Labor Day: Occupy Capitalism

Some years, I simply repost prior year columns and take the day (OK, so I take most days off). This year, however, I have something to post.

In the past year, I have been participating in the DC DSA Socialist Book Club. For the last few years, I have been reading more socialist literature, much of which I have reviewed on this blog, starting with Michael Harrington’s last labor of love, Socialism, Past and Future with three reviews waiting on my end table to write.

Harrington’s book was notable in pointing out that Social Democrats in Europe had profound success in socializing the gains of capitalism but had no idea how to move forward to owning and controlling the means of production. Likewise, book after book has prescriptions on what to do in the event that Socialists gain power, but most cannot move beyond the rather unsettling suggestion that the state own capital, albeit with cooperative control of the enterprise, which is never detailed, although Richard Wolff gets close.

It is both true and Marxist truism that how socialism is governed will be up to the workers themselves, however it is the job of the present to suggest some ideas, like how to distribute profit, whether the firm should be controlled by production workers or whether engingineers, sales, distribution and management gets a vote, whether we should practice warm body voting or share voting (it depends) and how managers, especially CEOs are selected and compensated.

That just starts the list, which also includes training doctors, growing food, housing, running an aerospace firm and international cooperative economics. Long time readers know that I have some ideas in this area, the latest being that the first step in Socialism is for workers to control the means of consumption. You can find them all at  http://bindneranalytics.blogspot.com/

Labor has not done well since I joined the labor force when Ronnie was president. Workers are doing even worse under King Donnie. Gutting the Department of Labor seems to be a right of passage for Republican presidents. Getting power is essential, but eight years of an administration friendly to our cause barely got our heads above water. There was no hope of laying the groudwork for Socialism, even when Speaker Pelosi held the gavel. There are simply too many Democrats in the pocket of Capitalists and that is not likely to change. The Greens are no laternative, since their fundraising is to anemic to ever gain a majority. I won’t even mention the weakness of the Socialist and Communist parties.

What shall we do (to paraphrase the famous questions in socialist cirles)? If we cannot win in politics (and we really cannot), then we must take over industry. If our ideas are not better when implemented in a modern company, then history has truly ended and there is no alternative (TINA). I am betting there is. We simply need customers. My recent reading shows that there are plenty of potential customers, from ESOPs to Cooperatives, who might find our ideas useful (some of them are undoubtedly in play in some firms). My experience is that many firms in this class are still run on hierarchical models with pay systems to match. There is plenty of room to grow. It is time for us to Occupy Capitalism, not by sitting it but by giving them a call and taking their money as consultants. If our ideas have merit, there will be more and more clients and our influence will grow, so much so that the leaders of these firms will fund our candidates (and may become them) and THEN we can enact the laws we need to encourage socialism through political means.