[ckaihatsu]

The workers assemble the computer and hence have added some value.

Yup.


[11] Labor & Capital, Wages & Dividends

Spoiler: show

---

The inventor and factory owner can only build a few computers on his own. The owner pays the assembly workers and for the job. Is a contractual transaction of labor exchange for cash.

With no tools, plans, training, parts, supplies, direction, and supervision the workers produce NOTHING. This is a KEY concept.

Yes, I think this is the *crux* of it all -- workers were hired to initially produce those tools, parts, and supplies, and also the factory building / equipment itself, yet they're not allowed to own or control that infrastructure that they themselves built. (I reworded it for you.)

Assume the computer inventor makes 50 dollars per computer once they are assembled. If the inventor does not have a high volume his effort is worthless. If he sells millions of computers he makes a lot of money. The secret to wealth creation is volume.

First CityWide Change Bank 2 - Saturday Night Live

First CityWide Change Bank 1 - Saturday Night Live

The inventor employs thousands of workers who get to spend their salaries elsewhere making someone else wealthy. The workers may decide they want to buy a video game. Whomever is making video games will sell a lot and become wealthy. If the inventor and creator does not take a profit. IN other words if he shares the profit with the workers then the owner has no incentive to invent, create, and innovate.

Maybe society should just treat that ownership / 'entrepreneurial' role as any *other* white-collar-type work role, so that workers *can* keep their own surplus labor value. I'll note that there are plenty of 'creative' work roles in business that are *not* incentivized the same way, are not fetishized for their 'innovation', and are paid a regular white-collar salary.

The origin of the wealth is creativity, innovation, organization, marketing, and lastly VOLUME.

No, it's actually *surplus labor value*:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surplus_value


You're *glorifying* the role of the owner / entrepreneur, when such is simply a white-collar social-*organizational* role that's simply leveraging capital ownership, for the lion's share of the profits.

Without volume wealth accumulation is difficult. Wealth is no finite. Wealth is created. The amount of wealth in the world is much higher than in the past.

Since the time of industrialization 'volume' just means leaving the assembly-line conveyor belt on a little longer -- popularity for a product, plus the money to buy it, equals the gargantuan sales volume enjoyed by a company and its ownership. Here's how Wilde describes it:

Up to the present, man has been, to a certain extent, the slave of machinery, and there is something tragic in the fact that as soon as man had invented a machine to do his work he began to starve. This, however, is, of course, the result of our property system and our system of competition. One man owns a machine which does the work of five hundred men. Five hundred men are, in consequence, thrown out of employment, and, having no work to do, become hungry and take to thieving. The one man secures the produce of the machine and keeps it, and has five hundred times as much as he should have, and probably, which is of much more importance, a great deal more than he really wants. Were that machine the property of all, every one would benefit by it. It would be an immense advantage to the community. All unintellectual labour, all monotonous, dull labour, all labour that deals with dreadful things, and involves unpleasant conditions, must be done by machinery. Machinery must work for us in coal mines, and do all sanitary services, and be the stoker of steamers, and clean the streets, and run messages on wet days, and do anything that is tedious or distressing. At present machinery competes against man. Under proper conditions machinery will serve man.

https://www.marxists.org/reference/arch ... /soul-man/

---

There is a valid point in the left. The wealth creators are very few in number and own a very large share of the wealth of the world.
Perhaps the innovators need to pay more for services provided by the workers.

Just refer to my economic 'reform', above -- instead of *private-property* ownership and control of capital / revenue / profits, workers should be able to *retain* all of their surplus labor value, and all business-organizational roles ('management') should just be regular salaried white-collar work roles, integrated into the larger corporate bureaucracy.

[ckaihatsu]

There was a time when all humans were hunter and gatherers. They started at the same level.

So that 'we' is now a 'they'. So 'we' do not all start at the same level. Although that isn't a secret. Everyone is aware of the class system... I hope.

Yes, I suppose so, but that is completely irrelevant to modern society. You're making a really stupid point, that makes no sense, all in an attempt to push your fucked up narrative that we're all equal. It's false. Most people have different starting points.

