It's not someone asking for communism, just for the return of a more healthy capitalism where everyone has a chance to invest, as opposed to some sort of feudalism where private ownership of strategic companies becomes more common, monopoly is the goal of every owner, and competition is seen as a harmful.
This capitalism of yesterday was also a key part of protecting us from people being enrolled in totalitarian world views: people used to say "when trade doesn't cross borders, armies will". Now, with that monopoly/concentrated economy mindset, the thinking in the US has shifted to "we must cross borders to secure our interests".
Calling it communism is the kind of fucked up newspeak supporting less capitalism rather than more.
I understand the risk of falling on the deaf ears, but where from comes the idea that communism is the opposite (or less of) capitalism and not an unattainable global maximum of it instead?
Planned economy as practiced by all vertically integrated monopolies may be the opposite of free market and the biggest attempt at communism was just that, but it's not the core idea of it.
> I understand the risk of falling on the deaf ears
Always good to cast yourself as unheard in your first sentence.
> where from comes the idea that communism is the opposite (or less of) capitalism
No one said they're opposite, but no one reasonably claims they're compatible. Communists, quite simply, want means of production to be collectively owned. There's a lot of debate among communists about what collective means, but no one reasonably claims that collective means "private ownership".
>There's a lot of debate among communists about what collective means, but no one reasonably claims that collective means "private ownership".
I dunno about the communists, but to me everybody owning shares of the company they work for sounds like collective ownership of the means of production. We could maybe argue about the threshold around which it becomes or stops being literal communism, because I don't this important KPI of ours in the article.
> I understand the risk of falling on the deaf ears, but where from comes the idea that communism is the opposite (or less of) capitalism and not an unattainable global maximum of it instead?
From literally every piece of communist theory/philosophy ever (okay, well, “opposite” is too strong, “radical response against and rejection of the basic premsies of", though...)
I mean, communism can be envisioned as sort of the maximum endpoint of a direction of change away from feudalism where capitalism is the first step, but...
I mean I get it, the Cold War was between capitalism and communism if you ask US and we were sure which side won until the last November, but.
The core idea is just what the article is advertising -- the person to see most benefit of their work is the one doing the work. Having enough shares of the company you are working for and high enough taxes to pay for nuking american fascists if needed is a) good approximation of it b) isn't just the opposite of what most of the supposedly capitalistic countries are doing, but is also a very good approximation of what they are supposedly doing.
Incidentally, you might find Sheen's "Communism and the Conscience of the West"[0] eye opening.
Wojtyła had similar things to say, which surprises people, because during the Cold War, he was seen as staunchly anti-communist - which he was - and the triumphant general responsible for toppling it, but his critiques and warnings concerning liberalism/capitalism were conveniently ignored or overlooked.
This doesn't sound like communism to me. Rather it sounds like an attempt to proselytize capitalism. The stated purpose of the book is to "to create an elevated vision for capitalism in which everyone gets richer from capital". The author goes on to state that they are researching things like equity incentive structures and profit sharing models.
Capitalism is all about aligning incentives. Those of us who have experienced startups know just how important it is to have your employees aligned with the interests of the company in the form of equity grants. I've always personally wondered why this isn't more common outside of Silicon Valley. I respect the goal of researching these topics more deeply.
>Those of us who have experienced startups know just how important it is to have your employees aligned with the interests of the company in the form of equity grants.
I actually experienced two successful startups (one YC funded even), stayed few years past acquisition in both, seen those rsu and such, and also seen communism with my eyes a little bit. I had some close relatives who paid party fees to soviet communist party for about half a century too, true believers if you can say so. Heard the stories, recognize the pitch.
It does sound very much familiar to me. Maybe RSU grants work a little better compared to having a trade union or a literal commune, more transactional maybe, more appropriate for inherently bourgeoise knowledge work as opposed to working on a steel mill, but I have a deep suspicion it's all the same both in intent and sometimes in the end results too.
I don't want to be the one, but did you actually read the article? Author is talking about "vision for the future of capitalism", "create an elevated vision for capitalism", and "project about creating more owners", so if anything it's like neo-capitalism or something, nowhere near communism if you have proper understanding of the concept.
You can make another step forward to reduce overheard and put all the shares of those owners into a holding company, vote for the managing person of it and you will pretty much get soviet union. The rest of the soviet union you will have to grow in process of such transformations to deal with marginal ill effects of it.
If you're somehow under the belief that the Soviet Union was an implementation of communism, I'm sad to inform you it wasn't. The Soviet Union was run by the state, not the workers, there was a strict class structure in place, instead of a classless society and it was controlled in a top-down authoritarian manner, not by empowering the workers.
Having a manager as you describe is quite explicitly the opposite than what communism argues for.
You're kind of the person who went off-topic here. Parent's point was that what's suggested in the article is communism, then you start involving the Soviet Union for some reason, although it has nothing to do with the discussion at hand.
I believe those things are all connected to both the discussion and the article at hand. Denying existence of a connection between the idea of collective ownership posed in the article with practical examples of attempt at collective ownership and problems that come with it, I think is ideologically motivated.
Understanding pathological cases is especially important and having ideological bias against communism could be as dangerous as the opposite.
This capitalism of yesterday was also a key part of protecting us from people being enrolled in totalitarian world views: people used to say "when trade doesn't cross borders, armies will". Now, with that monopoly/concentrated economy mindset, the thinking in the US has shifted to "we must cross borders to secure our interests".
Calling it communism is the kind of fucked up newspeak supporting less capitalism rather than more.