Noam Chomsky on Worker Ownership and Markets

[@Ko-vb9mq]

What Noam neglected to mention, was that cooperatives are some of the most conscious and proactive businesses when it comes to decreasing externalities; not just through their internal models, but also through their international solidarity and sense of social responsibility. Even for many profit-making cooperatives, profits are not the bottom line.

[@jonnymahony9402]

Mercurious Magus nice satirical comment

[@ousarlxsfjsbvbg8588]

Jonny Mahony please explain

[@nathansharp5743]

I feel a lot more energy from activists should be focused into forming cooperatives

[@jaredhenning5663]

I am game! I have been wanting to form a worker coop for a while!

[@sdprz7893]

Trying to do this

[@2FadeMusic]

@@sdprz7893 I’ll work there!

[@naveed210]

@@jaredhenning5663 could you explain what’s meant by a coop in this context?

[@needlessoptions]

@Frog King Okay so we should never try to limit the externalities even if they have immense negative side effects on society, individuals and the literal future of the species and all other species as well as the planet itself? You realise we could have some economic system that limits most of these externalities, right? It's like saying "well crime is going to happen anyway so I guess we should not have police".

[@cheydinal5401]

You can still have a competitive market between collectives, that's tbe way it should be.

[@kentallard8852]

Even so a market is simply a method of exchange and not necessarily a good one. The market gives you the choice between a Ford or a Toyota - it does not give you a choice between driving and catching public transportation which might be cheaper and more efficient and better for the environment but requires an enormous capital investment that has a very long return on investment time. Being worker co-ops would not change that. That is something that requires public investment and development.

[@alexshih3747]

Honestly I'm not sure about that. It's no doubt better than what we have now, but it still replaces the natural human impulse to collaborate with dog-eat-dog competition. And the profit motive is still there, so energy companies are still encouraged to pollute and farmers are incentivized to throw away fresh produce even when people are starving.

[@Ronology_]

@@alexshih3747 the "nature of dog-eat-dog" competition is only inherent to the capitalist system.

[@mornnb]

That's all a corporation is... and the current system allows worker owned cooperatives and investor owned collectives to co-exist and compete. As a libertarian I think the problem is not with the economic system, but rather government power and corruption.

[@mornnb]

@@alexshih3747 You don't need to remove the profit motives and it's many benefits in order to fix the problem of externalities. Instead you can develop systems that include externalities on balance sheets, natural capitalism is an example. kzbin.info/www/bejne/eaKaiqFrpbp9aaM

[@gordonbradley199]

management's manage for the benefit of managers ! nobody else !

[@gordonbradley199]

***** That's what the law says. But that's not the way it works.

[@gordonbradley199]

+Jay Webb when has a board of directors ever been fired by shareholders ? when have insane salaries and bonuses ever been restrained by shareholders ?

[@kentallard8852]

There are actually quite a few worker owned supermarket chains in the USA, they're fairly passive as far as managing their workplace goes. One of them Publix has 193,000 workers - double Mondragon.

[@jeremyleonbarlow]

KentAllard but it is not a cooperative. It is not one worker one vote.

[@Wisdomseeker1028]

This guys voice literally makes me fall asleep... i knocked out listening to him on the bus home from work

[@TheAnthraxBiology]

Laura Flanders is a great interviewer

[@NoJersey]

Co-ops and ESOPs are more worker centric than any corp with ESG initiatives.

[@lorenzomcnally6629]

ESG is a corporate RIPP off. Strip mines in Africa Trees planted in Siberia. $ Billions in taxpayer SubSidized profits Benefits to mankind ...ZERO.

[@VeganSemihCyprus33]

Resource based economy Noam! :)

[@primeroyal7434]

Not a fan of the market, regardless of capitalism nor socialism. But I guess coops could enable our progress towards a socialist society. Socialist Chile wanted to implement automation-driven planned economy, but the CIA destroyed that and replaced it with a fascist regime. Read "Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende's Chile". I think that with our more advanced technology, we can plan our economies with more efficiency. It worked in Cold-War-era Chille, it will work better now.