The archaeological evidence from the Fertile Crescent shows people living in small villages as separate households, although it does not tell us what the basis of these households was (whether, for instance, they were made up of separate couples and their children; of a mother, her daughter and their spouses; or of a father, his sons and their wives).29

There was still nothing resembling class and state authority until many thousands of years after the first turn to agriculture. In the ‘late Urbaid period’ (4000 BC), ‘significant differentiation’ in ‘wealth was almost entirely absent’, and even in the ‘protoliterate period’ (toward 3000 BC), there was no indication that ‘the processes of social stratification had as yet proceeded very far’.30 There was no evidence of male supremacy, either. Some archaeologists have seen the existence of clay or stone statuettes of fecund female figures as suggesting a high status for women, so that men found it ‘natural’ to pray to women.31 However, one significant development was that weapons for warfare as well as for hunting became more prevalent.

The pattern seems to have been very similar to that in horticulture-based societies which survived into more recent times—in a few cases right through to the 20th century—in various parts of the world. These societies varied considerably, but did share certain general features.32

Households tended to be associated with cultivating particular bits of land. But private property in land as we know it did not exist, and nor did the drive of individuals or households to pile up stocks of personal possessions at the expense of others. Instead, individual households were integrated into wider social groupings, ‘lineages’ of people, who shared (or at least purported to share) the same ancestry. These provided individuals and households with clearly defined rights and obligations towards others to whom they were related directly, or linked to through marriage or through ‘age group’ associations. Each was expected to share food with the others, so that no household would suffer because of the failure of a crop or because it had more young children to bring up than others. Prestige came not from individual consumption, but from the ability to help make up for the deficiencies of others.

Many core values remained much closer to those of hunter-gatherer societies than to those we take for granted in class societies. Thus, an early 18th century observer of the Iroquois horticulturists noted, ‘If a cabin of hungry Iroquois meets another whose provisions are not entirely exhausted, the latter share with the newcomers the little which remains to them without waiting to be asked, although they expose themselves thereby to the same dangers of perishing as those whom they help’.33 A classic study of the Nuer noted, ‘In general it can be said that no one in a Nuer village starves unless all are starving’.34

Harman, _People's History of the World_, pp. 11-12

[Julian658]

Yes, I think this is the *crux* of it all -- workers were hired to initially produce those tools, parts, and supplies, and also the factory building / equipment itself, yet they're not allowed to own or control that infrastructure that they themselves built. (I reworded it for you.)

Workers need a creative mind to direct them. Workers on their own do nothing. At some point we were all the same: Hunter and gatherers. Somehow some humans had more creativity than others and found a way to have others work for them to create massive wealth. Remember, there is no equality. Humans exist in a hierarchy of talent. Those on top do better. However, those on top do best when they come up with ideas that help all. That is what creates a billionaire.

Maybe society should just treat that ownership / 'entrepreneurial' role as any *other* white-collar-type work role, so that workers *can* keep their own surplus labor value. I'll note that there are plenty of 'creative' work roles in business that are *not* incentivized the same way, are not fetishized for their 'innovation', and are paid a regular white-collar salary.

This bureaucratic system has been tried before. We know it is highly inefficient and does not create wealth.

No, it's actually *surplus labor value*:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surplus_value

Without surplus value there is no point in creating a factory to build computers. It would mean the creator does not get paid for his effort. Or at best gets paid the ame as the lowest component in the line. The incentive and motivation are removed. This is not how humans are. Remember-------------humans exist in a hierarchy of talent and competence.

[ckaihatsu]

Workers need a creative mind to direct them. Workers on their own do nothing.

The 'workers are mindless lumps of clay' stereotype.

The so-called sympathetic Seattle strike was an attempted revolution. That there was no violence does not alter the fact. .. . The intent, openly and covertly announced, was for the overthrow of the industrial system; here first, then everywhere. .. . True, there were no flashing guns, no bombs, no killings. Revolution, I repeat, doesn't need violence. The general strike, as practiced in Seattle, is of itself the weapon of revolution, all the more dangerous because quiet. To succeed, it must suspend everything; stop the entire life stream of a community. . .. That is to say, it puts the government out of operation. And that is all there is to revolt-no matter how achieved.

Furthermore, the Seattle general strike took place in the midst of a wave of postwar rebellions all over the world. A writer in The Nation commented that year:

The most extraordinary phenomenon of the present time ... is the unprecedented revolt of the rank and file.. . .

