Freedom or Socialism?

[Ana the Ist]

My taxes, however, got to support his workers which means I'm paying him one way or another.

Your tax dollars support a lot of workers.

There are a lot of American Patriots who are working for this glorious day when no American has access to that "social safety net". Gah! Socialism! Ewww!

I doubt a lot....maybe a few.

That doesn't follow. He could still pay them only a little. It doesn't matter if they are starving or not. America has a long history of this sort of thing prior to the 1940's.

Of course it matters. If they starve he has to hire more.

Alibaba would disagree.

Don't know who that is.

So if someone is STUCK in America they should be able to take as much advantage of others as they can!

He isn't stuck. He can leave anytime he wants and take the jobs with him.

 

[TheWhat?]

I thought you said you started the business.



Ok...so your problem is that guy who owns the business you work for doesn't want a cooperative.



No...you don't lack public support. You lack a good idea, like you already said.

If you had that, and knew how to make that good idea successful, you can make your business any way you want.

What it sounds like you want is to latch onto someone else's successful idea and business and be given an equal share of that business even though you didn't make it yourself.

Ideas aren't the product of hard work. There's only so many out there which will work -- it's a gold rush, not a reward system, and in the case that I find one, which I probably won't, I would want a valuable, skilled team, not a farm for human value. I'm within my rights to desire to be part of the same.

And who are you to say otherwise? Everything you've said here is absolutely incredulous and a vapid waste of time. We're done talking about this because you don't even value the basics of freedom let alone the benefits of capitalism which would make it morally acceptable.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Ideas aren't the product of hard work.

Never said they are.

There's only so many out there which will work -- it's a gold rush, not a reward system, and in the case that I find one, which I probably won't, I would want a valuable, skilled team, not a farm for human value.

Ok.

I'm within my rights to desire to be part of the same.

Absolutely.

Here's what you don't have a right to...

You don't have any right to require others run their business the way you want.

You want to make a co-op...fine. If someone else wants to make a corporation, that's fine too. It's fair, and it's simple.

And who are you to say otherwise?

A guy who knows a little more than you.

Everything you've said here is absolutely incredulous and a vapid waste of time.

Awww...that would hurt if I respected your opinion.

We're done talking about this because you don't even value the basics of freedom

You have failed to identify even one freedom you've been denied. You don't have a co-op because you don't have a good idea for a business. You're upset you can't mooch off the good ideas of others.

 

[TheWhat?]

Never said they are.



Ok.



Absolutely.

Here's what you don't have a right to...

You don't have any right to require others run their business the way you want.

You want to make a co-op...fine. If someone else wants to make a corporation, that's fine too. It's fair, and it's simple.



A guy who knows a little more than you.



Awww...that would hurt if I respected your opinion.



You have failed to identify even one freedom you've been denied. You don't have a co-op because you don't have a good idea for a business. You're upset you can't mooch off the good ideas of others.

Hmm. So in light of the context of this thread entitled "Freedom or Socialism" would you say you're in favor of freedom given that you want to call me, someone who wants to work for an organization that values me enough to make me a partner, someone who wants to mooch off of good ideas by providing a valuable service to those who have them?

It sounds more to me like you're more of the reason why socialists reject capitalism. Look, if you want to run a human value farm instead of promoting freedoms, just say so.

 

[Clare73]

Hmm. So in light of the context of this thread entitled "Freedom or Socialism" would you say you're in favor of freedom given that you want to call me, someone who wants to work for an organization that values me enough to make me a partner, someone who wants to mooch off of good ideas by providing a valuable service to those who have them?

It sounds more to me like you're more of the reason why socialists reject capitalism. Look, if you want to run a human value farm instead of promoting freedoms, just say so.

Sounds an awful lot like blaming a system that provides freedom to earn what you want, for not making it easier to get what you want.

That's some serious entitlement mentality.

I want to be an ace skateboarder but no one makes a skateboard that would enable me to do that with my limited talent. We need a better system that would give me the freedom to be an ace skateboarder, don't you think?

 

[TheWhat?]

Sounds an awful lot like blaming a system that provides freedom to earn what you want for not making it easier to get what you want.

