The overarching goal of communism is for laborers to own the means of production instead of an owning/capitalist class. Employee owned businesses are the realization of communism within a capitalist society.

It seems to me that most communist organizations in capitalist societies focus on reform through government policies. I have not heard of organizations focusing on making this change by leveraging the capitalist framework. Working to create many employee owned businesses would be a tangible way to achieve this on a small but growing scale. If successful employee owned businesses are formed and accumulate capital they should be able to perpetuate employee ownership through direct acquisition or providing venture capital with employee ownership requirements.

So my main questions are:

  1. Are organizations focusing on this and I just don’t know about it?
  2. If not, what obstacles are there that would hinder this approach to increasing the share labor collective ownership?
  • Maeve
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    25 days ago

    You know how a certain faction in the USA keeps screaming about "states rights?”

    In my view, central and decentralized authority have their issues. And here come the down votes. The way the Russian voting system was explained to me by the good people of .ml makes a lot of sense and circumvents the worst issues of both.

    • Cowbee [he/they]
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      75 days ago

      Russian meaning Soviet, or Russian meaning the current electoral system? Very different.

      • Maeve
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        15 days ago

        Thanks for holding my feet to the fire. I believe current, but I could be mistaken, it’s been a long time since I read it, so forgive my sketchiness, but each region having elections until one person wins a final vote, to represent their constituency. I just checked Wikipedia and didn’t remember the representative voting part, so maybe my bad memory. Is there a post somewhere that compares and contrasts Soviet and Russian models?

        • Cowbee [he/they]
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          105 days ago

          Not sure about a post comparing the two, but the Soviet model was more comprehensively democratic, and functioned like this:

          • Maeve
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            65 days ago

            Thank you; as always, you’re very generous and informative. I have a friend in the mood to chat here, I will read and probably ask dumb questions later.

            • Cowbee [he/they]
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              55 days ago

              No worries! I’ve been less active lately so it might be a while before I see any response anyways.

              • Maeve
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                55 days ago

                That’s ok. I’m not sure where you are, but things seem to be getting real real, globally. A lot of us are focused on community, paying bills, family and organization, and I’m okay with it!

                Eta, that picture is perfect, I shared it with my friend. I wish I could get them over here, I feel they might appreciate it, but old dogs/new tricks.

                • Cowbee [he/they]
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                  55 days ago

                  No problem! I live in the US Empire, hopefully the age of Imperialism is coming to a close. Contradictions are sharpening, eventually quantitative buildup will result in a qualitative and rapid change, and it’s up to the working class to make that a positive one.

                  Glad the figure was useful!

                  • Maeve
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                    35 days ago

                    and it’s up to the working class to make that a positive one.

                    😬