned and deliberate. They meet the criteria for being premeditated. The workers are not under duress in normal work, and consent to the employer-employee contract.

@technology

I’m not a socialist because I think markets are useful and haven’t seen a planned economy proposal that seemed plausible. Worker co-ops and unions aren’t socialism in 20th century sense because they are technically compatible with markets and private property.

An economic democracy is a market economy where all firms are worker co-ops, so I was speaking about managers in a worker co-op

@technology

If the Republicans are going to call the Democrats communists and socialist regardless of how moderate a campaign Democrats run, Democrats might as well lean further left on economic policy. Appealing to the right does nothing because the right can appeal to the right better than the center-left can

@leftism

5/5

Creating or joining a worker coop is a much more actionable political step that someone could take then completely transforming the government. If the worker coop movement grows big enough, it could acquire the economic power to purchase it own lobbyists to influence the political process to hopefully pass those reforms