[heavyset_go]

It isn't a dichotomy between wage labor and living in the woods picking berries. You can have extremely similar production and economies that we have now, but without wage labor. One other option is worker ownership, as owning the fruits of one's own labor is not the same thing as wage labor. There are plenty of examples of historical and contemporary worker ownership, and none of them involve living in the woods.

[nradov]

Worker cooperatives are legal and there are some around today. There's nothing stopping workers from owning the fruits of their own labor. Yet most workers choose not to join or start cooperatives, and instead prefer wage labor. Why is that?

It seems that most workers prioritize a steady wage without the risk of being an owner. And it's difficult for worker cooperatives in capital-intensive industries to attract outside investors; investors who put in significant amounts of money quite rationally want some control over the enterprise rather than leaving the decisions up to workers.

One of the most prominent examples of employee ownership was with United Airlines. Employees gained majority ownership in 1994. That kind of worked for a while but ultimately failed, ironically partly due to labor union disputes. It seems the workers had trouble deciding how to share the fruits of their labor.

[mgrthrow]

It is orders of magnitude more challenging to found a co-op. Let alone get enough capital to get started.

We've set up our society to make it difficult for worker owned businesses.

[dicethrowaway1]

A good elaboration of this point is Greg Dow's "Governing the Firm" and "The Labor-Managed Firm".

In short, worker-owned businesses are rare because individual workers are poor (relative to the capital that's needed) and they can't get external funding because the investors want control in return, which labor management can't provide.

That's why most large-scale worker-owned businesses are part of a federation supported by a bank - e.g. Mondragon's Caja Laboral. Institutional design indeed does matter.

[mgrthrow]

Funding is a huge part, for sure, but also getting incorporated. Talk to a lawyer and your state about founding an LLC or sole proprietorship. Ezpz. Done in an hour.

Talk about founding a workers co-op that's democratically run? With shares issued to each worker? There's just no template for it. It's days of work to get it over the line.

[drekipus]

This really is the same as the YouTuber "how I bought a house within a week of watching this video"

"Ownership is so easy, imagine if you not only have to work, but also have to deal with ownership problems such as maintenance, insurance, business and real-estate, logistics, marketing, depreciation, and management. - and, best of all, you don't own any of it if you stop working!"

[heavyset_go]

Please show me where in my post I said anything about things being easy or not.

[kazinator]

In order to own the fruits of your labor, you have to pay for all the tools and materials you need, and the space where you apply the tools to the materials.

The material suppliers and toolsmiths also own the fruits of their labor, and don't owe them to you.

Capitalism exists because individual worker ownership doesn't scale beyond simple trades. If a worker gets enough wherewithal to scale his or her operation to just a small shop, there are going to be workers there, who are either wage labor, or else customers who pay to use the shop.

[mgrthrow]

I'd encourage you to read The Conquest of Bread for some high level thoughts on other ways we could arrange things that a) aren't primitive and b) aren't capitalism.

[kazinator]

Unless demonstrated otherwise, this sort of "could" is indistinguishable from "couldn't".

[mgrthrow]

Good news then, because many of his ideas have been demonstrated!