Semi-Socialist Corporations

Pozessed · Jan 14, 2016

Is there a way to offer people of an industry all the same wages if they are all trained and expected to do the same work? Toilet scrubbers to CEOs. They are all equally needed for a business to thrive IMO. A business can succeed without all its moving parts (such as toilet scrubbers), but it won't be doing as well as it could without them.
I don't know if there is any businesses that are operated in a similar manner. Nor do I know if I am using the right titles.

I don't like the idea of a socialist government because to my knowledge a dictator is usually pulling strings. Maybe the idea of a socialist corporation I could get behind because there would be more outside spectators to address whether or not a dictator or bad judgement are developing.

I am not trying to suggest placing laws for corporations to be more socialist. I am asking; Could some type of socialist corporations sustain themselves by selling services or goods and how they would these corporations need to be modeled?

dimensionallava · Jan 14, 2016

corporations can be difficult as a publicly traded corporation is subject to scrutiny from shareholders, and is bound by law to earn the most money possible. Corporations shouldn't exist at all, but if they do there should be a time limit. But a more socialist business however is possible, but you have to realize, what a person gets paid has little, to nothing, to do with how hard they work thats a myth, its the exact opposite, if you asked the ceo and toilet scrubber to take the same salary lets say $70,000 per year, then you asked the ceo if he would rather scrub toilets instead of doing his regular job he would refuse 1000x over lol

joG · Jan 14, 2016

Pozessed said:
Is there a way to offer people of an industry all the same wages if they are all trained and expected to do the same work? Toilet scrubbers to CEOs. They are all equally needed for a business to thrive IMO. A business can succeed without all its moving parts (such as toilet scrubbers), but it won't be doing as well as it could without them.
I don't know if there is any businesses that are operated in a similar manner. Nor do I know if I am using the right titles.

I don't like the idea of a socialist government because to my knowledge a dictator is usually pulling strings. Maybe the idea of a socialist corporation I could get behind because there would be more outside spectators to address whether or not a dictator or bad judgement are developing.

I am not trying to suggest placing laws for corporations to be more socialist. I am asking; Could some type of socialist corporations sustain themselves by selling services or goods and how they would these corporations need to be modeled?

This was attempted more or less in Europe. The union Companies I knew well in Germany generally performed badly, while some went down spectacularly. But it was not that they promoted toilet scrubbers to CEOs, though, that did happen. IT was more that the CEOs made decisions for political reasons and less for ones of business. Most have now passed away.

Where public companies seem to work to a certain extent is in the local banking sector. Sparkassen are owned by the communities. They do not do exceptionally well, but survive the political uses at the local level. The LAndesbanken, which are the State level public banks belonging to the Sparkassen and the State have done miserably and were well known for losses and corruption.

But I see no reason that the workers cannot install a coop structure. That has worked well for over a hundred years. It just is not well structured for expansion into national or international markets, where they seem to do badly.

Andalublue · Jan 14, 2016

Pozessed said:
Is there a way to offer people of an industry all the same wages if they are all trained and expected to do the same work? Toilet scrubbers to CEOs. They are all equally needed for a business to thrive IMO. A business can succeed without all its moving parts (such as toilet scrubbers), but it won't be doing as well as it could without them.
I don't know if there is any businesses that are operated in a similar manner. Nor do I know if I am using the right titles.

I don't like the idea of a socialist government because to my knowledge a dictator is usually pulling strings. Maybe the idea of a socialist corporation I could get behind because there would be more outside spectators to address whether or not a dictator or bad judgement are developing.

I am not trying to suggest placing laws for corporations to be more socialist. I am asking; Could some type of socialist corporations sustain themselves by selling services or goods and how they would these corporations need to be modeled?

Check this out. It's the leading light of cooperative business enterprise.

Mondragón Corporation

austrianecon · Jan 14, 2016

Andalublue said:
Check this out. It's the leading light of cooperative business enterprise.

