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this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2024
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Not sure how he's organized the operations between Hakim and Yugo and their production staffs, but a coop would still have employees, need to pay taxes on revenues/profits, work within the tax system of the country of operations, etc.
So effectively, there would be no difference financially. Coop organization needs to have a minimum number of people to reach quorum, annual meetings, a board of directors right? It might not be feasible for JT, Hakim, Yugopnik and their respective production staff to organize as a coop as they are all in three different countries.
The difference is a coop doesn’t exploit the labor of the workers, and there are no owners profiting off of them. Why are you all clawing at technicalities to dismiss this as an issue? It’s like if Coca Cola had a campaign saying Che was based and socialism is actually cool, you’d all be saying “fuck yeah coke is true praxis! Critical support for coke!”
Coops still exploit the labor of the workers, just not for the salary of the owner. It still exists within the capitalist paradigm, so it still exploits to stay competitive.
idk if this guy is a grifter or not, but syndicates aren't going to topple capitalism
I don’t agree that coops (as a concept) exploit the labor of workers, as the workers decide what is done with the value they produce.
Some “coops” do, but they hardly are coops (like Mondragon or w.e that Spanish one is called).
And ofc coops, unions or syndicates won’t end capitalism. But you know what also for sure won’t? Capitalist fucking private businesses.
Like not becoming a fucking capitalist just seems like the bare minimum y’know…
Reiterating that I don't have an interest in defending this guy in particular and now adding that I don't have an interest in "coops (as a concept" but instead coops as they exist.
You were doing a decent job of explaining to that other person that exploitation isn't a vibe but instead an objective measure of circumstances, but nominally free agreements in council votes don't erase that reality just like the nominally free agreements in employment contracts don't. Under capitalism, if a coop is to stay competitive, the owners must still agree to foregoing some amount of compensation for subsidizing cut prices and reinvesting into the company to stay competitive. That they are signing this away in a council meeting and not a hiring contract is immaterial.
Ultimately, all of this is edutainment slop. It is not "the movement." It is not "the Left." However, for something more credible, we shouldn't be evaluating it on the basis of its personal moral purity, but on the basis of the change that it produces. If syndicates are the most useful, then use syndicates, but if the most useful tool under brutal capitalism is to "brutally use it" as Zizek says, then we should consider that too, even if ultimately those capitalists too will ultimately be our enemies (as Zizek is already).
This is absolutely a dog shit take.. I've worked at a coop, we absolutely were exploited by management.
Like yeah, it sucks we're stuck within the systems we're in, but its not like he's running an IPO to buy shares of SecondThoughtAI$.
Coca Cola is a massive multinational, multi-billion dollar corporation. It would take a lot more than a shallow campaign pandering to socialist imagery for supporting it to be considered anything resembling "praxis."