[chr1]

Interesting, i have never seen this definition of socialism where it is simply about the way companies are governed and companies themselves are free to compete with each other. I expected a system that would try to equalise everyone in the whole country instead of simply everyone working for a given company, so it would need some way to redistribute goods instead of simply giving equal voting rights to all employees.

Would the system you describe be the same as capitalism, with the exception that workers are prohibited from selling their voting rights to anyone else?

[tsimionescu]

The oldest idea of socialism is 'worker control of the means of production', which sounds a bit antiquated, but refers exactly to this: that the people doing the work should get to decide what work is being done.

There is one major difference from capitalism though, that would have broad repercussions: workers do not get paid a wage, they directly get the profits of the company (not in equal amounts, but by some democratically voted scheme specific to each company). This would lead to vastly more equality in society. It world probably also have a huge impact on international economic relations.

There are many forms of socialism, but what in describing is one of the oldest, and it is the one preferred by Noam Chomsky, the most influential leftist thinker in the world.

[Nasrudith]

That brings to mind literal antiquity with Roman soldiers beinf required to supply their own gear. It was decentralizing in power but to call it equality is a bit misleading given it effectively created a caste barrier to be a soldier by an added constraint of "fit enough to fight AND afford the kit". The alternative was government supplied gear.

Of course the downside of the alternative was that it allowed for a centralizing of power in generals. Proto-generalismo problems ensue.

Which I believe highlights the irony of "equality" and "accessibility" being in opposition. Effectively the fetishized "means of production tied to labor" means by implication everyone is required to own all of their capital for production. Otherwise they cannot start. There are more barriers to entry and the lowest are even more disenfranchised. That is before the organizational logistical problems of supply chains and industrialization let alone what comes after it. It brings to mind the old form letter joke about "your proposed solution for spam won't work".

I don't oppose trying to find a better system, and laud attempts but that doesn't seem workable.

[tsimionescu]

The factory/IT office still has to exist for the work to be doable. However, that doesn't mean that each worker would bring their own laptop or tools, anymore than companies require that today.

In the kind of socialist society I describe, you would win a livelihood by either finding a co-op which values your skills, or by trying to start your own co-op, probably by borrowing money together with others from some institution similar to a bank. Everyone participating in the co-op you helped start would probably take on not just the profits, but also some amount of liability for the loan.

Now, this change alone would greatly reduce the concentration of wealth, and so, hopefully, may free enough money to avoid the need for everyone to find a place to work or die of starvation. Still, even if that doesn't directly happen, the same mechanisms that apply today would still apply - a state-funded safety net, anti-discrimination laws, state programs encouraging employment of unemployed workers, education programs etc. I don't see why the bar to finding a place to work would be any higher if companies were owned by their workers instead of being owned by capitalists.

[chr1]

Which types of contracts between people would we have to ban to achieve this version of socialism? If someone was allowed to form a company by himself, and sell his work to another company, or to forgo his vote in exchange for a fixed pay, we'd be back to the current state.

[tsimionescu]

That's a good question, and I'm sure socialist theorists have some better thought-out answers than I have.

Thinking about this logically though, the only kind of contract that it might help to ban would be selling your labor for money, similarly to how we don't allow you to sell your person (indenturement/slavery) or sexual favors (prostitution) today. This would probably include such contracts between companies as well, encouraging actual exchange of goods and services instead of direct outsourcing.

Still, even these types of contracts wouldn't have to be necessarily banned, it may be enough in principle to encourage Worker-owned enterprises, and protect them from hostile actions against them by other corporations. Of course, how we would get from where we are today to the state where most corporations are owned by their workers is the most difficult question, and capitalists will not go down without at least a political fight.

[chr1]

The startup i worked on was very similar to what you describe, most of us had comparable amount of shares, and we were happy to forgo our salary for multiple months when things were not going well because we knew that the result depended on the work we were doing, but there were also people who were happy to sell their work for money, and not bet the compensation they get on the work of the rest of the team. I don't think our non-technical workers would have been happy to bet the salary they were getting on the slim chance that the rest of the team would succeed eventually.

> similarly to how we don't allow you to sell your person (indenturement/slavery)

I rather like how libertarianism deals with this kind of contracts, it allows to sign any contract, but doesn't allow the buyer to apply aggressive force, to enforce the contract when seller changes his mind, that way the contract naturally changes from slavery to employment agreement.

> protect them from hostile actions against them by other corporations

Are there any hostile actions from which only some people deserve to be protected?

> capitalists will not go down without at least a political fight

i am not a capitalist, but i will side with them because knowing history of my country i can see that everything good i have is in large part thanks to them, and it's better to work with them to bring everyone up, instead of trying to bring them down.

[tsimionescu]

Regarding the start-up story, that is only one kind of enterprise, one with high risk and a long period of preparation before any chance of creating a product,and they're obviously not for everyone. But not all new enterprises are start-ups - if I were to open a shop, for example, I would expect to start turning a profit from day one (disregarding the loan I need to acquire the physical location and merchandise, of course), so the workers in the shop co-op would immediately have a clear revenue stream.

> that way the contract naturally changes from slavery to employment agreement.

Pure Libertarianism is at least as much an idealistic system as socialism is. I don't think these kinds of clever tricks and relying entirely on markets can produce the desired outcomes, at least not as efficiently as regulations can. Examples in history of the standards many businesses held even for things such as food and medicine before explicit regulations and inspections were mandated would seem to agree with me.

>Are there any hostile actions from which only some people deserve to be protected?

No, and I wasn't suggesting there should be. Worker-owned co-ops would not even have the power to attack capitalist corporations, but the reverse would definitely happen. Big corporations try to destroy any competition they have by default, and they would certainly focus their efforts against a competitor controlled by a lower class.

> and it's better to work with them to bring everyone up, instead of trying to bring them down.

Capitalism by definition seeks to bring investors up, and no more than that. Any raising of the rest of the population is entirely accidental, and sometimes explicitly discouraged (for example, no capitalists would like to see growing prosperity among Chinese factory workers, since it would directly eat into their profits).

Do note that European/US-style capitalism is definitely preferrable to USSR or Chinese style planned, centralized state capitalism, and even that is in turn preferrable to serfdom or slavery-based economies.