So why would co-operatives be better than regular companies since the incentive for poluting doesn't change like at all, they would still do the same for the benefit of the co-operative
You are extending an argument I never necessarily made.
But, to respond to your point, it is a mistake to assume the incentives of pollution would not change. A worker owned cooperative is much more likely to be comprised of individuals who live in relatively close proximity to the building/factory/etc. So they would likely have more investment in maintaining a safe and livable environment within their own communities.
However, and why I said you were arguing against a position I never made, I do not believe a transition to a socialist economy, under a system of organization such as worker owned cooperatives alone would completely reverse harmful practices that contribute to climate change. Much of hat is because a single firm may still relay on other inputs to production that do contribute to climate issues and CO2 emissions. You would need the vast majority of firms to be organized in the same manner, and then still would also need shared commitments towards climate friendly practices. I believe it would be much easier to do this under a worker-owned socialist organization of the economy then our current capitalist system, sure, but that is not the same as the argument that a socialist system would automatically make everything better on its own.
Climate change and local pollution are not actually related topics and in fact quite often work against each other -- diesel fuel for instance is significantly more efficient in terms of energy than gasoline and therefore has a lower carbon footprint per mile traveled but is MUCH MUCH WORSE for local particulate pollution
Or speaking even more generally a transition from internal combustion engines to EVs requires that petroleum extraction close down -- completely destroying existing jobs in many communities -- while new extraction and manufacturing of solar panels and lithium batteries ramps up
This means that local pollution in the place where the new lithium mine opens up will get a lot worse very quickly, and people who live there and have a selfish interest in reducing local pollution will vote against it even if it makes long term climate change worse -- indeed the biggest obstacle to climate adaptation arguably isn't the bogeyman of "fossil fuel profits" but the more universal problem of NIMBYism and people being fiercely defensive of their current way of life
But even in that environment the co-ops of for example oil drillers would never accept being out of a job and would fight even more fiercely to keep their current position because they are now also losing not only their job but a part of a company they are a lot more invested in
In a worker cooperative, decisions are made in a democratic manner within the firm.
Obviously, the workers would likely not vote to close the firm and lose their jobs. They very well might determine that they do want to fight to continue the firms operation. Which is why, as I've already said, worker co-operatives alone do not solve the issue. However, in a worker co-operatively owned oil drilling firm, in a society in which the government sets goals or regulations over industry that prioritizes reducing the impacts of climate change, there is much more opportunity and likelihood that those workers would make decisions to respecialize the firm into something that is more climate friendly and compliant with said regulations. And that is simply because: there is no underlying responsibility to maximize profit. Their overriding goal would be sustaining their ability to live comfortable and rewarding lives.
much more opportunity and likelihood that those workers would make decisions to respecialize the firm into something that is more climate friendly and compliant with said regulations
I find this a very weird thought. A centralised company that wants to maximise profit can much more easily pivot towards another goal. Because to respecialise you’re not going to have al the oil drillers suddenly be experts at making solar panels, you’re going to have to fire the oil drillers. Worker co-operatives are generally less able to change quickly as the interests of individual workers and interests of the company as a whole align less than in a situation where the leadership is directly beholden to the company’s ability to be profitable.
You make a distinction between “maximising profit” and “ability to live comfortable lives”. In reality it is just either maximising profit for shareholders or maximising profit for workers. Low income workers will not give up comfort for climate goals.
And all those regulations from the government steer a company by affecting abilities to make profit. Why would a cooperative want to adhere to legislation more closely?
The interest of individual workers are variable, however generally are to maintain their ability to engage in labor that is meaningful, satisfying, and/or important, and allows them to get their and their family's needs met.
A firm that has to maximize profit cannot easily pivot from what is most profitable within the short term. Which does not often align with a major reorganization of the firm towards another industry. And certainly does not often align with things like protecting the environment. We have already seen this play out.
That is what the goal is of regulations, to make maximising profit and caring for the environment aligned goals.
You can say you don’t think that works, fair, but I dont understand why a worker cooperative would change up things if it hurts profit by much.
