[erikpukinskis]

You were flagged, but I don't see any rule violations so I vouched for you. I share many of your same fears. But your argument is a slippery slope argument, so I can't really argue against it. Maybe you're right, and the worker-owned Pizza co-op down the street from me will slide into Stalinist authoritarianism. We'll see. I think the fact that it is voluntary and you are at will to choose an ownership-based enterprise instead is a key difference from the Soviet Union.

I'll also point out that the vast majority of U.S. employees don't have ownership stakes and they still show up to work and work hard. Many people (retirees, the rich, other do-gooders) even work hard for organizations and don't get paid.

I appreciate your recounting of history though, and share your concern. The biggest fear I have is that decentralization of operations will make it easier for exploitation of workers on a small scale in secret. I also do share your fear that my understanding of how much resources will be needed is off because I grew up in a country where those resources were presumed.

But these fears are not enough to stop my work. Capitalism has led to my neighbors in the Bay Area being regularly shot, and that's a real problem I am dealing with today. So my concern over those shootings is greater than my concern about the theoretical future ones you are cautioning against.

You're wrong to assume that us naive Americans have no idea what it's like to see your friends and neighbors be shot for political reasons.

[throwaway71958]

The point is that your pizza co-op can only exist as a non-dominant form of organization in a wealthy society. Once it becomes the dominant form, everything goes to hell. There isn't a single country in the history of this civilization where this wasn't proven true. Now, you could argue that we're not "cultured" enough to live onder such utopia, but my retort will be that you need to figure out a way to experiment with it at scale first without subjecting everyone to what you think (but, obviously, not _know_) is better. As they used to say back in the day in the Soviet Union "test it on dogs first". Even Lenin (patron saint of communist revolutionaries and a murderous dictator) ended up realizing he's wrong about collectivism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Economic_Policy

"Exploitation of workers" is actually the greatest thing about the West. Those workers wouldn't even be able to care for themselves if they weren't "exploited", and by creating the societal pressure to do so, through moderate poverty (very few people in the US know what real, actual poverty is), and general disapproval of leisurely lifestyle, you motivate people to be productive, which ultimately benfits society. Then, once they acquire a modicum of wealth and property, they get to "exploit" others by paying them a mutually agreed upon fee in order to have some work done.

I'm technically a "worker" who is quite happy to be "exploited" by my capitalist overlords, as long as I get paid a few hundred thousand dollars a year. Sure, they make millions, and I make much less but so what?

[Apocryphon]

People here are arguing for more companies like REI or Mondragón, and you are talking about proletarian revolution in a situation completely different from the economic and social devastation caused by World War I. This is completely premature hysterics.