That's some serious entitlement mentality.

Since it's clear you don't value my freedom, I think it's fair to say you're only in favor of the freedom to be the modern day equivalent of a slave owner, and you think you're talking down to a slave.

Show me it ain't so ma'am.

 

[Clare73]

Since it's clear you don't value my freedom, I think it's fair to say you're only in favor of the freedom to be the equivalent of a slave owner, and you're talking down to a slave.

So having to work for a living makes one a slave.

Yep. . .that's an entitlement problem.

What is your educational background?
I'd be interested in knowing where you acquired your skill in critical thinking.

Show me it ain't so ma'am.

When you show me my skateboard analogy ain't so, sir.

 

[TheWhat?]

Yep. . .that's an entitlement problem.

Who has the entitlement problem? The person who wants freedom and for fellow workers, or the one who acts like a slave owner?

 

[Clare73]

Who has the entitlement problem? The person who wants freedom and for fellow workers, or the one who acts like a slave owner?

Non-responsive to my skateboard analogy.

 

[TheWhat?]

In my situation, my services are at times in such demand that I'm overworked for months at a time doing overtime without weekends. Until I can't take it anymore. I blame a number of things for this. An unhealthy separation of concerns between clients and service providers, for one. A cooperative would, for one, help ensure a more equitable representation of laborer's needs.

But it is not the industry standard, in America.

 

[Clare73]

In my situation, my services are at times in such demand that I'm overworked for months at a time doing overtime without weekends. Until I can't take it anymore. I blame a number of things for this. An unhealthy separation of concerns between clients and service providers, for one. A cooperative would, for one, help ensure a more equitable representation of laborer's needs.

But it is not the industry standard, in America.

Is it due to the labor shortage now?
Are your skills transferable to another perhaps closely related industry with an owner/operator who could use a good second-hand man?
There's an employee shortage now. Perhaps it would be a good time to shop around for a new place for your skills.

And then some industries now are even training workers who don't have the necessary skills.

 

[Ana the Ist]

In my situation, my services are at times in such demand that I'm overworked for months at a time doing overtime without weekends. Until I can't take it anymore. I blame a number of things for this. An unhealthy separation of concerns between clients and service providers, for one. A cooperative would, for one, help ensure a more equitable representation of laborer's needs.

But it is not the industry standard, in America.

Maybe my point would be easier to understand if I put it differently....

Employee value and pay are not the same thing. Value is highly subjective and changes frequently based on a lot of factors. I think replaceability is probably the biggest factor and it's actually determined by a bunch of smaller factors.

Ideally, employers would assess value perfectly and pay would be reflected in that value. This is possible in maybe some very small businesses but once you get into double digits it's nearly impossible.

I can see decent arguments being made for a co-op model in very very small businesses....like 6 guys developing a phone app and sharing the same workload beginning to end. This is the exception to the rule though. The rule looks like this....

1. Some employees are high value. We'll describe these as employees that are between competent most of the time and occasionally exceptional....to those employees who are usually exceptional and sometimes just competent.

2. The low value employees are competent usually and sometimes deficient....to usually deficient to sometimes competent.

All employees are going to fall into one of these two categories. Since the more employees you have the harder it becomes to accurately assess value....the employer has a choice of 4 possible category errors. They are...

1. Over pay both 1 and 2 type employees. This has the benefit of retaining the most employees, but since it cuts into profit...it hurts the company's ability to compete with similar companies.

2. Under pay both 1 and 2 type employees. This has the opposite effect of the first category error. You gain competitiveness by retaining profits, but you lose employees to other companies that pay better.

3. Under pay type 1 employees and over pay type 2 employees. It's hard to think of a real advantage this provides a business. You lose high value employees or they stop being high value employees because it doesn't benefit them....and you keep the low value employees. When you argue for equal pay/ profit sharing....you're actually arguing for an extreme form of this error.

4. Over pay type 1 employees and under pay type 2. This is what most companies go with. It allows them to retain their most valuable employees, it motivates more employees to be type 1 employees, and really only risks losing less valuable type 2 employees.

