From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sat Nov 02 2002 - 22:56:11 MST
Mike writes
> > "Worker control of the means of production" means, basically,
> > that when the enterprise makes a profit, the workers share in
> > it. Nothing more, nothing less. If you worked for a dot com
> > and had stock options, you were participating in a socialist scheme.
>
> No, because ONLY a dot com where ALL stock is owned ONLY by employees,
> and their ownership is entirely in proportion to their contribution to
> the company, minus salary and benefits used for living expenses or
> otherwise taken out of the enterprise.
>
> The percent of employee stock ownership among most dot coms, outside of
> generally a handful of founders in each case (or less), tends toward
> the single digits.
>
> Of course, we could assume that [some] are making a statement of fact that
> is accepted in the socialist community. In which case, I would point
> out that a majority of Microsoft is owned by its employees (if you
> count Bill Gates, Paul Allen, and other founding management as
> employees). In which case I find it strangely odd that those on the
> left, especially those tending toward socialistic policies, also tend
> to be those who are the most vehemently hateful of Microsoft. Shouldn't
> we blame the evils of Microsoft on socialism?
Well, it wouldn't be the first time that an enormous Socialist monolith
oppressed the masses ;-)
> > The headache of socialism is that the term has been used to
> > cover a wide range of sins -- including the communist program,
> > which went far beyond worker participation in ownership, and
> > including a number of failed, dictatorial attempts to enforce
> > joint ownership by effectively ensuring that nobody had a
> > stake in anything.
>
> That is the essential character of communal ownership. That which is
> owned by all is owned by none. The ills of the tragedy of the commons
> strikes any attempt at socialist solutions or alternatives to pure free
> markets.
It's not difficult to imagine people, however, who could
pull off a socialist utopia. That's the whole problem;
while such people are easy to imagine---all one need do
is consult one's own feelings in moments of magnanimity
---such people don't really exist, or don't in natural
human populations in any numbers.
What all societies, communist, fascist, democratic, etc.,
do recognize is the primacy of rule of law. Or rather,
I should say, what passes for rule of law. (Obviously
laws to not apply to congress-people the way that they
do to the rest of us, nor even more fragrantly did they
in other historical epochs.) *Order* is what is supplied
in all manageable societies, and this is the deep point
unappreciated by many socialists. The order will come
down from above in any case, and it's illusory to think
that in any system the good intentions of those in power
will be very strong.
Lee
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