In Russia it has dethroned the Czar.... In Korea and India and Egypt and Ireland it keeps up an unyielding resistance to political tyranny. In England it brought about the railway strike, against the judgement of the men's own executives. In Seattle and San Francisco it has resulted in the stevedores' recent refusal to handle arms or supplies destined for the overthrow of the Soviet Government. In one district of Illinois it manifested itself in a resolution of striking miners, unanimously requesting their state executive "to go to Hell". In Pittsburgh, according to Mr. Gompers, it compelled the reluctant American Federation officers to call the steel strike, lest the control pass into the hands of the I.W.W.'s and other "radicals". In New York, it brought about the longshoremen's strike and kept the men out in defiance of union officials, and caused the upheaval in the printing trade, which the international officers, even though the employers worked hand in glove with them, were completely unable to control.

The common man .. . losing faith in the old leadership, has experienced a new access of self-confidence, or at least a new recklessness, a readiness to take chances on his own account . .. authority cannot any longer be imposed from above; it comes automatically from below.

In the steel mills of western Pennsylvania later in 1919, where men worked twelve hours a day, six days a week, doing exhausting work under intense heat, 100,000 steelworkers were signed up in twenty different AFL craft unions. A National Committee attempting to tie them together in their organizing drive found in the summer of 1919 "the men are letting it be known that if we do not do something for them they will take the matter into their own hands."

Zinn, _People's History of the United States_, pp. 278-279

---

At some point we were all the same: Hunter and gatherers. Somehow some humans has more creativity than others and found a way to have others work for them to create massive wealth. Remember, there is no equality. Humans exist in a hierarchy of talent. Those on top do better. However, those on top do best when they come up with ideas that help all. That is what creates a billionaire.

This is a supreme crock of shit, because you think that the social hierarchy of wealth initially began on an *individual* basis -- your guiding *mythology*.

As I sourced earlier, social hierarchy has not even *existed* for the overwhelming bulk of time of human existence.

Gordon Childe described the transformation which occurred in Mesopotamia between 5,000 and 6,000 years ago as people settled in the river valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates. They found land which was extremely fertile, but which could only be cultivated by ‘drainage and irrigation works’, which depended upon ‘cooperative effort’.48 More recently Maisels has suggested people discovered that by making small breaches in the banks between river channels they could irrigate wide areas of land and increase output considerably. But they could not afford to consume all the extra harvest immediately, so some was put aside to protect against harvest failure.49

Grain was stored in sizeable buildings which, standing out from the surrounding land, came to symbolise the continuity and preservation of social life. Those who supervised the granaries became the most prestigious group in society, overseeing the life of the rest of the population as they gathered in, stored and distributed the surplus. The storehouses and their controllers came to seem like powers over and above society, the key to its success, which demanded obedience and praise from the mass of people. They took on an almost supernatural aspect. The storehouses were the first temples, their superintendents the first priests.50 Other social groups congregated around the temples, concerned with building work, specialised handicrafts, cooking for and clothing the temple specialists, transporting food to the temples and organising the long distance exchange of products. Over the centuries the agricultural villages grew into towns and the towns into the first cities, such as Uruk, Lagash, Nippur, Kish and Ur (from which the biblical patriarch Abraham supposedly came).

A somewhat similar process occurred some two and a half millennia later in Meso-America. Irrigation does not seem to have played such a central role, at least initially, since maize was a bountiful enough crop to provide a surplus without it in good years.51 But vulnerability to crop failures encouraged the storage of surpluses and some form of co-ordination between localities with different climates. There was a great advantage for the population as a whole if a specialised group of people coordinated production, kept account of the seasons and looked after the storehouses. Here, too, storehouses turned, over time, into temples and supervisors into priests, giving rise to the successive cultures of the Olmecs, Teotihuacan, the Zapotecs and the Mayas, as is shown by their huge sculptures, magnificent pyramids, temples, ceremonial brick ball courts and elaborately planned cities (Teotihuacan’s population rose to perhaps 100,000 in the early centuries AD).