[@funsahara]

Lats point very poignant: 6:25 using military to oppress communities.. hmmmm

[@LSUtiger607]

Who better to design a better economic system for humanity than a linguist?

[@DJ-bj8ku]

The so-called capitalists haven’t done any better.

[@JuanMercado91]

In order to study language a linguist studies many dimensions of humans and their relations to themselves, each other, and the world such studying social structures, culture, the environment, not to mention cognition, psychology, and biology. So it would actually make sense for a linguist to have serious thoughts on how humans should organize themselves.

[@nobodyanon7893]

❤️🇵🇹❤️

[@hiimnewt]

Somebody show this to @destiny

[@GazaFloatilla]

Management is inevitable, even in the sense that N. talks with authority

[@kentallard8852]

So you elect from your ranks the person that is best suited to oversee a work. Its not a permanent position, they don't forego their day to day tasks, and major decisions are subject to votes.

[@jeremyleonbarlow]

KentAllard why elect? That is old thinking and it does not get everyone to put forward their best thoughts and their best effort. Have management by a board that requires the consent of the majority to act, BUT chose that board the way jurors are chosen, by sortition, for short terms, say six months, and preclude anyone from a second term until every member of a unit has held a seat on the board. That board should be like a school board or at least a school board in New York. They can propose a budget or rules or a plan of action, but the voters, ie the workers must approve it first before it can be implemented. This forces people from their comfort zones. Of course all members have the privilege of the floor, but like jury duty no one should want the responsibility of management. That is how you make everyone put their best ideas into the mix. That is how you have management, but eliminate managers.

[@erniereyes1994]

2:00 this is a moral concern (and a convoluted one at that) than an intellectual argument against a market system, which Chomsky is painfully, painfully ignorant on. I like Chomsky, but through his stoic and calm demeanor, I find that he tries desperately to find an intellectual counterpart to free market system but can't. His argument that the US became rich off the slave enterprise (which he was essentially copying and pasting Marx's argument) is also painfully flawed. Worker cooperatives, for one, seem like they would work better in a world where government is centrally limited, regulations and taxes on businesses are pulled back, and minimum wage requirements are abolished (just like in Denmark). And it seems that worker cooperatives work best when workers have the same mindset, goals, and work ethic and collaborate in a equal partnership. If that works, great! But something that a lot of worker cooperative advocates don't realize is some people don't want all that responsibility; they're fine to just clock in, work, clock out, and make a steady check. If ALL states did this, this will almost guarantee a communism, which will in effect lead to an authoritarianism, followed by a revolution... or an economic collapse, revolution, and striving to a capitalistic economy. 🤷‍♂️

[@pizaclatonddd3081]

You know there is a Free Market Socialism the only difference is Socializing the responsibility of the workers and in turn, the profits the voting system from the beginning of the business cycle will determine the coop's econ goals and yes if the coop dies it will be the fault of the whole as it should be and the people who don't want responsibility is not gonna be fit for the job in the first place the main argument against socialism most of the time is workers won't have the incentive to work. This is that incentive the capacity to choose what the goal will be and work towards that goal as any other company.

[@erniereyes1994]

@@pizaclatonddd3081 that's still primarily a market system with community effort. It should also be left up to individual businesses: if a community of people want to start a business, that's fine: if a single person or two want to start a business, that's also fine. I'm against the idea that all businesses should follow one model of conduct. The former also just feels better because it destroys the illusion of hierarchies.

[@jahermos]

The US didn’t become rich partly because of slavery???

[@sub-harmonik]

egoists btfo

[@Cd5ssmffan]

ah the anarcho egoist existentialist meme.

[@fearlessway]

I love Chomsky in some areas, but he has no understanding of people and how a large group of people work without a manager.