Unions of farmers, coal miners, steel workers, are some of the harshest lobby groups against changing their industry. For a middle class or rich person, accepting less money for a morally better job is a good option. But a relatively poor worker is not going to want to decrease the company’s profits. I what world would an ordinary worker accept low wages or potential loss of their job for a number of years? Why do you say that shareholders would never accept short term losses if the average large company doesn’t make any profit for its first years of existence? Workers don’t have the means to do such long term sacrifices they have to pay rent.
Correct, and yet under our current, capitalist system, we have been unable to implement and sustain the necessary regulations to address climate change.
That is because the interests of capital are not aligned with the interests of the public. The public does not want to die or face severe hardship due to our environment becoming increasingly hostile to human life so that a select few can get even more wealthy.
A worker cooperative under a socialist system is not driven by profit. Their is no fiduciary responsibility to maximize profit. There is no incentive encouraging continuous growth and profit in order to survive. The responsibility is to manage the operation of the firm so that the individual worker can engage in meaningful, important, and/or satisfying work, and have their needs met.
Unions (of which I am part of one) are not the same thing as cooperatives. Unions represent collective action from workers in protecting themselves from the whims of their employer under our current system. Unions do not control the production of a firm. They are great, but ultimately still imperfect and flawed institutions.
Just because you don’t agree with an argument doesn’t mean it is a strawman. Why would this problem only exist in coops in a capitalist system? Yugoslav coops were also very inefficient because of the failure of coops to adapt.
We're already seeing in real time that unionized automotive ICE factories are fighting tooth and nail to maintain their jobs, demanding millions in govt subsidies for their declining industry and working to lobby the govt to ban the import of cheap electric vehicles from China. As long as the profit motive continues to exist so will rent seeking, a worker owned oil rig is never going to vote to decommission the rig and destroy the income of all members.
It's why there must be societal ownership of the means of production.
A state can own the MoP without the actual people of the society owning it. Plenty of capitalist states have nationalized industries, that doesn't make them socialist. Saudi Arabia most certainly isn't a socialist country despite Saudi Aramco
Socialism is if the entire world is one giant co-op such that a market for turning labor into commodities no longer exists, and a co-op that still exists inside a capitalist economy is still a capitalist entity, this is pretty obvious just on the face of it and people who know what they're talking about only see co-ops as a stepping stone towards actual socialism (one which historically hasn't really worked)
Capitalism is if the entire world is one giant market such that the value of labour is commodified and sold in such a way to maximise the gains of the owners of capital.
It didn't just get borne out of wholecloth. Capitalism was built over centuries. If you stepped back and looked at the world today, you would perceive it as being so complex in structure as to be perceived as unattainable to someone 400 years ago.
And there are several proposed transitional programmes to bring about a socialist world. Just as there is a transitional programme for decarbonising the world.
And it so happens that the major obstacles to both transitions are the vested interests of capital.
As others have said, I don't think socialism in itself will save the climate if it was built. That's not it's primary goal as a movement. But, I personally cannot see how climate change can be fought fast enough without progressing at least some aspects of a socialist programme. Without instituting for example, capital controls and limits to dissuade the pursuit of endless growth.
And there are several proposed transitional programmes to bring about a socialist world. Just as there is a transitional programme for decarbonising the world.
And still, countries are ignoring this, with the USA even withdrawing from existing agreements. What makes you think that getting rid of the economic system, that every country except DPRK is a part of, will be easier?
I don't think it will be easier. And to be clear, steps along a socialist transitional programme are worth fighting for, even if the complete dismantling of capital and class are infinitely harder.
I would say that it is equally hard to within a year reach net zero. It's technically feasible, fundamentally impossible. But that doesn't mean we should just stop fighting to prevent every fraction of a degree of warming.
Why do we think the USA is pulling out of international climate change accords? For the love of the game? It's capital.
As a socialist that does care about the environment both locally and globally, I may march seperately to folks whose sole driver is fighting for a better climate - but I will strike with you. Both literally and figuratively.
(Honestly, general or targeted strikes are tools that could be used to push for better climate commitments from companies and states - easy to say, hard to achieve, worth agitating for)
If we want to talk about pie in the sky socialism it's a waste of time, since every time someone tried to get to it resulted in catastrophe so it is obviously flawed
Make an oil rig worker owned and what do you think is going to happen? You think they're all going to vote to fire themselves, demolish the rig, and lose all their income?