So when someone says they think everyone should be paid the same and have equal profit sharing, etc....it's a safe assumption that they are a type 2 employee. The third category error really only benefits low value employees. High value employees eventually realize they don't have to work any harder than the least valuable employees...or they would be better off working for someone else. Low value employees stick around because it's unlikely they will be paid more anywhere else. The business becomes uncompetitive.

So when I guessed you were a type 2 employee....it's because I've never seen a type 1 employee argue for what you seem to want. I've seen businesses succeed by choosing equal pay....but they get around the low value employee problem to some degree by enacting a very long "trial period" (sometimes several years) where low value employees are discovered and fired by observing them at work over long periods of time. It's not a model every company can succeed with. It's why communist nations end up creating a lot of forced labor.

 

[TheWhat?]

Maybe my point would be easier to understand if I put it differently....

Employee value and pay are not the same thing. Value is highly subjective and changes frequently based on a lot of factors. I think replaceability is probably the biggest factor and it's actually determined by a bunch of smaller factors.

Ideally, employers would assess value perfectly and pay would be reflected in that value. This is possible in maybe some very small businesses but once you get into double digits it's nearly impossible.

I can see decent arguments being made for a co-op model in very very small businesses....like 6 guys developing a phone app and sharing the same workload beginning to end. This is the exception to the rule though. The rule looks like this....

1. Some employees are high value. We'll describe these as employees that are between competent most of the time and occasionally exceptional....to those employees who are usually exceptional and sometimes just competent.

2. The low value employees are competent usually and sometimes deficient....to usually deficient to sometimes competent.

All employees are going to fall into one of these two categories. Since the more employees you have the harder it becomes to accurately assess value....the employer has a choice of 4 possible category errors. They are...

1. Over pay both 1 and 2 type employees. This has the benefit of retaining the most employees, but since it cuts into profit...it hurts the company's ability to compete with similar companies.

2. Under pay both 1 and 2 type employees. This has the opposite effect of the first category error. You gain competitiveness by retaining profits, but you lose employees to other companies that pay better.

3. Under pay type 1 employees and over pay type 2 employees. It's hard to think of a real advantage this provides a business. You lose high value employees or they stop being high value employees because it doesn't benefit them....and you keep the low value employees. When you argue for equal pay/ profit sharing....you're actually arguing for an extreme form of this error.

4. Over pay type 1 employees and under pay type 2. This is what most companies go with. It allows them to retain their most valuable employees, it motivates more employees to be type 1 employees, and really only risks losing less valuable type 2 employees.

So when someone says they think everyone should be paid the same and have equal profit sharing, etc....it's a safe assumption that they are a type 2 employee. The third category error really only benefits low value employees. High value employees eventually realize they don't have to work any harder than the least valuable employees...or they would be better off working for someone else. Low value employees stick around because it's unlikely they will be paid more anywhere else. The business becomes uncompetitive.

So when I guessed you were a type 2 employee....it's because I've never seen a type 1 employee argue for what you seem to want. I've seen businesses succeed by choosing equal pay....but they get around the low value employee problem to some degree by enacting a very long "trial period" (sometimes several years) where low value employees are discovered and fired by observing them at work over long periods of time. It's not a model every company can succeed with. It's why communist nations end up creating a lot of forced labor.

A small business is what I had in mind, but a cooperative model may be scaled for umbrella corporations. Further, there's no rule that says a cooperative cannot be a corporation, or that shares of ownership somehow neglect to reflect the value of any member of the cooperative. I wouldn't expect the founder to hold an equal share to the janitor who was recently hired, however, as part owner, the janitor will arguably have greater incentive toward the overall success and profit of the organization than she would otherwise.

 

[TheWhat?]

It's why communist nations end up creating a lot of forced labor.

I'm not a business major, but the models I studied are by-in-large European, and not from communist nations.

It's not a model every company can succeed with.

Maybe not in America, it's definitely against the status quo here, although I think it can work for small businesses scaling upward.