In both the Middle East and Meso-America something else of historic importance occurred. The groups of priestly administrators who collected and distributed the stockpiles belonging to the temples began to make marks on stone or clay to keep a record of incomings and outgoings. Over time pictorial images of particular things were standardised, sometimes coming to express the sound of the word for the object they portrayed, until a way was provided of giving permanent visual expression of people’s sentences and thoughts. In this way writing was invented. The temple guardians also had time and leisure to make detailed observations of the sky at night, correlating the movements of the moon, the planets and the stars with those of the sun. Their ability to predict future movements and events such as eclipses gave them a near magical status. But they also learnt to produce calendars based on the moon and the sun which enabled people to work out the best time of the year for planting crops. Such efforts led to mathematics and astronomy taking root in the temples, even if in the magical form of astrology. As Gordon Childe put it, ‘The accumulation of a substantial social surplus in the temple treasuries—or rather granaries—was actually the occasion of the cultural advance that we have taken as the criterion of civilisation’.52

Harman, _People's History of the World_, pp. 19-20

---

This bureaucratic system has been tried before. We know it is highly inefficient and does not create wealth.

You've never heard of *corporate bureaucracy* before?

Corporate governance is the collection of mechanisms, processes and relations used by various parties to control and to operate corporations.[1][need quotation to verify][2] Governance structures and principles identify the distribution of rights and responsibilities among different participants in the corporation (such as the board of directors, managers, shareholders, creditors, auditors, regulators, and other stakeholders) and include the rules and procedures for making decisions in corporate affairs.[3] Corporate governance is necessary because of the possibility of conflicts of interests between stakeholders,[4] primarily between shareholders and upper management or among shareholders.

Corporate governance includes the processes through which corporations' objectives are set and pursued in the context of the social, regulatory and market environment. These include monitoring the actions, policies, practices, and decisions of corporations, their agents, and affected stakeholders. Corporate governance practices can be seen[by whom?] as attempts to align the interests of stakeholders.[5][need quotation to verify][6][page needed]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_governance

---

Without surplus value there is no point in creating a factory to build computers.

By *this* logic there's also no point in opening libraries or manufacturing weapons for war.

Corporate bureaucracy already exists, and people *need* computers, etc., so why not just let workers retain their surplus labor value and make all business-organizational / management roles regular *salaried* positions. People don't need extraneous 'incentives' and 'bonuses' to just do their *jobs*, and the same should apply to business-organizational roles as well ('ownership' / 'entrepreneurs').

It would mean the creator does not get paid for his effort. Or at best gets paid the ame as the lowest component in the line. The incentive and motivation are removed. This is not how humans are. Remember-------------humans exist in a hierarchy of talent and competence.

You're not comprehending -- *plenty* of people in the corporate world are *salaried employees* / white-collar workers, and still remain *competitive* within their positions in the industry, and by their own careers.

What you're describing is *superfluous* to the functioning of any corporate bureaucracy or government.

Your arguments don't hold water because you yourself have acknowledged a 'hunter-gatherer' mode of production / living, for human society, which was *not* hierarchical. Yet you prefer to believe in your mythology that there's a *meritocracy* in the economy, by individual 'talent' and 'competence'.

Remember *this* -- ?

You're *still* attached to the idea that capitalist economics reflect a kind of *meritocracy* -- like UM, incidentally -- and that those who 'work hard' are 'most deserving' of wealth, or health, or 'success', etc.

I'll use the same argument with you as I did with UM -- consider someone who has *millions of dollars*. If they simply leave those millions in a savings account at the bank, at 1% interest, those millions will receive *tens of thousands of dollars* in interest every year, and the owner will not have had to do a *single thing*, in terms of personal *work* efforts.

So the inequality of income begets a *further* inequality of income, based on *wealth ownership* alone. Your pretendings towards some kind of rustic hard-work moralism as the basis for success are *misguided*, at best, and I'm being *generous* towards your stated position.

viewtopic.php?p=15105089#p15105089

[MistyTiger]

Wealth grows from knowledge.

Knowledge is more accessible than ever. The internet has made it available to anyone with an internet connection and a working smart phone, tablet, computer.

[Stormsmith]

:roll: Yes, I suppose so, but that is completely irrelevant to modern society. You're making a really stupid point, that makes no sense, all in an attempt to push your fucked up narrative that we're all equal. It's false. Most people have different starting points.

Agreed. I'd add a little self disapline helps.

The average young person/couple are at the lowest level of income. If, as a couple, they agree to save as much as possible even taking on a second job, they can buy a house with an in law suite. Live down stairs, rent the house or take in collage students to augment your income. Invest your 'rent' back into the house either on the mortgae or through improvements. While a homes value can decrese, a well maintained home will almost always rise

Anyway, one should be able to pay off the house much more quickly than in the past. After that either settle for a mortgage free life style or lather rinse repeat.

