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

submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days 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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[-] bstix@feddit.dk 2 points 5 hours ago

It can be difficult for coops to play on the capitalist market.

A company with a top-down hierarchy can make decisions much faster than an organization where the decisions are made ground up through internal democratic policies. The democratic process also very likely limits the co-op from doing shady stuff.

It's possible though, but it requires a really good community backing.

[-] rekabis@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 hour ago

False equivalence. Many co-ops have a top-down hierarchy for exactly this purpose: execution speed. But the person “at the top” is there as a navigator, not as a captain. They are there to make those quick decisions based on the will - and projected/estimated will, when time is of the essence - of the actual owners, the employees.

There are also many instances of companies - and even entire countries - going months to years without “top leadership” because the entire framework has been effectively empowered to make critical decisions. The effectiveness of the U.S. Military is also based on this doctrine. This allows a company to respond to market forces purely via effective communication between employees and managers coordinating across the different components of the company.

this post was submitted on 17 May 2025

202 points (95.1% liked)

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