 

[Ana the Ist]

A small business is what I had in mind, but a cooperative model may be scaled for umbrella corporations. Further, there's no rule that says a cooperative cannot be a corporation, or that shares of ownership somehow neglect to reflect the value of any member of the cooperative. I wouldn't expect the founder to hold an equal share to the janitor who was recently hired, however, as part owner, the janitor will arguably have greater incentive toward the overall success and profit of the organization than she would otherwise.

If you're not talking about profit sharing, equal ownership, or equal pay in regards to a co-op....then what are you talking about? What makes it a co-op?

 

[TheWhat?]

If you're not talking about profit sharing, equal ownership, or equal pay in regards to a co-op....then what are you talking about? What makes it a co-op?

I didn't say anything about equal ownership or equal pay, nor is that necessarily part of the definition of a cooperative. As it was noted earlier, America has cooperatives, e.g. credit unions. What we are apparently lacking, though, is an environment that encourages innovation and allows good ideas to gain traction.

 

[Ana the Ist]

I'm not a business major,

I'm not either, but I did take some economics in college, studied economic systems as a part of my degree....and I've begun retail investing this year...so I've read a few books on the topic recently.

but the models I studied are by-in-large European, and not from communist nations.

I only brought up communism because it shares the same problems as the type 3 category error from my little game theory breakdown of employee value vs pay.

Maybe not in America, it's definitely against the status quo here, although I think it can work for small businesses scaling upward.

The biggest successful co-op I've seen in Europe (and admittedly I haven't looked at many of them) was about 600-700 people and there was a couple of things I couldn't find information on like....

1. Attrition rates. To avoid low value employees the co-op had a really long "trial period" for new employees. I think it was 2-3 years. I'm curious what the attrition rate was because that's a rather long trial period and I imagine it's because of the tendency of low value employees to be hard to identify early on.

2. Company ownership. The articles I read about the co-op claimed that everyone owned equal shares of the company. It didn't really explain how that works though. I'd want to know if everyone's share shrank with every new employee (which makes that trial period even tougher) and how sales of shares are handled (assuming sales are allowed, and if not, what exactly does ownership mean in this co-op).

Was there a particular business you had in mind as a model? Or just a business model itself?

 

[stevil]

Single-payer medical is probably the most crucial issue for the public or politicians to decide in favor of freedom or socialism.

Single payer healthcare is not socialism.

Countries that have universal healthcare have cheaper and affordable healthcare.
USA's system is a mess because too many people are scared of universal healthcare due to irrational fears.

 

[TheWhat?]

I'm not either, but I did take some economics in college, studied economic systems as a part of my degree....and I've begun retail investing this year...so I've read a few books on the topic recently.



I only brought up communism because it shares the same problems as the type 3 category error from my little game theory breakdown of employee value vs pay.



The biggest successful co-op I've seen in Europe (and admittedly I haven't looked at many of them) was about 600-700 people and there was a couple of things I couldn't find information on like....

1. Attrition rates. To avoid low value employees the co-op had a really long "trial period" for new employees. I think it was 2-3 years. I'm curious what the attrition rate was because that's a rather long trial period and I imagine it's because of the tendency of low value employees to be hard to identify early on.

2. Company ownership. The articles I read about the co-op claimed that everyone owned equal shares of the company. It didn't really explain how that works though. I'd want to know if everyone's share shrank with every new employee (which makes that vcd trial period even tougher) and how sales of shares are handled (assuming sales are allowed, and if not, what exactly does ownership mean in this co-op).

Was there a particular business you had in mind as a model? Or just a business model itself?

Mondragon, a Spanish corporation, founded by a Catholic priest interestingly enough. It's quite a bit larger than 700 employees.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

Mondragon through a Critical Lens

 

[MorkandMindy]

Single-payer healthcare is not socialism.

Very true, though the UK system was designed with government-owned hospitals and government-paid medical staff, so with the means of 'production' collectively owned, I think it could be described as socialist, though entirely different from what many Americans think of as socialist (Stalinist).

Countries that have universal healthcare have cheaper and affordable healthcare.

Yes, all the varieties of universal healthcare included in the OECD studies are far more efficient.

Every one of the medical professionals I have met so far in the US medical 'system' has been doing an excellent job, but the system itself is an absolute horror show.