[xupybd]

Your comment here is a red flag to me. That I don't understand socialism. My issues with socialism and libertarian capitalism are the same. Too few control too much. If that's a Soviet style government or a dystopian mega corporation, the outcome appears the same to me.

I'm attempting to say this in the least confrontational way I can. So please know that my questions come from genuine ignorance.

Is there a practical way to administer democratic worker ownership, without centralized control?

Is it also possible to do this on smaller scales than entire countries?

I fear socialism as I understand it. Only because I want people to be as free as is practically possible. I equally fear monopolistic control from large corporations. The only way I know to offset this control is competition. If people could freely move between small socialist societies I'd see no loss in freedoms. I've only really hear people advocate for socialism on look large scales.

There may be significant holes in my thinking but this is where I am today.

[azaras]

1. Is there a practical way to administer democratic worker ownership, without centralized control?

Yes, worker cooperatives.

Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

2. Is it also possible to do this on smaller scales than entire countries?

Yes, worker cooperatives.

Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_worker_cooperatives

[omginternets]

Worker cooperatives are exactly centralized control. The fact that they are democratically run is orthogonal. There is still a (logically) central body with the authority to set policy.

[xupybd]

Well, I'll be. I'd love to see more of this sort of thing.

Thank you for pointing this out.

[hernantz]

And worker cooperatives are totally compatible with a capitalist society, only they shall compete with traditional companies

[gremlinsinc]

> Is there a practical way to administer democratic worker ownership, without centralized control?

Commonly called anarcho-communism or relatedly anarcho-syndicalism (this being actually more of a mechanism to get to anarcho-communism)...

Anarcho-syndicalism looks like you form a union, that union then builds companies that are their own "entity" but pool resources/revenues. Workers, and consumers of the companies are linked to the overall union, and can petition for things like medical bills, etc to be paid. The union could grow and grow maybe it builds a total Amazon competitor, maybe walmart too, and convenience/gas stations.

All proceeds belong collectively to all in the union, all Top level staff might have a max salary of 500k or better yet, 10x the average worker salary, so keeping worker salaries high increases wages.

The unions could as it grows seek to buy up hospitals, and other parts of healthcare systems, and run them like a normal company just with different organization. It'd basically be like Kaiser Health where it's the insurer and hospital and pharmacy and maybe even manufacturer of drugs.

The insurer part could even build out programs to basically make states Medicare/Medicaid easier to manage...

So all these related/syndicated/union companies are non-profit, extra proceeds would go towards: expansion of syndicates, mutual aid, and left over would be paid out to workers/consumers. Each worker would get a share, each consumer spending over 1000k per year would get a share. Workers could get 2 shares by being a worker and consumer... Shares would grow, so longer-loyalty === more shares.

The share is your % of revenue from the pot, so say 33% goes to expansion, 33% goes to mutual aid and 33% goes to UBI type payout, you'd get a percent based on shares you own. Philanthropic people who don't need the money could opt-out as well if they did acquire shares so their portion could be re-distributed to those who have more need.

This creates a situation where healthcare is ran by a central/quasi-power structure aka the syndicate, but it's separate from the government and it's worker-owned with shares also being used like shareholder votes on things...

It's basically a non-statist form of socialism. Another term is libertarian socialism, or left-libertarianism, but it's totally different from anarcho-capitalism or right-libertarianism.

You'll find a lot of people who might lean left or be DSA would really support this... I think a weaker central govt is good, maybe even making states have their own militaries that the fed "conscripts" when there's mutual agreed threats, and the governors would be the senate.. the fed would just govern international stuff, and interstate commerce. States would be more in control, and even cities would have more power than states and majority of taxes would go to county, state, then federal... maybe like 50%, 30%, 20%.

That's how my ideal society would look. Eventually the healthcare union syndicate program could roll out nationally for everybody, and maybe be subsidized some by the government for those who aren't officially "customers" but as we grow we'd have so many competing businesses it'd hard not to be a customer for one of them...