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   Dogzilla (dogzilla@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Thursday, 20-Jul-2023 14:44:29 JST Dogzilla

   • David Benfell, Ph.D.
   • Radical_EgoCom
   • 🔶Mark Nicoll 3.5%🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧🇪🇺🇺🇳
   • Aaron

   @vikxin @Radical_EgoCom @hosford42 @Benfell @duckwhistle What is the equivalent rule of thumb for a democratic/capitalist society I wonder?

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     Weasel (weaselx86@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 20-Jul-2023 14:44:28 JST Weasel

     in reply to

     • David Benfell, Ph.D.
     • Radical_EgoCom
     • 🔶Mark Nicoll 3.5%🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧🇪🇺🇺🇳
     • Aaron

     @Dogzilla @vikxin @Radical_EgoCom @hosford42 @Benfell @duckwhistle

     Wealth concentration is an inherent property of a capitalistic system.

     [thread]
     https://mastodon.social/@weaselx86/110735532603549131

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     CrowGlittering5133 (crowglittering5133@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 20-Jul-2023 14:44:28 JST CrowGlittering5133

     in reply to

     • Aral Balkan
     • David Benfell, Ph.D.
     • Radical_EgoCom
     • 🔶Mark Nicoll 3.5%🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧🇪🇺🇺🇳
     • Aaron
     • Weasel

     @weaselx86 @Dogzilla @vikxin @Radical_EgoCom @hosford42 @Benfell @duckwhistle

     Just after @aral was talking about billionaires, I realized that #Slovakia is likely your answer. It has the most income equality in the world (credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality). If you're a neuro-typical #heterosexual guy and aren't #Romani, #Jewish nor #Muslim (credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Slovakia#Discrimination) then learn #Slovak. Otherwise learn #German or Slovak. WAIT OUT
     #wikipedia

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     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 20-Jul-2023 14:44:28 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • David Benfell, Ph.D.
     • Radical_EgoCom
     • 🔶Mark Nicoll 3.5%🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧🇪🇺🇺🇳
     • Aaron
     • CrowGlittering5133
     • Weasel

     @CrowGlittering5133 @weaselx86 @Dogzilla @vikxin @Radical_EgoCom @hosford42 @Benfell @duckwhistle “If you're a neuro-typical heterosexual guy and aren't Romani, Jewish nor Muslim”

     Umm… that’s quite a qualification, don’t you think? Income equality means nothing without equal rights for all. Equality for some isn’t equality, it’s the definition of inequality. Will avoid.

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     Aaron (hosford42@techhub.social)'s status on Friday, 04-Aug-2023 15:41:44 JST Aaron

     in reply to

     • David Benfell, Ph.D.
     • Radical_EgoCom
     • 🔶Mark Nicoll 3.5%🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧🇪🇺🇺🇳
     • Weasel

     @Dogzilla @Benfell @weaselx86 @vikxin @Radical_EgoCom @duckwhistle One thing I've heard of is "exit to community". Startups are private but then to "go public" they are sold to the community as cooperatives. VCs can still invest, but the end goal is a company that the community wants to own, not one that extracts resources from it. It shifts the the incentives away from a focus purely on profitability even when the company is still private.

     #ExitToCommunity
     #E2C

     clacke likes this.
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     Dogzilla (dogzilla@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Friday, 04-Aug-2023 15:41:48 JST Dogzilla

     in reply to

     • David Benfell, Ph.D.
     • Radical_EgoCom
     • 🔶Mark Nicoll 3.5%🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧🇪🇺🇺🇳
     • Aaron
     • Weasel

     @Benfell @hosford42 @weaselx86 @vikxin @Radical_EgoCom @duckwhistle So is there a way to reduce the capital investment required for starting up ventures? Or a way to use public funds to incubate startups we want? This raises the problem of how to decide who gets funded.

     I’m losing hope that there are viable real-world alternatives to corporatism

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     David Benfell, Ph.D. (benfell@hcommons.social)'s status on Friday, 04-Aug-2023 15:41:49 JST David Benfell, Ph.D.

     in reply to

     • Radical_EgoCom
     • 🔶Mark Nicoll 3.5%🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧🇪🇺🇺🇳
     • Aaron
     • Weasel

     @Dogzilla @hosford42 @weaselx86 @vikxin @Radical_EgoCom @duckwhistle

     The problem lies in massive capital requirements really to start anything. Capitalists have the capital because of course they're keeping it and disapprove of co-ops.

     I spent $100 to join that co-op in Erie. Even if the entire population of the Erie metropolitan area joined at that same cost, it would amount to $20 million.

     By contrast, Apple's market capitalization now stands at over $3 trillion.

     That's not a reasonable comparison for a number of reasons, but still, if I'm counting on fingers right, it's six orders of magnitude different.

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     Aaron (hosford42@techhub.social)'s status on Friday, 04-Aug-2023 15:41:53 JST Aaron

     in reply to

     • David Benfell, Ph.D.
     • Radical_EgoCom
     • 🔶Mark Nicoll 3.5%🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧🇪🇺🇺🇳
     • Weasel

     @Benfell @Dogzilla @weaselx86 @vikxin @Radical_EgoCom @duckwhistle A cooperative isn't typically profit-focused, because, again, those profits would just go back to the people they were taken from. They are also more robust to economic instability, as a result of this lack of profit-oriented behavior. And they tend to be more environmentally friendly and responsible because the communities that own them live in the same environment that would be affected.

