[-] save_the_humans@leminal.space 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Right I see. Co-ops are a threat to a capitalist that wants to exploit their workers, and if co-ops got big enough to strain the system I imagine there would be some push back from someone with money.

But co-ops can exist outside the system so it shouldn't matter, and theyd have the power in numbers. Cooperation among cooperatives is one of the defining principles of a cooperative. So if a housing co-op gets their food from a food co-op who gets their food from a farmers co-op and they all get there energy from an energy co-op, what is a capitalist to do? Its like a free market and if the capitalist fails, that's just competition.

All that would need to be done is for there to be more co-ops and more people that understand and want them to exist.

I mean if we want to overthrow the system violently, or reject it with violence, we can but I see an alternative here if somehow people can unite on an idea. I don't know how to do that though.

[-] save_the_humans@leminal.space 19 points 1 month ago

Love a good ferromagnetic metal but how about that electric conductivity of copper

[-] save_the_humans@leminal.space 1 points 1 month ago

I had an ex help organize an event to great success, ultimately accomplishing more than they were asking for from the powers at be. Organizers in the area tried to shut it down, or take over, however because it wasn't how protests are typically done.

I don't know enough about Lenin, but do we need violent revolution to advocate for cooperatives and elect officials that will help support them? With the right state sponsored incentives, cooperatives can be a great stepping stone for a peaceful transition of power giving workers ownership to the means of production. I struggle to understand how someone can argue against this idea. Maybe I need to learn more history, or maybe we need to be collectively more optimistic and united. I don't know how to accomplish this aside from trying to feebly spread the idea here and in my own life. I'm involved and trying to be more involved in the small cooperative movement.

[-] save_the_humans@leminal.space 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Just what ive decided might be the best, or quickest, path to achievement. Wishful thinking, idealist, idea worth spreading. I see cooperatives as a form of peaceful revolution, but how best to achieve a cooperative economy when so few are aware of what it means? One way, I suppose, is for elected officials to advocate for it. Its hard but not impossible to imagine. I suppose there are multiple steps in between that would make that more tangible, and one of those is awareness. There's already a lot of us in support of socialist ideas where one of the biggest criticisms is for a planned economy, so why not advocate for a stateless form of socialism that expands, rather than possibly, or arguably, restricts, individual and collective freedoms?

Was Lenin aware of cooperatives when he wrote the state and revolution? Its not a theoretical idea. Its already a proven and successful form of enterprise.

[-] save_the_humans@leminal.space 4 points 1 month ago

I'd like to point out the viability of cooperatives to accomplish this. A co-op is defined by the seven Rochdale Principles. Among those is open and voluntary membership, democratic member control, cooperation among cooperatives, and concern for community.

Its a stateless form of socialism that gives workers ownership to the means of production and doesnt have to necessarily negate private ownership. They can simply be incentivized by the state similar to how tax breaks and subsidies currently work or by providing workers the framework for which to purchase a company in the case of failure (like after the 2008 financial crash - when competition, greed, and capitalism failed).

[-] save_the_humans@leminal.space 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

https://degooglisons-internet.org/en/

Thought this looked cool. Haven't had the need to use it much since discovering this. Offers a lot of googles functionality that I used to use like collaborative documents, spreadsheets, calendars, and more.

[-] save_the_humans@leminal.space 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

One of the ideals of being a cooperative is "cooperation among cooperatives" as dictated by the Rochdale Principles. So by definition worker co-ops shouldn't be competing with each other. Instead consolidation of corporations to force a sort of cooperation to increase profit we'll ideally have worker cooperatives working with producer co-ops for example.

Not entirely sure the implications of supply and demand market forces but I imagine its a step up from our current system. We'll have democratically controlled work places where workers dictact the direction of supply and not necessarily for the sole purpose of increasing profits. In any case what I think we need is a new systematic way of measuring the growth of an economy in conjunction with worker co-ops.

[-] save_the_humans@leminal.space 1 points 1 month ago

Ah right. I see. This is why I think we need to couple this with something like the economy for the common good as an alternative to measuring growth of an economy by GDP.

[-] save_the_humans@leminal.space 1 points 1 month ago

Cooperatives have different structures to help mitigate class conflicts, but either way the model essentially, or practically, has a baked in, or something akin to a, union by giving members voting rights while not outright excluding the presence of a union.

I don't disagree with having a goal of full socialism. I just see cooperatives as a practical stepping stone in that direction.

[-] save_the_humans@leminal.space 0 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

A big part of communism is about who owns the means of production. One way to alter this aspect of society is through cooperative economics. A state-less form of socialism (edit: democratically controlled) that's already proven effective in small pockets of our own country (assuming US here) and around the world. One common example is Mondragon in Spain, a cooperative business and the seventh largest company in the country, that has proven its even possible for the cooperative model to reach levels of scale capable of competing in a private capitalist world.

[-] save_the_humans@leminal.space 10 points 1 month ago

Can I ask how you got a job as a Linux administrator?

[-] save_the_humans@leminal.space 1 points 2 months ago

My thought was mostly that this kind of invasive third party and closed source kernel module security wouldn't have been necessary. But I'm pretty sure rollbacks can include kernel changes in a previous image.

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save_the_humans

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