Here is a short introduction to the core argument against capitalism based on liberal principles: https://www.ellerman.org/inalienable-rights-part-i-the-basic-argument/

@socialism

I’ll write one. The talk argues that employment contract is invalid due to inalienable rights. Inalienable means can’t be given up even with consent. Workers’ inalienable rights are rooted in their joint de facto responsibility in the firm for using up inputs to produce outputs. By the norm that legal and de facto responsibility should match, workers should get the corresponding legal responsibility, but in employment, workers as employees get 0% while employer gets 100% of results of production

Who defines permitted contracts in a free market? Some right libertarians suggest that “free” markets include the “freedom” to sell labor by the lifetime or sell voting rights in the state.

“The comparable question about an individual is whether a free system will allow him to sell himself into slavery. I believe that it would.” – Robert Nozick

The theory that invalidates such contracts is the theory of inalienable rights. It has recently been shown to apply to capitalist employment

@memes

"We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor.” – Abraham Lincoln

This quote captures the differing understandings and notions of liberty between these different political groups

@linux

If you emphasize giving workers what they literally produce instead of its value, the contrast is even greater. With value, you are still emphasizing the pie metaphor, which capitalist economists invented to obfuscate the real issues. In terms of property rights to the produced outputs and liabilities for the used-up inputs, workers qua employees get 0% while employers qua employer get 100%. In the property theoretic terms, workers don’t get the fruits of their labor at all
@humanities

A moneyless society that scales up to billions of people is unlikely to be possible

Postcapitalist alternatives that use currency to facilitate trade between actors without social ties seem much more plausible
@asklemmy

This would be joint self-employment as in a worker coop

@asklemmy

I would argue that all employment contracts are terrible due to their violation of the principle that legal and de facto responsibility should match. De facto responsibility is de facto non-transferable, so there is no way for legal and de facto responsibility to match in an employment contract. Instead, workers should always be individually or jointly self-employed as in a worker coop

@asklemmy

I made a post in this community of a moral argument for mandating employee-owned companies. It isn’t based on a gut feeling. It is based on the theory of inalienable rights. Here is a link to that post:

https://lemmy.world/post/17963706

@general

Can you give an example in the case where investors hold non-voting preferred shares?

I’m not sure how cross posting works from Mastodon to Lemmy. I thought I had to do that to get boosted by the group

The employer-employee contract

It violates the theory of inalienable rights that implied the abolition of constitutional autocracy, coverture marriage, and voluntary self-sale contracts.

Inalienable means something that can’t be transferred even with consent. In case of labor, the workers are jointly de facto responsible for production, so by the usual norm that legal and de facto responsibility should match, they should get the legal responsibility i.e. the fruits of their labor

@asklemmy

Why do investors defeat the whole purpose? @general

Not quite. Voting rights over firm governance are non-transferable/inalienable. The employer-employee contract is abolished, and everyone is always individually or jointly self-employed.

Incorporating social objectives should be done at the level of associations of worker coops

@general

While many socialists supported worker coops in the interim, an economy of exclusively worker coops comes more so from the classical laborists such as Proudhon.

@general

Intellectually honest people that for whatever reason started out on the center-right can be convinced to support worker coops. The arguments in favor of them are personal responsibility arguments that center-right people tend to favor. I actually posted one such moral argument for worker coops in this community. Here is a link to that post:

https://lemmy.world/post/17963706

I agree that it is not capitalism as it abolishes the employer-employee contract, but it isn’t quite socialism either because it is technically compatible with private property.

In terms of expanding the worker coop sector, I actually have some ideas for getting startup funding for worker coops, and creating economic entities that would buy up capitalist firms and convert them into worker coops

@general

There are 2 risk reduction strategies commitment-based and diversification based. The diversification-based strategy is the usual spread your eggs across many baskets strategy, but there is also a commitment-based dual strategy where you put your eggs in a few baskets and watch over them carefully.

Workers in coops can share risks with investors with non-voting preferred shares and other financial instruments. They can diversify by investing in other worker coops non-voting shares

@general

There would still be limited liability. Furthermore, they can share risks with investors, and self-insure against risk as well @general

The ideology is often implicit in how the model is explained. For example, 2 simple facts that go unmentioned.

1. Only persons can be responsible for anything. Things, no matter how causally efficacious, can’t be responsible for what is done with them
2. The employer receives 100% of the property rights for the produced outputs and liabilities for the used-up inputs. The workers qua employees get 0% legal claim on that. This fact is obfuscated using the pie metaphor

@science_memes

I would recommend checking out David Ellerman. He shows that workers get 0% the property rights to what they produce positive and negative violating the principle that legal and de facto responsibility should match @sciencememes