Socialized Private Property
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http://jacobinmag.com/2012/12/the-red-and-the-black/
Another attempt at re-modelling capitalism in its own image.
Once again free access is dismissed as impossible because of the ECA ( Only by requiring people to give up one thing to get another, in some ratio, can quantitative information be generated about how much, in relative terms, people value those things. And only by knowing how much relative value people place on millions of different things can producers embedded in this vast network make rational decisions about what their minute contribution to the overall system ought to be…there is no way a decentralized system could continually generate and broadcast so much quantitative information without the use of prices in some form. ) , Parecon is praised as being a coherent yet inefficient and insufficient alternative, and state capitalist central-planning is described as being not as bad idea as it has been presented but what is being offered in the article is “It is the abolition of capital as private property within the framework of capitalist production itself.” – Marx on stock-holding companies
A firm could be controlled entirely by its workers, in which case they could simply collect its entire net income, after paying for the use of the capital. Or it could be “owned” by an entity in the socialized capital market, with a management selected by that entity and a strong system of worker co-determination to counterbalance it within the firm. Those managers and “owners” could be evaluated on the relative returns the firm generates, but they would have no private property rights over the absolute mass of profits.
Ultimately workers' self-exploitation is supposed to end exploitation!!
Yet another example of capitalism being re-fashioned into something claimed to be more democratic.http://truth-out.org/progressivepicks/item/13759-is-there-an-alternative-for-capitalist-economics-and-politics-richard-wolff-says-yesWorkers' Self-Directed Enterprises are an "alternative" to capitalism."WSDE entails the workers who make whatever a corporation sells also functioning – collectively and democratically – as their own board of directors. WSDEs thereby abolish the capitalist differentiation and opposition of surplus producers versus surplus appropriators. Instead, the workers themselves cooperatively run their own enterprise, thereby bringing democracy inside the enterprise where capitalism had long excluded it."Mondragon Co-op is once more dragged out as an example, even though it has been debunked repeatedly.It seems that the 19th century produced utopian schemes to protect the craftsmen from industrialisation, the 21st century are re-producing them to protect the new endangered species the "American middle-class" and their "American Dream".
Actually, the original article you link to is fascinating. I agree with it's substantive point that it is autonomy at firm level that is required. This may be possible cybernetically, along Stafford-Beer's model designed for Allende's Chile (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viable_System_Model).It may also point to a refutation of Von Mises: he is right, up to a point. He says rational economics is impossible without monetary calculation. We would say, from an anthropological point of view, monetary calculation is the same as saying commodity relations, which is to say that without economic agents freely relating/negotiating, we can't have rational economic relations. Of course, free agents can negotiate without money. That's one reason why I'm intrigued by the stable matching algorithm, both parties can rank their choices according to any set of preferences (not necessarily manipulable output targets). That may well be one mechanism to achieve moneyless "capital" (really intermediate good) "markets".http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_matchingAll that would be required would be that each autonomous agency would have a mission statement and set of preferences to make and mark bids by.
Another example of "new capitalism" by John Perkins of Economic Hitman fame.http://realchangenews.org/index.php/site/archives/7410"I think what we need is to create a new goal for business. Businesses should make a decent rate of return for investors, but only within the context of being socially and environmentally responsible. ..We need to create a new economic model and a new goal for businesses, one that says, “Yes, you need to make a decent rate of return for your investors, but only while serving the public interest.” That should be the role of corporations."
Another example of the human face of a new but different type of capitalism. It begins with the idea that it is the middle way between reformism and violent revolution yet would lead to a fundamental change in society. Whats the plan? Nationalise the banks leading to the eventual public take-over of the large corporation. Build non-profit community co-ops. Create an Americn version of NHS universal health-care. 19th C "Municipal socialism" with cities owning utilities and businesses. The article denies it is advocating "state-socialism" but something new yet what else is it despite the usual caveats of decentralisation , democratisation and what-not ?http://www.alternet.org/economy/6-economic-steps-better-life-and-real-prosperity-all?paging=off
Yet again another gradualist approach.http://www.countercurrents.org/candeias240113.htm"Over the medium-term, it is necessary to socialize the investment function, which is an old Keynesian demand…What is needed is financial regulation, the nationalization of “systemically relevant” banks, a network of public banks, and the introduction of participatory budgeting at all levels of society. The socialization of investment and participatory investment decisions are two of the preconditions for a left-wing and socialist project of structural transformation…"
Another article advocating "nice capitalism" against that nasty type of capitalism.http://dissidentvoice.org/2013/01/what-is-progressivism/"…even libertarianism might be considered for inclusion under the progressivist banner."What is it?"Progressivism is not rooted in politics but in principles. The well being of all the people is primary and at the heart of progressivism. People are not at the whim of markets guided by preternatural forces to bring theorized widespread prosperity somewhere in the retreating future. A progressivist society prioritizes meeting the needs of all the people first. There will no underclass and no people falling between the cracks. Under progressivism, there is no acceptable unemployment rate; workers will not be made to suffer because of economists’s hypotheses pinned to a target inflation rate or other recurrent crises within capitalism; the target will be no poverty; there will be no accumulation of material wealth confined to a societal few. Every person who wants a job will have a job that respects the dignity of labor.The needs of humanity are primary and not the needs of businesses."
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