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submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by Yondoza@sh.itjust.works to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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:

  1. Are organizations focusing on this and I just don't know about it?
  2. If not, what obstacles are there that would hinder this approach to increasing the share labor collective ownership?
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[-] simontherockjohnson@lemmy.ml 4 points 13 hours ago

REI is not a workers coop. It's a consumer coop. It's not even the same thing. The fact that it's so difficult to even find a workers coop that is a national retailer shows you exactly why competing as a coop on the capitalist market is difficult.

[-] silentjohn@lemmy.ml 2 points 13 hours ago

Yep, good point! I was trying to think of examples. Ace Hardware isn't a workers coop either.

this post was submitted on 17 May 2025
204 points (95.1% liked)

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