[Great Smell of Brut]

It seems to me Marxists seem to hang around academia or the like talking a lot but do very little that actually tangibly promotes their way of life.

If Jarxists 100 years ago had started workers co-ops and run them effeciently then they would control the means of production right now.

Capitalism took over from feudalism because it was more efficient. Capitalists made money DESPITE the feudalists trying to stop them. Surely a MArxst run co operative would give higher standards pf living to their workers if your theory is true so workers would abandon the capaitalist system and join coops

And yet these aren't happening, Marxists write books and go on demonstrations.

[fuser]

Marxism is not "way of life". What sort of utopian nonsense is this, your whole premise is wrong.

[Dagoth Ur]

Okay to start with your analogy is way off simply based on the fact that the bourgeoisie were making money for the aristocracy and this is why they were allowed to do business at all under feudalism. Socialism, as a system of production, has been under constant literal attack since the first attempt at implementation during the Paris Commune.

Furtermore communist co-ops, which are not how we do things anyways and is more a liberal hippy fetish in the vein of Tito's market socialism, cannot possibly compete if it were to pay its employees the full value of their labor, as well as pay their distributors the full value of their labor and that of their workers as well. Socialist production is a beginning-to-end affair and you cannot simply "Communize" a particular segment of it. Capitalism coudn't operate that way either hence the deposing of kings, regicide, and revolutions.

[pugsville]

Efficiency is a pretty nebulous and value laden concept. Efficient for who, efficient at what.

Co-operatives exists is today's economy at many levels

For Example in Software development tools like compilers tools, anarchistic freeware is now pretty much total dominate. Eevn massive capitalist companies like Microsoft and Apple support open source software (for tools ! platform is quite different !) and contribute paying their employees to develop open source tools to do their job better.

[Rejn]

Okay to start with your analogy is way off simply based on the fact that the bourgeoisie were making money for the aristocracy and this is why they were allowed to do business at all under feudalism. Socialism, as a system of production, has been under constant literal attack since the first attempt at implementation during the Paris Commune.

Furtermore communist co-ops, which are not how we do things anyways and is more a liberal hippy fetish in the vein of Tito's market socialism, cannot possibly compete if it were to pay its employees the full value of their labor, as well as pay their distributors the full value of their labor and that of their workers as well. Socialist production is a beginning-to-end affair and you cannot simply "Communize" a particular segment of it. Capitalism coudn't operate that way either hence the deposing of kings, regicide, and revolutions.

I barely know anything about communism, and most of my knowledge comes from anarchists who I've spoken to, but I thought that in co-ops you wouldn't even have money or a medium of exchange at all. You wouldn't pay your workers, but they would simply receive what they need/want if they ask and if it is available.

[Deutschmania]

Co-operative enterprises do exist, and function under capitalism, most notably the examples of the Mondragon Corporation, and Legacoop. The Marxist economist Richard Wolff has approvingly spoken of this development https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKbukSeZ29o, as has Michael Moore, in his documentary, "Capitalism a Love Story". But while Marxists have organized co-operatives, in such places as Italy, for instance http://dept.kent.edu/oeoc/oeoclibrary/emiliaromagnalong.htm, it is still no more than utopian socialism, and no substitute for political action, on behalf of the rights, and welfare of labor. So it's not about doing either one thing or another.

[slybaldguy]

The working class cannot sustain themselves without job creaters. They'd starve before they'd become self-employed.

[Ambroise]

The working class cannot sustain themselves without job creaters. They'd starve before they'd become self-employed.

Which is precisely why the working class should organize in order to take control of the means production so that they are no longer dependent on these 'job creators' for their livelihood, and instead can carry out the work that they feel is necessary all the while receiving the surplus value of their labour instead of having to hand it over to those benevolent job creators.

[Nunt]

Furtermore communist co-ops, which are not how we do things anyways and is more a liberal hippy fetish in the vein of Tito's market socialism, cannot possibly compete if it were to pay its employees the full value of their labor, as well as pay their distributors the full value of their labor and that of their workers as well. Socialist production is a beginning-to-end affair and you cannot simply "Communize" a particular segment of it. Capitalism coudn't operate that way either hence the deposing of kings, regicide, and revolutions.

Communist co-ops could pay their own employees the full value of their labor by redistributing profits amoung the employees. This seems to be an important first step and it will not harm their competitiveness. It's just a redistribution of funds within the organization. If many marxists start many such firms then an ever increasing share of the economy would consist out of firms paying their own workers full value. This will of course put the capitalist firms under pressure. Either pay your workers full value or your workers will leave for a communist coop. So you just need a certain percentage of communist coops to make the capitalist firms behave as if they were coops.

[Rejn]

Labour-price competition would only occur if there was a shortage of labour, and an oversupply of jobs.

Also, would all employees under a co-op as you describe have the same salary and receive the same distributions?

In my country, the public sector already has much better working and pay conditions than their equivalents in the private sector, but are companies worried about that? Not really.

[Rich]

Communist co-ops could pay their own employees the full value of their labor by redistributing profits amoung the employees. This seems to be an important first step and it will not harm their competitiveness. It's just a redistribution of funds within the organization. If many Marxists start many such firms then an ever increasing share of the economy would consist out of firms paying their own workers full value. This will of course put the capitalist firms under pressure. Either pay your workers full value or your workers will leave for a communist coop. So you just need a certain percentage of communist coops to make the capitalist firms behave as if they were coops.

Yes if communism worked as a generalised solution. It doesn't that's why Communist countries failed, on the whole and why co-operatives have failed to take over the so called free market west. Coops have their niches and good luck to them. I have a couple of software projects at the moment. One will be closed source, proprietary. The other will be a non profit open source.

Communism or socialism is not a complete fail though. Britain would never have been victorious in world war II without very large dose of socialism. Conscription is a form of socialism and an extreme one at that. Personally I'd rather pay an 80% marginal tax rate than be drafted to go and fight at the Somme. Libertarianism is just the demented mirror image of the Khmer Rouge. Life can be improved, it can be made "fairer" although that will always be highly subjective. But it can never be made perfect. In particular it can never be made perfectly fair or perfectly just.