50 years ago, thrifty people could make out okay just off their savings through bank interest. If you inherited say half of you parents estate, say the equivalent of $250,000 at 6%, that would be an extra $15,000 p/a in addition to your own savings and pension. Today, it's vertually 0. You either draw off the principle or gamble on the shock exchange.

Or grow pot

[Atlantis]

Wealth grows from knowledge.

Knowledge is more accessible than ever. The internet has made it available to anyone with an internet connection and a working smart phone, tablet, computer.

Even if you disregard the fake news, the conspiracy theories, the propaganda, the advertising, the paid-for spin, the games, etc., most information in the WWW doesn't give you the technological edge to derive wealth from it. It's true that the Internet is a tremendous tool for spreading information even to people who didn't traditionally have access to it. Thus, there is a greater human potential that may come up with innovative solutions, but the knowledge transmitted by the Internet is conventional knowledge, i.e. not innovative knowledge. In intellectual property we talk about "novelty" and "inventive height" or "inventiveness" as criteria for the patentability of an invention. Without inventive height, knowledge cannot be turned into wealth.

Thus, while the Internet is a great tool for spreading information, it is also a propaganda tool for dumbing the masses.

[Crantag]

My one word answer would be diuturnal.
(had to google to find a one word answer)

Our products - artifacts, knowledge, and societies - are (generally) more resistant to intentional damage as well as resistant to wear and tear than those of the past. We spend less effort remaking/rebuilding/etc which leaves more effort available for new products. Combined with increased production and our desire to have more, it results in having more, so we are 'wealthier'.

Think of your current life - how much stuff you have and how many hours of work (be it at a job for cash, or direct labour) it costs to maintain it. In the past a lot of our work was spent to pay for quickly consumable goods (food), we had a lot of high upkeep things (cleaning was a lot of effort) and goods deteriorated quickly (clothing). Food is now much cheaper, cleaning is much easier and our things last longer given their cost. This leaves us with more things that are easily quantifiable.
Are we happier? Better developed ('self-actualized') ? - maybe, maybe not.. but that is rarely part of what we consider, let alone measure, when we talk of "wealth".

This is pattently untrue, as any visit to a Harbor Freight or a 'Big Box Store' will show you (in terms of better quality/durability of goods under capitalism).

Marx addressed directly the reduction of consumer choices (in modern neoclassical speak) under capitalist production, which is arguably symptomatic of the same phenomena. I haven't been able to locate the exact passage just now, but he essentially details how many commodities had been crowded out of the market due to the dominance of substitutable (though in many cases inferior) products which came to dominate particular classes of commodities on the basis of becoming objects of large-scale factory production. Materials for making clothes, for example. Marx also details how industrial capitalism had slaughtered the handicraft industries of the petite bourgeoisie, which is broadly relate to the alienation of workers from their labor.

[ckaihatsu]

Wealth grows from knowledge.

Knowledge is more accessible than ever. The internet has made it available to anyone with an internet connection and a working smart phone, tablet, computer.

Knowedge is sexy, and I *have* that Internet connection....


= )

[JohnRawls]

My quick one word answer is labor.

Actually "added value" is perhaps a better word. Labour can add value to something but it is not only labour that does it.

[Rancid]

Actually "added value" is perhaps a better word. Labour can add value to something but it is not only labour that does it.

Fuck you bitch! But yea, basically labor adds value, and effectively makes the overall pie bigger. The question then becomes who gets to take some of the extra pie.

[ckaihatsu]

Actually "added value" is perhaps a better word. Labour can add value to something but it is not only labour that does it.

I'll *rephrase* this to say that labor *maintains and reproduces* itself, as a set quantity, going-forward, from its own labor-power (sold as a commodity to the bosses), while, at the same time, producing the commodities of goods and services that are expropriated by the bosses and sold for a profit.

So the 'added value' (in the form of exchange value) is simply a social *convention* / practice / norm, that sources from the *extra hours* of work supplied by labor, above and beyond the wage paid that is socially necessary to maintain / reproduce / carry-forward itself as an overall pool of total labor-power.

