The overarching goal of communism is for laborers to own the means of production instead of an owning/capitalist class. Employee owned businesses are the realization of communism within a capitalist society.

It seems to me that most communist organizations in capitalist societies focus on reform through government policies. I have not heard of organizations focusing on making this change by leveraging the capitalist framework. Working to create many employee owned businesses would be a tangible way to achieve this on a small but growing scale. If successful employee owned businesses are formed and accumulate capital they should be able to perpetuate employee ownership through direct acquisition or providing venture capital with employee ownership requirements.

So my main questions are:

  1. Are organizations focusing on this and I just don’t know about it?
  2. If not, what obstacles are there that would hinder this approach to increasing the share labor collective ownership?
  • innerwar@lemm.ee
    5·
    15 hours ago

    Sorry my ignorance is showing here but I thought coops might be stronger than a company in a way they have more staying power before a company is forced to enshittify. I naively thought people would recognize the better quality of stuff provided from coops because they don’t have to fulfill the shareholders dreams of line must go up. Edit: I see down below the willingness to exploit is a severe disadvantage to coops

    • John@lemmy.mlEnglish
      4·
      7 hours ago

      I think you already read the reason/s but in a monopoly capitalist society, but companies can just smother smaller ones by leveraging their exploited workforce (more output for less cost), out-competing, buying up all competition, much better economies of scale, and access to capital and market forces.

      Just take an example of a small business owner who sells sporting goods (I use this example because I love Freak and Geeks lol). How can you possibly compete with Walmart when Walmart has bigger and better inventory, cheaper prices, more locations, basically no competitors, better advertising, etc? Sure lots of people value ‘small businesses’ from a moral/ethical point of view, but enough for this company to grow and grow and grow and compete with friggin Walmart? That just doesn’t happen often.

      Now, something like REI, which is a coop, does compete with Walmart in a very niche market. REI has a strong brand and loyal customer base, allowing it to compete effectively in the outdoor and sporting goods sector. However, its focus is more on quality and specialized products rather than mass-market items. Do you think Walmart couldn’t just destroy REI if it felt like it was being threatened and it wasn’t one of the largest mcap companies on the planet?

      • Simon 𐕣he 🪨 Johnson@lemmy.ml
        4·
        4 hours ago

        REI is not a workers coop. It’s a consumer coop. It’s not even the same thing. The fact that it’s so difficult to even find a workers coop that is a national retailer shows you exactly why competing as a coop on the capitalist market is difficult.

        • John@lemmy.mlEnglish
          2·
          3 hours ago

          Yep, good point! I was trying to think of examples. Ace Hardware isn’t a workers coop either.