Mondragón Corporation

Ah, yes the myth of Mondragon. They use cheap non-coop labor in South America. 20% of their workers are actually part-time and can be easily shed in bad times. Then you know bankruptcy issues.

No, model is perfect and never will be but Co-Ops and Semi-Socialist firms can't promise their bill of goods to it's workers in lean times.

Andalublue · Jan 15, 2016

austrianecon said:
Ah, yes the myth of Mondragon. They use cheap non-coop labor in South America. 20% of their workers are actually part-time and can be easily shed in bad times. Then you know bankruptcy issues.

No, model is perfect and never will be but Co-Ops and Semi-Socialist firms can't promise their bill of goods to it's workers in lean times.

There's nothing mythical about Mondragón. It's not perfect but it has been a successful enterprise for decades. I've no idea what the last sentence of your post means. What 'bill of goods'?

Harry Guerrilla · Jan 15, 2016

Pozessed said:
Is there a way to offer people of an industry all the same wages if they are all trained and expected to do the same work? Toilet scrubbers to CEOs. They are all equally needed for a business to thrive IMO. A business can succeed without all its moving parts (such as toilet scrubbers), but it won't be doing as well as it could without them.
I don't know if there is any businesses that are operated in a similar manner. Nor do I know if I am using the right titles.

I don't like the idea of a socialist government because to my knowledge a dictator is usually pulling strings. Maybe the idea of a socialist corporation I could get behind because there would be more outside spectators to address whether or not a dictator or bad judgement are developing.

I am not trying to suggest placing laws for corporations to be more socialist. I am asking; Could some type of socialist corporations sustain themselves by selling services or goods and how they would these corporations need to be modeled?

These sorta already exist, as Andy has pointed out.
Co-ops are kinda like that too.

Xerographica · Jan 15, 2016

Pozessed said:
I am not trying to suggest placing laws for corporations to be more socialist. I am asking; Could some type of socialist corporations sustain themselves by selling services or goods and how they would these corporations need to be modeled?

The Titanic was steered in the really wrong direction. What percentage of the people aboard the Titanic were responsible for steering it? I'm pretty sure that it was a really small percentage. Certainly small enough that we can easily think of the Titanic as a dictatorship. The problem with dictatorships, benevolent or otherwise, is that they completely ignore Linus's Law... "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow".

But what if the Titanic had been a democracy? Then everybody would have been able to vote on the ship's direction. Everybody would have had an equal say in deciding whether or not to avoid the iceberg.

There's a problem with giving everybody an equal say though. Imagine if you were on the Titanic and you were extremely certain that the Titanic would sink if it hit an iceberg. Despite being extremely certain... your influence on the ship's direction would have been exactly the same as the influence of somebody who had absolutely no opinion on the matter. Even if you were an expert on the matter of ships vs icebergs... even if you had written countless books on the topic... your say on the ship's direction would have been equal to the say of somebody who was entirely ignorant on the subject. Even if you were willing to bet your life that you were right... your influence on the ship's direction would have been equal to the influence of somebody who wouldn't even have been willing to bet a penny that they were right. This is the problem with the idea of "one person, one vote".

So if not dictatorships... or democracies... then... what? Then markets. Markets give people the opportunity to put their money where their information is.

Here's how my favorite living economist, Alex Tabarrok, put it...

Overall, I am for betting because I am against bull****. Bull**** is polluting our discourse and drowning the facts. A bet costs the bull****ter more than the non-bull****ter so the willingness to bet signals honest belief. A bet is a tax on bull****; and it is a just tax, tribute paid by the bull****ters to those with genuine knowledge.

If the Titanic had been a market, then people would have been able to use their bets/money to steer the ship. This wouldn't have guaranteed that the Titanic would have avoided the iceberg... but it would have guaranteed that the ship's direction reflected everybody's information weighted according to their confidence in it. Essentially... a much better informed decision would have been made. This would have greatly decreased the chance that the Titanic would have hit the iceberg.

