Democracy at work

What Hacker News says

1. bitwizeOct 2022
   Name the fucking enemy. Starts with a 'C' and ends in 'apitalism'.

   Read Richard Wolff's Democracy at Work. This is the way.

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2. ahelwerJun 2022
   One of the best books I read over the past few years was Democracy at Work by Wolff. I'm in my 30s now and have some real savings from working during my 20s, enough that I could conceivably have a go at starting a business to solve some problems that I see. Unfortunately I can't think of my relationship with the hypothetical employees of this hypothetical business as anything other than exploitative. The book introduced me to the idea of a worker-self-directed cooperative (which is a different from your local grocery co-op or credit union) which might dissolve such a relationship. The only tech companies I've heard of who are structured similar to this are a consulting/product company called Informal Systems and Motion Twin, the developer of the game Dead Cells. I'm sure such a business has its unique problems but after a decade of seeing the dysfunction inside "regular" companies my mind is pretty open in this regard.
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3. ahelwerNov 2021
   I'm thinking the only way forward is building an alternative power structure to electoral politics that bullies the politicians around. Corporations and money control the government - it's a truism at this point. Place that which controls the government under democratic control and you have a democracy. So either building organized labor power within existing corporations or starting entirely new democratically-run cooperative companies to outcompete existing corporations.

   People want to keep politics separate from work, but this seems like nonsense to me. Reductively, politics revolves around who does the work, who pays the costs of that work, and who receives the benefits from that work. To separate politics from work when politics is about work is to throw away the greatest power you have - your contribution to the world through work. Voting every few years is so unimaginably paltry compared to using your economic output to have a say.

   People have this idea that cooperatives are inefficient, but ensuring profits stay within the company instead of being extracted off to people who had no hand in its creation is a burden they do not share.

   Microsoft spends $250k/employee/year on dividends and stock buybacks for shareholders.

   If this idea sounds interesting read the book Democracy at Work.

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4. mempkoNov 2021
   This may confuse many HN folks but everyone being their own boss is what socialism is really about. Getting away from wage labor was always a goal. But if you follow the media, they will tell you it's about big government. I suggest people read about Democracy at Work and Richard Wolf's work.
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5. BuckRogersJun 2020
   I gave him a chance because my cousin is one of these "anarcho-capitalism" guys (which is a contradiction, anarchy means lack of a control system or gov't, and capitalism is a power structure) and loved Molyneux. I've always been more of a fan of Richard Wolff and his project, Democracy at Work.[0]

   But a less serious intellectual than Dr. Wolff (of Yale, Harvard, Stanford), Peter Joseph of the Zeitgeist Project has made Stefan look foolish.[1]

   And an even less serious intellectual than Peter Joseph has caught out Stefan (me), he's one of those that says "communism kills people", but yet "guns do not kill people". If inanimate objects don't spontaneously kill people Stefan, neither do ideas. He's beneath a lightweight on his ability to think clearly.

   [0]https://www.youtube.com/user/democracyatwrk

   [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaP2GJvZlWY

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6. clumsysmurfMar 2017
   "We’d also like to discuss how tech companies can heal the divide in our country. We believe that tech companies can create a better economic future for all Americans by spreading high-paying technology jobs around the country and other measures."

   Isn't the elephant in the room extreme capitalism? Tech is just accelerating it.

   Perhaps the alternative is workers managing their own workplaces:

   https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-at-Work-Cure-Capitalism/dp/...

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