If the employer has the legal right to appropriate the positive and negative fruits of their labor, then the workers have legally alienated their right to appropriate the positive and negative fruits of their labor to the employer violating their inalienable rights. The workers have to first jointly appropriate the positive and negative fruits of their labor. This appropriation essentially implies a worker co-op mandate

@noncredibledefense

An inalienable right is one that can’t be given up or transferred even with consent. This is because the right is tied to the person’s de facto personhood. Like political voting rights, workers’ right to appropriate the fruits of their labor is inalienable. Workers can’t exchange their labor for a paycheck because, at a non-institutional level, labor is de facto non-transferable even with consent. What really happens is that inputs are transferred to workers

@noncredibledefense

A country where worker coops aren’t legally mandated is illiberal because it violates workers’ inalienable rights. It denies workers’ private property rights over the positive and negative fruits of their labor.

The government is already involved in the legal structure of firms, so I don’t see how a worker co-op mandate could be considered as more government involvement. It seems to me like different government involvement

@noncredibledefense

Worker co-ops don’t necessarily involve the workers owning the means of production as worker cooperatives can lease means of production from third parties. Who owns the means of production doesn’t determine which legal party is the firm. The firm is a contractual role determined by the direction of the hiring contracts.

A market economy where all firms are legally mandated to be worker co-ops is not capitalism

@noncredibledefense

Remember: anti-capitalism ≠ socialism

Democratic worker co-ops are postcapitalist, but are also non-socialist because they are perfectly compatible with markets and private property. I’m suggesting that Sanders is authentically anti-capitalist, but he conflates his anti-capitalism with being socialist in a category error and thus buys into a false dichotomy.

All firms must be legally mandated to be worker coops on classical liberal inalienable rights theory grounds

@noncredibledefense

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

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

At its core, liberalism is fairly anti-capitalist. There are many arguments against capitalism from liberal principles such as the principle that legal and de facto responsibility should match. The workers in the firm are jointly de facto responsible for using up inputs to produce outputs, but receive 0% claim on the positive and negative production while the employer solely appropriates 100% of the positive and negative result of production

@politicalmemes

It gets even more confusing when you consider anti-capitalist classical liberals

https://www.ellerman.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Classical-Liberal-JurisprudenceJune2018.pdf

@politicalmemes

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

@politicalmemes

Worker cooperatives don’t have to have a flat structure. Smaller cooperatives might use a flat structure, but larger companies will delegate business decisions to management. The main difference is that the board of directors represent the workers instead of outside shareholders making it democratic

@politicalmemes

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

I did my part in trying to elect Harris.

What is the point in moderating if even after moderating Democrats are perceived as too left-wing?

@politicalmemes

*Perceived* leftward shift. The Democrats aren’t that left wing in the first place. If democrats are going to be perceived as too left wing regardless of reality, they might as well take on some left-wing policies, so they can at least bribe voters with stuff that obviously and immediately makes things better for them like UBI.

If you’re suggesting throw LGBTQ people under the bus, that is just wrong. What would we be fighting for at that point?

@politicalmemes