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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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[-] WanderingVentra@lemm.ee 1 points 6 hours ago

It sounds like it's similar to saying climate change isn't real because the weather was colder one day, when in actuality the theory of global warming is describing an ongoing process and tendency of the temperature to increase in the overall system overall long period of time, it's not a day to day weather phenomenon you can describe with a singular slice of time.

[-] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 5 points 6 hours ago

Sort of, not quite. The TRPF is closer to saying "if Capitalists continue to automate and improve production, ie if c/v increases, ie if the organic composition of capital increases, then the rate of profit will fall unless exploitation, ie s/v, increases."

s/v can be increased in a number of ways, from increasing intensity, to Imperialism, ie using far more brutal exploitation in foreign countries.

Climate Change is similar in that the TRPF is a tendency, and temperature vaires on a daily basis, but the key difference is that while the TRPF does exist, ways of countering it temporarily also exist, while Climate Change isn't "countered" when it gets colder for a day. It's similar, but I wanted to point it out.

Also, absolute profits and the rate of profit are different, absolute profits have been rising, and rise most by producing and selling more. This is why c/v must rise in Capitalism, you can't just keep stagnating.

this post was submitted on 17 May 2025

202 points (95.1% liked)

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