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Why don't communist movements focus on creating and nurturing employee owned businesses? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by Yondoza@sh.itjust.works to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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The overarching goal of communism is for laborers to own the means of production instead of an owning/capitalist class. Employee owned businesses are the realization of communism within a capitalist society.

It seems to me that most communist organizations in capitalist societies focus on reform through government policies. I have not heard of organizations focusing on making this change by leveraging the capitalist framework. Working to create many employee owned businesses would be a tangible way to achieve this on a small but growing scale. If successful employee owned businesses are formed and accumulate capital they should be able to perpetuate employee ownership through direct acquisition or providing venture capital with employee ownership requirements.

So my main questions are:

Are organizations focusing on this and I just don't know about it?
If not, what obstacles are there that would hinder this approach to increasing the share labor collective ownership?

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[-] sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 day ago

Thats so funny because you have it completely backwards. Communism, the end goal, is a moneyless, classless, stateless society in which hierarchy has ceased to exist. State socialism or "the dictatorship of the proletariat" is a interim step on the path to communism that aims to eliminate class and the social structures that perpetuate it.

[-] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 day ago

Hierarchy would exist even in Communism, at least in Marxist conceptions. Class would not exist, but it won't be until an extremely developed, extremely late-stage Communism where all distinctions in the division of labor can genuinely be moved beyond, well after class has been abolished.

[-] sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 day ago

I think long term we could find a place for those who wish to live in a decentralized commune free of hierarchy. I understand that the centralized vision of communist human progress essentially requires hierarchy but I think we will progress to a point where that becomes undesirable for a large amount of people. Eventually we will reevaluate what it means to even progress.

[-] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 day ago

It's more that eventually, in the far far future, as technology advances we may be able to erase it once and for all, but there's no basis for being able to do so without it.

this post was submitted on 17 May 2025

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