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Why don't communist movements focus on creating and nurturing employee owned businesses? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) by Yondoza@sh.itjust.works to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

184 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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:

Are organizations focusing on this and I just don't know about it?
If not, what obstacles are there that would hinder this approach to increasing the share labor collective ownership?

(page 3) 50 comments

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[–] sbv@sh.itjust.works 8 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I suspect a big part is tax and investment law.

A bunch of poors (like me!) who band together won't have much capital to buy inventory or equipment. I doubt banks and investors would lend to the bunch of poors, since they have a non-standard decision making structure.

That's gonna make it hella hard to get started.

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[–] haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com 8 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (9 children)

There are efforts to build emoloyee owned businesses around the world
The system is pitted towards accumulation through antisocial behavior which is absent in democratic companies, hence they're disadvantaged
Communists and anarchists are revolutuonists, not reformists. The reason is that reform makes the inherently cruel system easier to bear and abolishment less likely.
Some want to go the reformist route to try if it is actually achievable
Most importantly and very evident in the US: 100 yrs of reform can be rolled back in one day. We're seeing that reform is pointless.

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[–] verdigris@lemmy.ml 5 points 6 days ago

Join the IWW.

[–] deegeese@sopuli.xyz 5 points 6 days ago (18 children)

You’re proposing socialism.

Communism wants central authority.

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 7 points 6 days ago (14 children)

Imagine believing you can defeat capitalism without central authority.

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[–] sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml 5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Thats so funny because you have it completely backwards. Communism, the end goal, is a moneyless, classless, stateless society in which hierarchy has ceased to exist. State socialism or "the dictatorship of the proletariat" is a interim step on the path to communism that aims to eliminate class and the social structures that perpetuate it.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 7 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Hierarchy would exist even in Communism, at least in Marxist conceptions. Class would not exist, but it won't be until an extremely developed, extremely late-stage Communism where all distinctions in the division of labor can genuinely be moved beyond, well after class has been abolished.

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