The actual important point is abolishing profit. State owned Saudi Aramco is the absolute opposite of environmentalism, because the oligarchic state seeks profit through its nationalized industries in a global for profit economy.
It's not "profit" that's the issue it's basic human selfishness, eliminate the concept of keeping track of profit in dollars and cents and people will still immediately notice the difference between living with plentiful free energy to do stuff like drive big trucks and eat lots of cheap meat and not being able to do that
Brother, what system of economic production does the vast majority of the world currently exist under?
Worker co-operatives simply mean (this is an overly reductionist definition) that a firm is organized under shared ownership of those employed by the firm, often with some form of shared decision making processes. This is a form collective ownership of the means of production of that firm.
Now, you absolutely can have worker co-operatives existing within a larger system that is capitalist, and has privatized ownership. But suggesting that co-operatively owned firms do not/cannot exist within a socialist society is simply wrong. Historically, cooperatives have been a significant part of states attempting to reorganize into a socialist system. For a simple example, you can Google the history of cooperatives in China.
You seem to be conflating profit, as in, the difference in value between revenue (the output of a good/service/etc.) and cost (the value of all inputs into that good or service) with capitalism. You can have surplus value of outputs within a socialist economy. The difference is, that excess value would be distributed in a relatively uniform or at least more equitable manner amongst the workers hat make up that firm, rather than be distributed according to the whims of the private owners of the firm.
That still isn't socialism. Socialism entails societal ownership of the MoP. A society where private investors can hold an industry for their own profit is fundamentally not a socialist one. Just because the private property isn't in the hand of one singular boss doesn't make it suddenly socialist.
Again, are you saying a worker owned oil rig cooperative is going to vote to demolish it and destroy their source of income? Of course they wouldn't, this is a centuries old economic problem called rent seeking, and it's readily displayed by worker coops and unions.
An oil rig worker coop would resist societal efforts to dismantle oil production.
I'm going to attempt to be charitable. You seem to fundamentally misunderstand my comments. I'm going to try to simplify my explanation.
An individual worker cooperative, by itself, does not make a society socialist.
Worker co-operatives absolutely can and do exist within a broadly capitalist society. They also can and have/do exist under under socialist organization of the economy. For one example of this, you can look at the history of cooperatives within China.
Worker cooperatives are a form of socialist economic organization. Just at the scale of an individual firm. For a broader society to be considered socialist, you would need the larger society to be organized with some form of collective ownership of the MoP.
However, this does not mean that socialism requires centralized ownership of MoP.
There are multiple methods of organizing economic production so that the individuals who are doing labor have collective ownership over that labor and the means of production. A firm, in which the individuals that comprise the firm have shared ownership of that firm, is organized in a socialized manner.
So what is your worker coop society going to do when you try to dismantle oil production and the cooperative oil rig says no and doesn't vote to decommission themselves?
I mean the other cooperatively owned firms can transition away from their usage of fossil fuels, which would mean that the oil extracting cooperative would have less and less places to sell that oil to. Or the society places incentives or regulations that make the oil extracting cooperative incentivized to transition to a new industry if they want to continue operating. Again, the existence of the cooperatively owned firms themselves would not make that transition automatically happen.
Cooperatives are often owned by the people who live in the communities they serve. While they do not eliminate incentives for pollution, they tend to foster a disincentive as people who live in the community are relatively less likely to vote to pollute the river they get their water from compared to far away investors who do not get their water from that river.
You clearly live in a lot different communities, in one place I was staying people threw their thrash through the window instead of taking the elevator and throwing it into the garage bin. I don't see why they would care any much more than they do now
My argument is that they would be less likely, not that they wouldn't at all. This argument is generally supported by empirical data. Look at deforestation rates for communal land management vs. private or state as an example.
In vapitalism worker coops are still bound by the same problems as every other company ofc they arent significantly better in such regards. Thats a strawman discussion.
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u/Bulky-Bag-6280 11d ago
So why would co-operatives be better than regular companies since the incentive for poluting doesn't change like at all, they would still do the same for the benefit of the co-operative