To my eyes, cooperative companies are to capitalism what greener cars are to global warming : we can change how it works inside, but we won’t really solve the problem until we change how we use them.
Nice analogy. Just to be sure, with cooperative companies¨ in the quote you mean a SCOP, not a worker cooperative?
I agree with the OP that everyone worked hard but it sounds like the reward of profits is proportional to the risk taken by those who purchased more stock. I often wondered how does an anarchist work in this situation?
True, they invest more and take more risk. But are investment systems not a capitalistic feature and thus will be rejected by anarchists?
The risk isn’t zero so it’s obviously worth something but making that equitable across all stock holders in an anarchist system seems difficult if not impossible. I’d love to be educated here.
Why even have the principle of stocks? People have a contract at the company. You can calculate the profit sharing based on the ratio of contract hours + salary compared to the total.
Also, one argument in favor of a co-op is that the employees can prevent a buyout by other companies or investors. Why use a company structure that give employees all control for example via a worker cooperative
Yes, I was describing an ESOP (didn´t know the English term). Interesting last paragraph. Another complicating fact is that if the company already has an ESOP, changing that system is really hard.
I wanted to know the answer so I looked it up. The 650bn is paid by increasing the country defense spending. Each country is able to loan more only for the purpose of defense spending. But that 650bn has to come from somewhere so I assume that would mean cutting the cost else were (e.g. of social service). More info: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_25_790
For sure. Arm manufacturers are already lining up to fill their capitalistic pockets. In the meantime, their rare metals are extracted under bizarre conditions in former colonies or China.
But a local autocratic government feels more reachable to change. The EU actually costs you a lot of money - and true, we also earn money by trade and other collaborations so it is not all negative - but after we vote, it feels like things just continue as normal. They interfere in areas where they should make policy for and now they decide that we as EU should spend 800 billion on defense.
Good point. One of the actually valid reasons for the EU to exist, cooperate. Not like the current state where the is basically an unite states of Europe but rather bringing together the countries to work together but still respecting their sovereignty.
Fair point that more wapons dont solve the problem. Didnt think of that. But an easy counter argument will be that as long as others keep investing in weapons, we also need.
It is interesting to think about how to prevent neo imperialism forces taking your country. In the Netherlands even the middle-left parties agree to strengthen the EU. They all somehow want to show their voters they fight for their safety.
I must say that especially the EU and their decisions feel really far away and out of reach. They really don’t see (or don’t want to) see the long term consequences of their actions. A single country can’t make the difference in the EU.
Advice my parents to use outlook. They were using an ISP email service which we had to get rid of. I wasn’t sure if tutanota was ready for them yet and they already were a bit familiar with outlook. It was a bit of a trade off back then.
I have been raised with the phrase that voting a duty because a democratic system is not for granted and the rights to vote have been fought for. I live in the Netherlands and I don’t say it is perfect (far from) but we have a democratic, functional political system. It is moving to the right quickly but as long as I can vote I will. There is no anarchistic party of course but I at least use my vote to vote for left.
I think this is the general conclusion in the topic that it depends on the situation. Maybe at the moment, emotion will also alter your decision at the moment. I suppose I would indeed never accept service to attack another country, only to defend my own country/land.
Society is pretty individualistic (especially in cities). Communal action and investments require people to think not only in their own interest but also in other members of the community. I think that is the biggest mindset shift we first need to accomplish.
Another complicating factor in current society is money. If you motivated people to think about others, investing their own private money in a project like a communal garden which others will also use for free is another thing I think.