The "minor" detail is that I'm not exactly sure how people on a ship or in a company could use their money to steer. Clearly employees can buy their company's stock if they are confident in their company's direction... and they can sell their stock if they aren't confident in their company's direction. But I'm not quite sure how they could use their money to help steer their company in the most valuable direction.

Let's say that we're employees of this forum. Somebody proposes that this forum display advertisements. Displaying advertisements would take this "company" in a different direction. How would we as employees use our cash to communicate our confidence-weighted information? How could individuals be rewarded for gambling on the right direction and punished for gambling on the wrong direction?

If you prefer theorizing using a real world example... "Traitorous eight".

Here's a relevant quote from Peter Thiel...

We are biased toward the democratic/republican side of the spectrum. That’s what we’re used to from civics classes. But the truth is that startups and founders lean toward the dictatorial side because that structure works better for startups. It is more tyrant than mob because it should be. In some sense, startups can’t be democracies because none are. None are because it doesn’t work. If you try to submit everything to voting processes when you’re trying to do something new, you end up with bad, lowest common denominator type results. — Peter Thiel, Girard in Silicon Valley

austrianecon · Jan 15, 2016

Andalublue said:
There's nothing mythical about Mondragón. It's not perfect but it has been a successful enterprise for decades. I've no idea what the last sentence of your post means. What 'bill of goods'?

The myth that Mondragón is a workers paradise and fair. It's successful because it's ABSOLUTELY no different then any firm that has shareholders. Mondragón operates just like any business. Mondragón firms will buy from China for material over it's own firms in Spain to boost profits which means they are bypassing the Co-Op model to make a profit. This depresses wages and profits for another firm within Mondragón.

Mondragón still doesn't offer owner-membership to it's firms outside of Spain. So you have roughly 30% of it's employees who are actually working for their Spanish shareholders. That's actually in violation of original Mondragón commitment when formed. Mondragón didn't even offer Eroski employees, worker-owners membership until 2009 and only 1/3rd of them actually took the offer. Roughly 26,000 employees at Eroski are not worker-owners.

When Fagor went bankrupt, only worker-owners got favored transfers to other firms. Non worker-owners got screwed.

Mondragón hiring practices are also HORRIBLE in Spain alone. They actually hire more males to blue-collar jobs and use women for temporary jobs. That's inequality.

Mondragón is a two-tier system. Those who buy into worker-ownership (shareholders) and those who are just workers.

I apologize. I though you were familiar with the American idiom, (Selling) a bill of goods. It means making promises that knowingly can't or won't be kept or simply put deceive the public.

Andalublue · Jan 15, 2016

austrianecon said:
The myth that Mondragón is a workers paradise

Since you're the only person who's making any such a claim, I think we'll treat that as the straw man fallacy that it is.

Econ4every1 · Jan 17, 2016

Xerographica said:
The Titanic was steered in the really wrong direction. What percentage of the people aboard the Titanic were responsible for steering it? I'm pretty sure that it was a really small percentage. Certainly small enough that we can easily think of the Titanic as a dictatorship. The problem with dictatorships, benevolent or otherwise, is that they completely ignore Linus's Law... "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow".

But what if the Titanic had been a democracy? Then everybody would have been able to vote on the ship's direction. Everybody would have had an equal say in deciding whether or not to avoid the iceberg.

There's a problem with giving everybody an equal say though. Imagine if you were on the Titanic and you were extremely certain that the Titanic would sink if it hit an iceberg. Despite being extremely certain... your influence on the ship's direction would have been exactly the same as the influence of somebody who had absolutely no opinion on the matter. Even if you were an expert on the matter of ships vs icebergs... even if you had written countless books on the topic... your say on the ship's direction would have been equal to the say of somebody who was entirely ignorant on the subject. Even if you were willing to bet your life that you were right... your influence on the ship's direction would have been equal to the influence of somebody who wouldn't even have been willing to bet a penny that they were right. This is the problem with the idea of "one person, one vote".