Yes, it *is* only labor that does it, because if equity capital just sat on its hands nothing would be produced and there would be no economic activity / growth.

[JohnRawls]

I'll *rephrase* this to say that labor *maintains and reproduces* itself, as a set quantity, going-forward, from its own labor-power (sold as a commodity to the bosses), while, at the same time, producing the commodities of goods and services that are expropriated by the bosses and sold for a profit.

So the 'added value' (in the form of exchange value) is simply a social *convention* / practice / norm, that sources from the *extra hours* of work supplied by labor, above and beyond the wage paid that is socially necessary to maintain / reproduce / carry-forward itself as an overall pool of total labor-power.

Yes, it *is* only labor that does it, because if equity capital just sat on its hands nothing would be produced and there would be no economic activity / growth.

Yeah, it is not that simple. Somebody investing money is creation of added value which wouldn't exist without that investment. Labour wouldn't exist also without that investment in itself.

It is not simply a question of work hours and people.

[ckaihatsu]

Yeah, it is not that simple. Somebody investing money is creation of added value which wouldn't exist without that investment. Labour wouldn't exist also without that investment in itself.

It is not simply a question of work hours and people.

You're making it sound chicken-or-the-egg, when, in *this* case, labor incontrovertibly came first -- here's from earlier in the thread:

Gordon Childe described the transformation which occurred in Mesopotamia between 5,000 and 6,000 years ago as people settled in the river valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates. They found land which was extremely fertile, but which could only be cultivated by ‘drainage and irrigation works’, which depended upon ‘cooperative effort’.48 More recently Maisels has suggested people discovered that by making small breaches in the banks between river channels they could irrigate wide areas of land and increase output considerably. But they could not afford to consume all the extra harvest immediately, so some was put aside to protect against harvest failure.49

Grain was stored in sizeable buildings which, standing out from the surrounding land, came to symbolise the continuity and preservation of social life. Those who supervised the granaries became the most prestigious group in society, overseeing the life of the rest of the population as they gathered in, stored and distributed the surplus.

Harman, _People's History of the World_, pp. 19-20

Remember, capital *needs* labor, but labor *doesn't* need capital.

[JohnRawls]

You're making it sound chicken-or-the-egg, when, in *this* case, labor incontrovertibly came first -- here's from earlier in the thread:







Remember, capital *needs* labor, but labor *doesn't* need capital.

Capital needs labour and labour needs capital. One without the other is kinda meaningless, at least in the modern world.

[ckaihatsu]

Capital needs labour and labour needs capital. One without the other is kinda meaningless, at least in the modern world.

Rerun.

Workers need a creative mind to direct them. Workers on their own do nothing.

The 'workers are mindless lumps of clay' stereotype.

The so-called sympathetic Seattle strike was an attempted revolution. That there was no violence does not alter the fact. .. . The intent, openly and covertly announced, was for the overthrow of the industrial system; here first, then everywhere. .. . True, there were no flashing guns, no bombs, no killings. Revolution, I repeat, doesn't need violence. The general strike, as practiced in Seattle, is of itself the weapon of revolution, all the more dangerous because quiet. To succeed, it must suspend everything; stop the entire life stream of a community. . .. That is to say, it puts the government out of operation. And that is all there is to revolt-no matter how achieved.

Furthermore, the Seattle general strike took place in the midst of a wave of postwar rebellions all over the world. A writer in The Nation commented that year:

The most extraordinary phenomenon of the present time ... is the unprecedented revolt of the rank and file.. . .

In Russia it has dethroned the Czar.... In Korea and India and Egypt and Ireland it keeps up an unyielding resistance to political tyranny. In England it brought about the railway strike, against the judgement of the men's own executives. In Seattle and San Francisco it has resulted in the stevedores' recent refusal to handle arms or supplies destined for the overthrow of the Soviet Government. In one district of Illinois it manifested itself in a resolution of striking miners, unanimously requesting their state executive "to go to Hell". In Pittsburgh, according to Mr. Gompers, it compelled the reluctant American Federation officers to call the steel strike, lest the control pass into the hands of the I.W.W.'s and other "radicals". In New York, it brought about the longshoremen's strike and kept the men out in defiance of union officials, and caused the upheaval in the printing trade, which the international officers, even though the employers worked hand in glove with them, were completely unable to control.

