i’m trying to learn here, this is an honest question.
some people say that “workers should own the means of production” (in other words, the company). if you agree with this view, then i have a question: how do new companies get made? i.e. if you aren’t already employed somewhere, you will maybe look for work. and if all companies already have enough workers, then where do you work? how does a new company come into existence? (who provides the startup resources and who takes the risk if the company fails and the startup resources cannot be recovered?)
You’re thinking of it in terms of a so-called “market socialist” economy, which shouldn’t be confused with socialism, such as the socialist market economies like in China which are socialist. Either way, depending on the stage in socialist construction, either you can still open a company providing it’s in a sector deemed acceptable by the socialist system to expand market-wise, or the state itself can create new industries and firms.
Workers owning the means of production is not an overly prescriptive idea. It means the bourgeois have been deposed or substantially oppressed such that workers actually dictate production. This is only really possible for a society after a revolution, as the bourgeois ruling class will not allow themselves to be deposed or substantially oppressed otherwise.
This is one of the more flexible and interesting ways in which socialists can experiment. Experiments have ranged pretty widely. Some subgroups tried forms of primitivist agricultural communalism, though this can only exist for any significant duration under the protection of an industrialized state. In the context of industrialized production it can look like co-ops or state-run enterprises or various forms of oppressed bourgeois or all of the above simultaneously at different levels of productive forces (start more bourgeois and get stripped of it as production becomes so developed it can be more easily run via planning). Chile wanted to experiment with cybernetics developed with Stafford Beer before being murdered by US-backed fascists, the left leadership murdered in the tens of thousands following this. Can’t stress enough the importance of that revolution part - Allende rose via liberal democratic means and capitalists asserted the true basis of their rule, which is violence and coercion.
So to answer your question, it would probably look petty bourgeois at first (individuals incorporating a business) under most near term circumstances, and does in countries run by socialists, but what to do as the enterprise grows varies. And sometimes a state may coordinate production even early on. For example important technologies may be developed by university researchers and to enter production they are state-funded and forced to collaborate with other researchers, with a petty bourgeois payoff (salary, ownership that dwindles until it enters a certain tier, etc). The latter also happens under capitalism but the profits are entirely privatized, capital feeds off the state funding, whereas the point of this industrial policy in socialist states is to either build missing productive capacity, to socialize much of the gains, and eventually turn over to co-ops and state-run enterprise, etc.
but what to do as the enterprise grows varies. And sometimes a state may coordinate production even early on. For example important technologies may be developed by university researchers and to enter production they are state-funded and forced to collaborate with other researchers, with a petty bourgeois payoff (salary, ownership that dwindles until it enters a certain tier, etc). The latter also happens under capitalism but the profits are entirely privatized, capital feeds off the state funding, whereas the point of this industrial policy in socialist states is to either build missing productive capacity, to socialize much of the gains, and eventually turn over to co-ops and state-run enterprise, etc.
ok, i can understand this. so it’s small-business are private run while bigger businesses are organized differently?
to sum it up, i’d like to add a point. businesses spend money mostly on 4 categories:
- raw materials
- wages for workers
- machinery (this one has to be largely paid up-front)
- profits to shareholders
so to “socialize much of the gains” means that company profits are either redirected to the community (“state-run enterprise”), or redirected into extra wages (“co-ops”), am i seeing this correctly?
ok, i can understand this. so it’s small-business are private run while bigger businesses are organized differently?
Very small businesses would tend to be private. At least that’s the trend. But keep in mind even a worker-owned co-op is a private business so it’s one of those things where the exact implementation has varied. And many businesses that would otherwise be private and might be partially nationalized, requiring certain standards, barriers to creating a storefront, strict rules on employment (or not). It’s something that countries can experiment with. Struggle doesn’t end after revolution and the development of productive forces changes employment.
The best targets for nationalization are the big industries, the developed ones. They are much easier to plan and run and expropriate. But a country could do so earlier if conditions allowed. Keep in mind that every country with a socialist revolution has faced constant attack, so they have been under fairly desperate conditions to industrialize or otherwise abandon more idealistic forms of work, e.g. being the primary target of Nazis.
to sum it up, i’d like to add a point. businesses spend money mostly on 4 categories:
raw materials wages for workers machinery (this one has to be largely paid up-front) profits to shareholders
In Marxist terms you can usually summarize it in two: material inputs (dead labor) and labor. Profit isn’t an input to production, it is actually variable and is just what is left over after all expenses. Income vs. expenditures. Raw materials and machinery are just commodities you buy to do production.
so to “socialize much of the gains” means that company profits are either redirected to the community (“state-run enterprise”)
It could be business taxation or it could be a redirecting of productive capacity (provide X prefab concrete widgets to this state project). Profits don’t need to be redirected, that’s just an accounting question. They may be made unprofitable by a given expropriation. But in countries taking this approach, like China, it’s mostly business taxes.
or redirected into extra wages (“co-ops”)
If the co-op runs the business and is functional then the workers are basically setting their own wages and trying to optimize their business to pay as much as possible while still doing well as a business. If this is basically private enterprise then over time the state will begin direct involvement as it grows in size, observing production, expenditures, living conditions, etc. If a state allows small enterprise run more like a capitalist business, then eventually the state may step in a force cooperative governance, ensures a state-meditated union, etc.
But really this is exactly something that countries have experimented with, it’s not just one prescription. And it has varied based on conditions, particularly external ones from imperialist countries.
You would gather a worker community of like minded people who agree a new company is needed. Pool your resources, and coordinate building the company.
eh i’m not sure whether this could gather enough resources. for a lot of industries, you need massive machines just to start doing anything. like, basically all heavy industry, construction jobs (consider modern cranes are often 100m high), anything more complicated than what you could do in a village.
If all your daily needs are met without you having to worry about it, people will have the freedom to just group and start projects, business, productions of whatever they would like or need. Instead of only founder’s owning the company, all workers own it and have democratic power to steer it.
