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

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months 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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[-] Yondoza@sh.itjust.works 11 points 10 months ago

I don't agree with this. Shareholders extracting value from a company is arguably more of an 'inefficency' than treating employees fairly. Well treated employees provide a benefit to the company while shareholders purely remove resources.

I have no data to back up my claim, just logic, so I could very well be wrong.

[-] ladicius@lemmy.world 17 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

You got a point there, and there may be a lot of data to prove that point.

I am part of a housing cooperative ("Wohnungsgenossenschaft" in German), and these cooperatives are noticeably cheaper because they are owned by the members/renters and don't have to generate any profit, just enough excess money to build new homes. The principle is very convincing if you live in it and save loads of money every month. The cooperatives employees aren't overworking themselves, too.

[-] joshchandra@midwest.social 3 points 10 months ago

Awesome! Where can I read further about this endeavor?

[-] ladicius@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Look for Wohnungsgenossenschaft or Wohnungsbaugenossenschaft. They are relatively common in Germany and Austria; Vienna is an example where the majority of flats are owned by such cooperatives. In Hamburg roughly 14% of all flats in the city are being provided by cooperatives which has huge advantages for those who get to become members.

All sources I know are in German language so if you want to read further just go for these texts and translate them into your mother tongue. Maybe start with Wikipedia:

https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wohnungsbaugenossenschaft

[-] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Shareholders extracting value from a company is arguably more of an ‘inefficency’ than treating employees fairly.

Their pals also owns all media and all economists so they will outright lie to everyone about it. Capitalism at this point in development when even capitalist themselves gets alienated from their own capital loses every advantage and usefulness for developing the productive forces.

this post was submitted on 17 May 2025

209 points (95.2% liked)

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