So if not dictatorships... or democracies... then... what? Then markets. Markets give people the opportunity to put their money where their information is.

Here's how my favorite living economist, Alex Tabarrok, put it...

If the Titanic had been a market, then people would have been able to use their bets/money to steer the ship. This wouldn't have guaranteed that the Titanic would have avoided the iceberg... but it would have guaranteed that the ship's direction reflected everybody's information weighted according to their confidence in it. Essentially... a much better informed decision would have been made. This would have greatly decreased the chance that the Titanic would have hit the iceberg.

The "minor" detail is that I'm not exactly sure how people on a ship or in a company could use their money to steer. Clearly employees can buy their company's stock if they are confident in their company's direction... and they can sell their stock if they aren't confident in their company's direction. But I'm not quite sure how they could use their money to help steer their company in the most valuable direction.

Let's say that we're employees of this forum. Somebody proposes that this forum display advertisements. Displaying advertisements would take this "company" in a different direction. How would we as employees use our cash to communicate our confidence-weighted information? How could individuals be rewarded for gambling on the right direction and punished for gambling on the wrong direction?

If you prefer theorizing using a real world example... "Traitorous eight".

Here's a relevant quote from Peter Thiel...

The problem with your theory is that different people value their money differently.

Let's say there was a billionaire on board of the Titanic, who thought more of his knowledge then he really possessed. Given his volume of money, what's $50K? But to the expert, who might be a teacher making a modest salary, he may be willing to bet his life, but not be willing or even capable of parting with more than a few hundred dollars. To make matters worse, many people who know the billionaire are offered certain favors if they use their money to vote in his favor or assume that given his money he could be an expert and follow his lead.

Yours is an interesting theory, but like most of the stuff you come up with it makes too many assumptions about the way the world is in order to get predictable results. It might have worked if each person was of equal knowledge, equal money and even valued their lives equally.

Mach · Jan 17, 2016

Pozessed said:
I am not trying to suggest placing laws for corporations to be more socialist. I am asking; Could some type of socialist corporations sustain themselves by selling services or goods and how they would these corporations need to be modeled?

Typically no.

You see, the funny thing about what you're asking is that all these socialists-liberal types earned their freedom to pursue such work models ages ago when people won you know, all those other freedoms back from governments. Revolution already happened, but it was better than "moar worker rights!", it was "a **** ton of rights and the kitchen sink and rights you never even thought you had".

But when faced with such OPPRESSIVE freedom, they balk. They were probably never really interested in the nonsense they spouted in the first place, it's just fun to armchair quarterback you know? I mean, if they were viable, it be going on. It's not to any significant degree, for a variety of reasons. Mostly though, they simply cannot compete. And they don't want to really. I mean, they are sipping sustainable hipster coffee while browsing a world wide network on an overpriced/underperforming mac, shifting their 401K into vanguard for lower fees, and thinking they are the bomb as they rail against wealth and what not. They finish, and go to their job, where they sure as **** demand a promotion over the toilet cleaner.

Given freedom, few people capable of being a successful, chief company executive, would stay at a job that paid as much as the uneducated, unskilled individual who cleaned the toilets. The *only* way you reasonable do that is to:
1. force them to
2. remove all other options forcibly, such that they have no choice

Sure, let's do that for the U.S. Everyone with a brain would go to another country where they so dumb right?

Pozessed · Jan 19, 2016

I just want to say thank you all. Your feedback has been much appreciated.

Lafayette · Jan 20, 2016

Pozessed said:
I don't like the idea of a socialist government because to my knowledge a dictator is usually pulling strings.

France has a socialist government. The president was duly elected by the French people.

Last time I looked, he was a hapless fool, but certainly not a dictator. With any luck, he will be "unelected" in next year's elections.

You might get you facts straight. Socialists are quite "ordinary people" and not possesed by some devil. They simply believe in Social Justice.

Try some. You'd like it. Especially if you live in the US ...