The common man .. . losing faith in the old leadership, has experienced a new access of self-confidence, or at least a new recklessness, a readiness to take chances on his own account . .. authority cannot any longer be imposed from above; it comes automatically from below.

In the steel mills of western Pennsylvania later in 1919, where men worked twelve hours a day, six days a week, doing exhausting work under intense heat, 100,000 steelworkers were signed up in twenty different AFL craft unions. A National Committee attempting to tie them together in their organizing drive found in the summer of 1919 "the men are letting it be known that if we do not do something for them they will take the matter into their own hands."

Zinn, _People's History of the United States_, pp. 278-279

[JohnRawls]

Rerun.

What is the point of your wall of text??

[ckaihatsu]

What is the point of your wall of text??

'Wall' -- ?

More like a *hedgerow* -- a 'hedgerow' of text. (grin)

The point, of course, is for you to *read* and *understand* it -- Julian already made a similar point, so you can *learn* from his incorrect line.

[JohnRawls]

'Wall' -- ?

More like a *hedgerow* -- a 'hedgerow' of text. (grin)

The point, of course, is for you to *read* and *understand* it -- Julian already made a similar point, so you can *learn* from his incorrect line.

Listen, i understand you like marxist economics and so on. The world ain't marxist anymore and the Socialist block has collapsed. The remaining old style socialist states are an economic disaster and the rest either practice social democracy within the liberal democratic model or have went full capitalist while still maintaining "socialism" in name only.

Long story short, classical communist ideas have mistakes are blatantly wrong comapred to liberal democracy/capitalism.

[ckaihatsu]

Here's *more* background info / historical precedent, to show that workers don't need the bosses:

Workers' councils

According to the official historiography of the Soviet Union, the first workers' council (soviet) formed in May 1905 in Ivanovo (north-east of Moscow) during the 1905 Russian Revolution (Ivanovsky Soviet). However, in his memoirs, the Russian Anarchist Volin claims that he witnessed the beginnings of the St Petersburg Soviet in January 1905. The Russian workers were largely organized at the turn of the 20th century, leading to a government-sponsored trade-union leadership.

In 1905, as the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) increased the strain on Russian industrial production, the workers began to strike and rebel. The soviets represented an autonomous workers' movement, one that broke free from the government's oversight of workers' unions and played a major role in the 1905 Russian Revolution. Soviets sprang up throughout the industrial centers of Russia, usually organizing meetings at the factory level. These soviets disappeared after the revolution of 1905, but re-emerged under socialist leadership during the revolutions of 1917.

Soviets emerged as inclusive bodies to lead workers, and to organize strikes and to politically and militarily fight the government of Russian empire mainly through direct action, with the primary actors being non-totalitarian leftists, including socialist revolutionaries and anarchists as Lenin's party was a minority.[4][5][6] During this time they established minor worker cooperatives though the operations were minor due to Russian crackdown on leftist organizations.[7]

Russian Revolution

The popular organizations which came into existence during the Russian Revolution were called "Councils of Workmen's and Soldiers' Deputies." These bodies were supposed to hold things together under the provisional government until the election of a constituent assembly could take place; in a sense, they were vigilance committees designed to guard against counter-revolution. The Petrograd Soviet of 4,000 members was the most important of these, on account of its position in the capital and its influence over the garrison.[3]

At the beginning of the Revolution, these soviets were under control of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, and even the Mensheviks had a larger share of the elected representatives than the Bolsheviks. As World War I continued and the Russians met defeat after defeat, and the provisional government proved inadequate at establishing industrial peace, the Bolsheviks began to grow in support. By degrees, the Bolsheviks dominated with a leadership which demanded "all power to the soviets."[3]

The Bolsheviks promised the workers a government run by workers' councils to overthrow the bourgeoisie's main government body - the Provisional Government. In October 1917, the provisional government was overthrown, giving all power to the Soviets. John Reed, an American eyewitness to the October Revolution, wrote, "Until February 1918 anybody could vote for delegates to the Soviets. Even had the bourgeoisie organised and demanded representation in the Soviets, they would have been given it. For example, during the regime of the Provisional Government there was bourgeois representation in the Petrograd Soviet – a delegate of the Union of Professional Men which comprised doctors, lawyers, teachers, etc."[8]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_(council)#Workers'_councils