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this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2024
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Showerthoughts
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Workers will act in their own self interests, only this time everyone is a Worker.
Direct ownership can look like a co-op, yes, that's a Socialist entity. It can also look like state run industry, or a network of Mutual Aid, or a structure like FOSS.
It’s a socialist model of organization, but if it’s operating in a capitalist economy, it benefits capitalism as a model to run an economy, not socialism.
Also no, not everyone is a worker. Not everyone is equal. Someone (or a group of someones) has the power to hire/fire, or dock pay to discourage poor performance, or grant promotions to incentivize superior performance. Someone has the power to alter the distribution of resources, because once a group of humans reaches over 150 or so they form hierarchies because it’s just too difficult to keep peer relationships with more than about 150 people. So someone is given power to speak for more than oneself, they speak for the group, and therefore have more power than a person who speaks for only oneself. That person is not a worker, now they are a politician, or a bureaucrat, or a manager, or a chieftain, or something, they are not like the others, they have more power.
It doesn't matter what it benefits, it's still Socialism at work.
Secondly, you have no real concept of what constitutes a Worker vs an owner. Someone with power to give promotions is still a worker, the difference comes from unequal ownership. Even if they have more power as elected, the other workers can overturn them.
Is someone with the power to grant promotions or dock pay not a representative of the owner, who has all those powers? Sure if the workers all own shares then they are also owners, but hiring and firing are actions performed by owners or their representatives. Workers perform labor.
You're off.
In Capitalism, we refer to the managerial class as Labor Aristocrats, they often side with Capitalists to keep their lifestyle but are ultimately still laborers and not owners.
In Socialism, a democratically accountable manager or HR representative is just that, democratically accountable. Even though they are involved in managing, if they do a bad job, the Workers can oust them, or even do away with the position entirely.
Ownership entirely changes the power imbalance.