Lafayette · Jan 20, 2016

dimensionallava said:
and is bound by law to earn the most money possible

No such law exists. Companies make money because their owners (stockholders) want them to do so.

You should get a better handle on just what Socialism is. There are elected Social Democracies in Europe, but not in any one of them are the companies owned by the state.

Though, admittedly, there are more government provided services in these countries than in, say, the US. For instance, the National Health Service of any European country is run by the state. By doing so, the state is able to provide to all its people an affordable health-care service. Which was not at all the case in the US where, before ObamaCare, 16% of the population* had no Medical Care Insurance whatsoever. Still, after ObamaCare, the total health-bill in the US (per person) is about twice that of Europe.

The same is true for postsecondary education, which costs far, far less than in the US to the students. The tuition fee at any state-run college/university is about $1500 per year. (Room 'n board not included.)

It is in these two ways that principally European countries are more "socialist" than the US. That and the fact that there is, in all countries, a minimum-revenue for those who do not or cannot work. It simply allows them to survive but not as "moochers" since this minimum income is considered an obligation of the nation.

But, were you to ask a European if Europe was "socialist", they would likely correct you by employing the word "Social Democracies".

*Which means about 50 million people, or the combined populations of California and Illinois.

Thrilla · Jan 20, 2016

Pozessed said:
Is there a way to offer people of an industry all the same wages if they are all trained and expected to do the same work? Toilet scrubbers to CEOs. They are all equally needed for a business to thrive IMO. A business can succeed without all its moving parts (such as toilet scrubbers), but it won't be doing as well as it could without them.
I don't know if there is any businesses that are operated in a similar manner. Nor do I know if I am using the right titles.

I don't like the idea of a socialist government because to my knowledge a dictator is usually pulling strings. Maybe the idea of a socialist corporation I could get behind because there would be more outside spectators to address whether or not a dictator or bad judgement are developing.

I am not trying to suggest placing laws for corporations to be more socialist. I am asking; Could some type of socialist corporations sustain themselves by selling services or goods and how they would these corporations need to be modeled?

there's no such thing as a socialist corporation, or semi-socialist corporation.

Socialism denotes an economic/political system... not individual behavior of anyone or any one association ( such as a corporation)

however, Socialists favor business models that somewhat mirror their ideology.... such as co-ops, or government-owned industries. ( yet, ironically, they always end up selling their products/services in capitalist markets, and most, if not all, seek profits)

in any event, all businesses/corporations, operate, to one degree or another, with the view that all positions are important, from CEO to janitor.... .thought reality dictates that some positions/functions are more valued than others. ( a toilet scrubbers isn't as valuable as a CEO anywhere on earth....until the toilet backs up , anyways :lol

dimensionallava · Jan 20, 2016

Lafayette said:
No such law exists. Companies make money because their owners (stockholders) want them to do so.
.

a for-profit publicly traded corporation is legally obligated to earn the most money possible, atleast in America I don't know the laws in france but i doubt its different.

The provision in the law I am talking about is the one that says the purpose of the corporation is simply to make money for shareholders. Every jurisdiction where corporations operate has its own law of corporate governance. But remarkably, the corporate design contained in hundreds of corporate laws throughout the world is nearly identical. That design creates a governing body to manage the corporation--usually a board of directors--and dictates the duties of those directors. In short, the law creates corporate purpose. That purpose is to operate in the interests of shareholders. In Maine, where I live, this duty of directors is in Section 716 of the business corporation act, which reads:

...the directors and officers of a corporation shall exercise their powers and discharge their duties with a view to the interests of the corporation and of the shareholders....

Although the wording of this provision differs from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, its legal effect does not. This provision is the motive behind all corporate actions everywhere in the world. Distilled to its essence, it says that the people who run corporations have a legal duty to shareholders, and that duty is to make money. Failing this duty can leave directors and officers open to being sued by shareholders.

