this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2026
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Communism
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But what is the alternative? Have everything co-owned by the workers? How would that work?
Edit: just to clarify. These are serious questions and not rhetorical or gotcha ones, as I am seriously interested.
Cooperatives already exist that work at scale. Huawei is a form of Co-op. Outside of that you could keep everything the same just make ceo/management positions democratic within the company. Many solutions if you think about it for any amount of time.
I can think of many things. I was interested in the solutions from a marxist/leninist viewpoint. I am actually surprised the answers I got are not that radical as I would have expected.
The setup of society isn't radical in and of itself at least in the short to medium term , look at China, the USSR, Cuba, it's simply the path to get there is one unfortunately of violence and struggle against those currently enforcing the capitalist order.
The alternative is socialism, ie an economy where public ownership is the principle aspect and the working classes control the state.
Yes, one option is that every worker would own shares in the company or some other similar setup. There are plenty of worker-owned co-ops in existence already so it's not completely out of the realm of possibility.
One of my favorite illustrations about how this would benefit workers is this: Imagine a factory owned by a single person (a capitalist) with 100 workers. If the owner invests in robots that let him replace 50 workers, he will fire 50 workers and let the robots take their jobs and pocket the profit himself, even though he doesn't actually do any of the labor.
Now imagine that same factory but it's owned by the 100 workers instead. If they collectively invest in the robots, they would share their profits and instead of firing half of themselves. They could choose to either work half as much for the same pay, or work the same amount and pocket the extra value the robots produced instead.
A world based on the latter idea would let us all work a lot less, and anything that takes us to a future where we prioritize human time instead of shareholder value is one I'd rather live in.
Trying to base an economy entirely on cooperatives, unfortuately, still retains the base problems of market and profit-focused economics. Socialism remains a necessity, even if it can make use of cooperatives at certain levels of development, like Huawei in the PRC.
I agree, but given the two options I'd still choose to work in a worker-owned co-op while we work towards that higher goal.
Sure, I can agree with that, just as long as we maintain the necessity of revolution I don't oppose cooperatives along that path.
Look into ESOPs. Publix has one of the larger ones. Basically, at the end of the year they add around 8% of your gross wages to your retirement account in the form of company stock. Once you have a fair amount in there, you feel a bit more connected to the success of the company. It's a good idea for both employee retention and employee performance. For some reason, it's not a popular thing to do, and even Publix has limited it from what it once was.
Literally yes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codetermination_in_Germany