[@michaelmappin1830]

It's not that large socially owned corporations don't have managers. They do. The difference is the workers get to decide who the managers are and how much they get paid. It's like the members of a symphony orchestra hiring a conductor. The conductor can how bleed, but he's not a dictator. For example, consider the Cooperative in Spain where over a hundred thousand workers on their own bank, means of production, excetera excetera

[@rikwithsilentp]

First comment!

[@andariel125]

+rikki young fowkes We are very proud of you.

[@ctrtcfog]

In a video like this, that might actually mean something.

[@Majestros]

What is the point of working my ass off and investing my life saving to get my business off the ground if my workers which I have hired for an agreed wage can just take over it?

[@bobbysworld281995]

Do you want to exploit your workers? Because that's what stops you from exploiting workers.

[@Majestros]

@@bobbysworld281995 What is your definition of exploitation? That can be quite a vague description

[@godsfool5284]

⁠@@Majestrosif you build a lemonade stand and hire someone to run it, you’ve basically stopped producing value. Maybe you still make some decisions and guide the employee, but that shouldn’t be worth incredibly more than the work of the one running the stand 8hrs a day. The only reason owners and higher ups are paid so much more is because they hold the power. Their pay does not reflect the actual value they bring into the world.

[@Majestros]

@@godsfool5284 You said a whole bunch of word without saying anything

[@godsfool5284]

@@Majestros what makes you say that?

[@basedlibertarianz910]

2:00 What this person doesnt understand is that in Capitalism, both parties benifit from volunatary transaction. More congestion is such a petty side effect. It really doesn;t make a difference anyways. 2:40 Financial crisis may seem bad, the economy always bounces back every time. Also with capitalism, if you waste money, you lose it. With socialism, a govt agency running out of money gets given a higher budget. Look at HS2 in the UK. Worker managament does not realy work. Trainees are stupid and inexperienced. Executives and senior are qualified. Means of produciton being owned by the workers means ; No creation unless govt spends money on it, no profit to go towards reinvesting towards bigger business growth. And less jobs created as, more workers = more division of profits.

[@MrThatguy333]

"What this person doesnt understand is that in Capitalism, both parties benifit from volunatary transaction. More congestion is such a petty side effect. It really doesn;t make a difference anyways." Thats not Capitalism thats Markets which are not the same thing. Also you should look into what worker co-ops are doing in the real world. "Worker managament does not realy work. Trainees are stupid and inexperienced. Executives and senior are qualified. Means of produciton being owned by the workers means ; No creation unless govt spends money on it, no profit to go towards reinvesting towards bigger business growth. And less jobs created as, more workers = more division of profits." because what you said here just isn't what happens in the real world.

[@basedlibertarianz910]

@@MrThatguy333 The only way you can get paid $20 an hour is if you produce more than $20 an hour.

[@MrThatguy333]

@@basedlibertarianz910 true. Your point?

[@basedlibertarianz910]

@@MrThatguy333 Profits divided, The 207th worker may even have a diminishing impact compared to the first 100 workers. If the new worker is to recieve $20 an hour, if may be debateable if everyone else is better off not emplying him.

[@MrThatguy333]

@@basedlibertarianz910 that's how all businesses work but instead of investing all profits back into the company or workers they instead give a dividend to share holders. This is why you should look up worker co-ops they exist in the real world there is no need to do this theory crafting on how they would work. We know how they work. Edit: why would a company hire someone that isn't going to produce the labor equal or greater than their own pay? Your scenario doesn't make sense wither it's a worker co-op or a standard corporation.

[@mitchie2267]

Chomskyite drivel. What does "workers ownership" even mean. Does a worker "own" a co-op when every decision they make is beholden to the logic of marketisation and capital. Think dialectically.

[@ATIWatchReviews]

if you watch the vid, hes critical of markets and says worker ownership is only one small step. He's well aware of the problems with markets...

[@mitchie2267]

@@ATIWatchReviews I've watched and read Chomsky for over a decade now. I've dismissed him, putting him in the same Anglo-empiricist trash can as Russell, Popper etc.