How Corporate Law Inhibits Social Responsibility | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community

also social democrats are not socialist whatsoever, they beleive in right wing corporatists economics, and all those left wing social programs that you listed are only accessible by french citizens, therefore you are rigidly enforcing a nationalistic social class, while exploiting 3rd world labor, and continually keeping your former colonies like algeria and haiti in debt.

social democracy is really just social fascism

“The Fascist system is a system of direct dictatorship, ideologically marked by the ‘national idea,’ and representation of the professions (in reality, representation of the various groups of the ruling class). It is a system that resorts to a peculiar form of social demagogy (anti-semitism, occasional sorties against usurers’ capital and gestures of impatience with parliamentarians ‘talking shop’) in order to utilise the discontent of the petty bourgeoisie, the intellectuals and other strata of society, and to corruption—the creation of a compact and well paid hierarchy of Fascist units, a party apparatus and a bureaucracy. At the same time, Fascism strives to permeate the working class by recruiting the most backward strata of workers to its ranks, by playing upon their discontent, by taking advantage of the inaction of Social-Democracy, etc. The principal aim of Fascism is to destroy the revolutionary Labour vanguard—i.e., the Communist sections, and leading units of the proletariat. The combination of Social-Democracy, corruption and active white terror, in conjunction with extreme imperialist aggression in the sphere of foreign politics, are the characteristic features of Fascism. In periods of acute crisis for the bourgeoisie, Fascism resorts to anti-capitalist phraseology, but after it has established itself at the helm of State, it casts aside its anti-capitalist rattle and discloses itself as a terrorist dictatorship of big capital.”

https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/6th-congress/index.htm

TheDemSocialist · Jan 20, 2016

austrianecon said:
The myth that Mondragón is a workers paradise and fair..

rof
No one called it a worker paradise.. Simply pointed out that Fagor was worker owned and operated and is part of the corporation known as Mondragon in which all of its federations and worker cooperatives are worker owned and operated... What you forget to mention that Mondragon is a corporation and federation of worker cooperatives of 260 entities... http://www.mondragon-corporation.com/nuestros-negocios/nuestras-empresas/ 1 of 260 worker cooperatives declared bankruptcy in one of the worst global economic meltdowns of all time... .I guess not to shabby :shrug:

Andalublue said:
Since you're the only person who's making any such a claim, I think we'll treat that as the straw man fallacy that it is.

I never understood why many staunch ant-socialists rely on the petty attack that socialists believe socialism will be perfect, or fairy dusty and pixies where nothing ever goes wrong economically, or socially....

dimensionallava · Jan 20, 2016

TheDemSocialist said:
I never understood why many staunch ant-socialists rely on the petty attack that socialists believe socialism will be perfect, or fairy dusty and pixies where nothing ever goes wrong economically, or socially....

your the dem socialist, therefore your a Utopian fetishist.......

Eric7216 · Jan 20, 2016

dimensionallava said:
corporations can be difficult as a publicly traded corporation is subject to scrutiny from shareholders, and is bound by law to earn the most money possible. Corporations shouldn't exist at all, but if they do there should be a time limit. But a more socialist business however is possible, but you have to realize, what a person gets paid has little, to nothing, to do with how hard they work thats a myth, its the exact opposite, if you asked the ceo and toilet scrubber to take the same salary lets say $70,000 per year, then you asked the ceo if he would rather scrub toilets instead of doing his regular job he would refuse 1000x over lol

Corporations are not bond by law to earn the most money possible. It would be illogical to have such a law with so many complex interactions between short term and long term needs and the needs of corporations to maintain a certain image. Many investors invest in companies are meet objectives other than maximal profits.

austrianecon · Jan 21, 2016

TheDemSocialist said:
rof
No one called it a worker paradise.. Simply pointed out that Fagor was worker owned and operated and is part of the corporation known as Mondragon in which all of its federations and worker cooperatives are worker owned and operated... What you forget to mention that Mondragon is a corporation and federation of worker cooperatives of 260 entities... Empresas y cooperativas | MONDRAGON Corporation 1 of 260 worker cooperatives declared bankruptcy in one of the worst global economic meltdowns of all time... .I guess not to shabby :shrug:

At the time Fagor went under Mondragon had 110 entities.

