Barskor1 perhaps you didn’t watch the video?

Which country?

Hear Here !! Well said. Sounds like France or Italy or maybe Scotland or Ireland even Spain is suspect.

@@presa609 Almost like corruption is a problem.

It's not that the enterprise's profits are automatically split among the workers. The point is that the workers in a cooperative can democratically decide what to do with the profits. If they want a pension scheme for retirement, they can decide to apportion some of the profits to that. Mondragon, for instance, has its own insurance & social security service (Lagun-Aro) that provides pensions from the interest & principal from the workers' individual capital accounts that receive 20-40% of the enterprise's profits each year. workerco-operatives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/mondragon-system-for-pensions.html

***** Typical pensions, IRAs, etc. largely consist of publicly traded joint stock that seems to be scarce in a co-op economy. I wonder what other co-op assets are available to appreciate for personal retirement. Mondragon's solution seems good but it raises the need for answers when you work at a different enterprise at a different part of your life (keep several accounts? transfer? etc. and who handles those processes). Also it's a bit terrifying to have your entire well-being dependent on the continued success of a single business, especially after retirement when (I assume) you're no longer active in regular decision making there.

I work for an employee owned and directed company. Only workers own shares in the company. You receive shares based on a formula which takes into account your salary and your "time in place". We gain shares every year. If you no longer work for the company (retire, quit, get fired) - the company buys back your shares (you cash out). Our retained earnings and money management scheme reflect these practices. (BTW there are over 5000 employees). Some of the profit at the end of the year is paid out in dividends, some goes to a rainy day fund (so in lean years we still get a dividend and also so retiring shares can be repurchased), some is reinvested into plant and equipment and some is contributed to a worker's 401K fund (again based on the same type of formula as the dividends). We vote on all of this.

One more thin to consider. Society as a whole CAN not save production for retirement. You can not produce automobile today in order to use it 20 years in a future when you retire. At the end of the day, every year society need to redistribute what it produce this year to people who work and to people who can not by what ever reason, old age is one of them. The only question is how.

Pat Spray Your 401k is currently consuming publicly traded stocks. In a large scale switch to your companies' format, publicly traded stock is no longer available to the general labor force. That is the starting point for my question of what non-governmental, self-determinative system can replace its function in a co-op-anchored economy?

The same way we are protected from the state now. Socialism is an economic system - not a governmental one. You can have any kind or quality of government you want with socialism, because it is NOT all about state ownership. It's about collective ownership and control of economic activity. Socialists like the Bolsheviks (although Lenin didn't) interpreted that on the macro level - the collective was the whole of society, represented by the government - but that doesn't really empower the workers. You have to transform on the micro level - in each workplace the workers own and control the business.

If you read original work of socialist, including such famous like Lenin, you will see that there basic thinking in 18 century was that State, standing army and capitalism is linked together and inseparable. That revolution requite disbanding state, disbanding standing army and replace it with armed citizens ( that BTW where second amendment originally come from, it was socialists idea.). By Lenin idea it has to be replaced by dictatorship of proletariat democracy. That theory was created specific for Russia, where 95% population were peons and 5% was proletariat. Proletariat was organised in factory, disciplined force that need to be guided by Communist party and because it is already organised it will be force to do revolution. and he was right, his revolution was successful. And that what he did when he come to power. His first action was, disbanding army, surrender to Germany in WW1, Disbanding state. Give independence to all part of Russian empire. That how countries like Poland, Finland, Baltic countries come to be. What he did not realized that his idea will inevitable lead to totalitarian system. It did not help that West immediately invade Russia ( including US). Which forced to recreate state, army and KGB ( committee of government security). So, when west was defeated, Stalin found himself in control of state, which he used to suppress all discussion and opposition. Lenin die shortly, but in his last work he again was looking to create non government based production system. He was isolated and die from stroke shortly after. No one knows was it natural death or not.

I guess with a democratic political system (representative, direct...), where very importantly individuals are considered private citizens with individual liberties that a democratic state can't interfere with and has a duty to serve and protect, as the state and government and the state structure in a democarcy is there to serve the people.

Yes, and by contemporary socialist thinking that should be based on worker controlled enterprises (worker cooperatives) as an economic base, not state own enterprises. They can exist alongside with capitalists enterprises, to allow individual economical liberty, but not alongside corporations. And second condition is somewhat equal start in form of inheritance tax to over some amount. Basically so you can inheritance house you live in, but not capital. I simplify, but that is principle. State playing relatively small role and have to justify itself on any step. Basically secrets should not exist, all government dealing should be done in open, no secrets allowed.

@@Mutineer9 It's almost like we learned something from the failures of the soviet union.

timobrienwells I believe he covered that. The workers/owners of the co-operative workplace.

@@erichartman1659 so everyone makes decisions for everyone else and everyone has to agree with everything everyone decides?

@@garrethoien6666 what? Do you know what democracy is or what negotiation is?

@@erichartman1659 yes I do. And your answer is?

I think that creating more laws to control and restrict corporations instead of focusing on creating more laws to control people would help. I believe in free enterprise but I think that large corporations need more regulations and less tax breaks. It would be more of a mix of socialism and capitalism but it would only work if our democratic republic remains intact and people really paid attention to who they voted into congress so that those people actually represented the majority of the population. Unfortunately, this might not be possible because everyone is so focused on their own lives that they don't really research into those they vote for. Most voters are so influenced by media that they rarely investigate the issues on their own.

Capitalism and democracy are not only contradictions, but they are completely opposite from one another.

You can't have true Democracy without economic Democracy.

Also, I will add that what you described in your second post is not Socialism at all. You're talking about a Social Democracy, which is a "liberal" (by today's terms, not classical terms) form of Capitalism. That is, Capitalism with restrictions. Again, that's not a "mix" of socialism. Socialism is worker control of the means of production. As long as the means of production are still privately owned, it's not socialism, just another form of Capitalism.

Brett Leverett The consumers have the choice of where they spend their money and that is where the economic democracy comes in to capitalism. People can make or break a business based on where they spend. If people would become more aware of the consequences of how they applied their spending power, we wouldn't have these huge corporations ruining our economy. It's time to support honest businesses and allow them to flourish and boycott corruption. The problem is greed of the common man makes them buy based on what is convenient or cheap.

Capitalism will always trend towards consolidation.

In the US, people need to be told. Most of them don't know any better. They need this hammered into them.