1) When you point out a company (Mondragon) as an example of "workers rights", it's flat out saying it's a paradise.

2) Fagor a was Mondragon anchor company (in fact it was the first member of Mondragon). Fagor was largest consumer appliance company in Spain and the fifth largest electrical appliance company in Europe. It's equivalent to KitchenAid (Whirlpool) or Monogram (GE). It wasn't a small deal. It was actually huge.

3) Worker-Owners (shareholders) at the other entities (only 3 had voting rights on the issue and they were, Eroski, Caja Laboral and Orona) voted to let Fagor go bankrupt and sell off Fagor. Worker-Owners (shareholders) said no to 170m euro life line (which had support of the Spanish and Basque Government).

So you understand what that means, that means worker-owners (shareholders) at the those entities chose PROFIT over keeping Fagor open and Fagor's brands and plants were sold to Algerian, German and CNA Group (US) firms. This forced Fagor to talk with Hedge Funds in the US for capital.. so a Co-Op was seeking Capitalist financing. A second plan was voted down by Eroski, Caja Laboral and Orona and that plan included spinning off Fagor. Yet some of these firms for years were carried by Fagor when Fagor profits were shared with them (kept them open).

That's a big deal. A firm of co-ops that say they are for the worker blinked and went for profit and did what every human in the world does.. Mondragon (those 3 I listed who vetoed a life line) went for profit which is anti-socialist and anti-co-op.

TheDemSocialist said:
I never understood why many staunch ant-socialists rely on the petty attack that socialists believe socialism will be perfect, or fairy dusty and pixies where nothing ever goes wrong economically, or socially....

I am anti-socialist because at the end of the day.. humans are greedy. We will always seek to what will profit us. No co-op or Government boot will change that. Government officials will live in luxury and workers will sell out their fellow workers for their own gain (as we saw will Fagor).

But here are a couple of links to read about what Mondragon is really like.

It's worker issue.

Labor issues.

Lafayette · Jan 21, 2016

THE RICH GET RICHER IN AMERICA

Mach said:
Given freedom, few people capable of being a successful, chief company executive, would stay at a job that paid as much as the uneducated, unskilled individual who cleaned the toilets

You apparently are stuck in the notion of a socialism that has long since been repudiated by communist countries, and all of Europe as well.

The idea of socialism has advanced to that of a Social Democracy. In such a system, tripartite governance (Legislative, Executive and Judicial) try to ensure that the total revenue generated is not "equally distributed in the economy" but "equitably distributed".

This leads to an economic system that is fairer for all who participate in it. And, most importantly, it avoids the Income Disparity that is rampant in the US, where nearly half the Total Revenue goes to just 10% of the population. See that fact disturbingly evidenced in this chart (resulting from the research of Thomas Piketty): History Top 10Percent Pre-Tax Income Share – Europe and US. (Note how Income Share rises drastically after 1980 to almost half of the total today that is possessed by only 10% of American households*!)

We Yanks can debate philosophically the various political systems around the planet, but when it comes to the nitty-gritty of "who gets what", we are compelled to face facts. Such as this one: The rich get richer in America and the poor get poorer. Because the income-tax on upper-revenues WERE DRASTICALLY REDUCED during the Reagan administration of the 1980s.

See that sad fact portrayed here: History of US income tax-rate levels.

The Income Disparity plaguing American today is a direct result of the drastic reduction historically in upper-income taxation portrayed in the above link. And the best way to correct that evil is TWO6FOLD/
1) Return upper-income taxation to above the 90% level (with No Deductions) as it was before LBJ (of all people!) started tinkering with it to impress his Texan oil-friends, and
2) Develop further social investments in helping the poor out of their misery by funding educational programs that allow them - free, gratis and for nothing - to obtain the work credentials so necessary in today's economy.

Is that asking for so much? Methinks not ...

*And who are these "10Percenters"? They start at the income level of a household around $150K yearly. Which is most often two income earners at $75K each!

Lafayette · Jan 21, 2016

Pozessed said:
I am not trying to suggest placing laws for corporations to be more socialist. I am asking; Could some type of socialist corporations sustain themselves by selling services or goods and how they would these corporations need to be modeled?

You must understand that we live, in America, in a market-economy. Which means that we both produce and consume Goods&Services. So, on the one hand as producers we want a fair salary, and as consumers we desire fair prices.

The entire market-economy revolves around this singularity: How do we have fairness on both sides of the equation. That is, how do companies participate competitively in order to produces Goods/Services at fair prices? And how do those who work organize themselves to obtain a fair salary for the Goods/Services they produce?

There have been numerous trials and errors. The most spectacular of the latter being Communism, which tried to own all the means of production and distribute Goods/Serivces "fairly". To do so, they upset the market-economy mechanism based upon Supply & Demand. It is this mechanism, when well administered, that produces fairness on both sides. That is, fair profits and fair prices for Goods/Services.

America has seen recently half a century of Market Consolidation. Whazat? Well, it's is best demonstrated in those markets where there is a consolidation of production by means of buyouts. Just look at the automotive industry that has been reduced to three national companies and a handful of foreign suppliers. Or the computer industry, sparked by IBM that is no longer a dominant supplier of Information Technology, but a supplier of IT-services.

When markets consolidate to leave only a "cozy collection" of suppliers, then sticky-pricing occurs; which means that consumers have less price choice. Moreover, when working in such markets, people have far fewer chances of changing jobs that might improve thier income.

What does it all mean? This: We have given, in America, far too much latitude to companies in certain markets to do as they damn well please. That has too stop, and the idiocies like "Revolving Doors in DC" that permit the market overseers (agency regulators) to find a job at the companies they once oversaw must end. As well as companies implicity collaborating to maintain "sticky-pricing" at levels that avoid real competition and allow "guaranteed" market-revenues.

I could go on, but those are the main principles of a dynamic Market Oversight Regulation that promotes Product Innovation and Sufficient Competition to assure no market dominance of one or just a few companies. (The worst example being Health Care, where insurance companies are complicit with professionals administering care-services that have assured guranteed high-incomes and also skyrocketing costs. We have a health-care system that is the most expensive of any developed country on earth.)

A Social Democracy is one in which elected officials are more concerned primarily with the well-being of the constituents who elected them and not uniquely business interests. Somewhere along the way, over the past half century, we got lost and the result is the Excessive Unfairness of our present market-economy ...

Lafayette · Jan 21, 2016

dimensionallava said:
a for-profit publicly traded corporation is legally obligated to earn the most money possible, atleast in America I don't know the laws in france but i doubt its different. ]

No, it is not obligated by law to make a profit. (And if it is, please do show me the statutes.)

It is the value-price of its shares that oblige it to make a profit.

Lafayette · Jan 21, 2016

austrianecon said:
I am anti-socialist because at the end of the day.. humans are greedy. We will always seek to what will profit us.]

Speak for yourself.

I live in a country decidely more Center-left than either the US or Australia. The "Socialists" here have done a great deal of wrong in trying to pass laws that "protect the worker". And what good is that if the jobs leave for points east on the European continent? (France has not had an unemployment rate below 7% since Francois Mitterand in the 1990s - that's a quarter of a century ago!)

The European Socialists must understand that the law cannot guaranty outcomes. Regulating markets can only curb excessive zeal but only rarely assures fairness.

And yet, that is EXACTLY the problem that occured in the US, when Reckless Ronnie lowered precipitously upper-income taxation in the 1980s, which sprung the Income Disparity that has incarcerated 15% of the American population under the Poverty Threshold level of income.

Nonetheless, France is by far a more fair and equitable place to live and work than is the US ...

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