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     Dogzilla (dogzilla@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Friday, 04-Aug-2023 15:41:53 JST Dogzilla

     in reply to

     • David Benfell, Ph.D.
     • Radical_EgoCom
     • 🔶Mark Nicoll 3.5%🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧🇪🇺🇺🇳
     • Aaron
     • Weasel

     @hosford42 @Benfell @weaselx86 @vikxin @Radical_EgoCom @duckwhistle I’m wondering if there’s any inherent and/or practical reason why a co-op could not produce something like, say, Apple Computer or a SpaceX. When I say we need to find a better way, I mean I want to replace corporations completely with something less rape-and-pillagey. Need to think on it a bit

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     Aaron (hosford42@techhub.social)'s status on Friday, 04-Aug-2023 15:41:54 JST Aaron

     in reply to

     • David Benfell, Ph.D.
     • Radical_EgoCom
     • 🔶Mark Nicoll 3.5%🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧🇪🇺🇺🇳
     • Weasel

     @Benfell @Dogzilla @weaselx86 @vikxin @Radical_EgoCom @duckwhistle The most familiar type to most people is credit unions. If you've ever had experience with a credit union, you've probably sensed a difference in the over all "flavor" of their business. Much less in your face about getting your business. Much more service-oriented and wholesome.

     What distinguishes a coop from a regular corporation is that the shareholders are the workers and/or the customers. This eliminates a lot of conflicts of interest that arise from shareholders being 3rd parties. You won't screw your workers if you are one of the workers. You won't screw your customers if you are one of the customers.

     Another common and important (but not universal) features of cooperatives is they tend to be one share per shareholder, which makes them very democratic in how they are run.

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     David Benfell, Ph.D. (benfell@hcommons.social)'s status on Friday, 04-Aug-2023 15:41:55 JST David Benfell, Ph.D.

     in reply to

     • Radical_EgoCom
     • 🔶Mark Nicoll 3.5%🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧🇪🇺🇺🇳
     • Aaron
     • Weasel

     @Dogzilla @hosford42 @weaselx86 @vikxin @Radical_EgoCom @duckwhistle

     I've seen a few co-ops that have seemed entirely successful. Just joined one up in Erie, in fact.

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     Dogzilla (dogzilla@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Friday, 04-Aug-2023 15:41:56 JST Dogzilla

     in reply to

     • David Benfell, Ph.D.
     • Radical_EgoCom
     • 🔶Mark Nicoll 3.5%🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧🇪🇺🇺🇳
     • Aaron
     • Weasel

     @Benfell @hosford42 @weaselx86 @vikxin @Radical_EgoCom @duckwhistle I’d not heard of them as viable alternatives, but gonna dig into it, sounds interesting. Good day is learning something new.

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     Dogzilla (dogzilla@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Friday, 04-Aug-2023 15:41:57 JST Dogzilla

     in reply to

     • David Benfell, Ph.D.
     • Radical_EgoCom
     • 🔶Mark Nicoll 3.5%🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧🇪🇺🇺🇳
     • Aaron
     • Weasel

     @hosford42 @weaselx86 @vikxin @Radical_EgoCom @Benfell @duckwhistle What’s the difference between a cooperative and a corporation? For example, if a cooperative spills oil all over the gulf, who/what gets sued? Every employee equally is responsible for damages or is it a separate entity?

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     David Benfell, Ph.D. (benfell@hcommons.social)'s status on Friday, 04-Aug-2023 15:41:57 JST David Benfell, Ph.D.

     in reply to

     • Radical_EgoCom
     • 🔶Mark Nicoll 3.5%🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧🇪🇺🇺🇳
     • Aaron
     • Weasel

     @Dogzilla @hosford42 @weaselx86 @vikxin @Radical_EgoCom @duckwhistle

     We need a lawyer to answer this properly and I'm not one.

     My understanding is that co-ops are still corporations limiting liability to owners. The difference is in governance and ownership.

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     Dogzilla (dogzilla@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Friday, 04-Aug-2023 15:41:58 JST Dogzilla

     in reply to

     • David Benfell, Ph.D.
     • Radical_EgoCom
     • 🔶Mark Nicoll 3.5%🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧🇪🇺🇺🇳
     • Aaron
     • Weasel

     @hosford42 @weaselx86 @vikxin @Radical_EgoCom @Benfell @duckwhistle While I’m not ready to buy that corporations have no inherent value, I agree that corporate personhood started us down a path that almost inevitably led us to where we are today. And I agree that it’s ludicrous to think that there’s any parity between a corporate person and a human person. We gotta find a better way.

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     Aaron (hosford42@techhub.social)'s status on Friday, 04-Aug-2023 15:41:58 JST Aaron

     in reply to

     • David Benfell, Ph.D.
     • Radical_EgoCom
     • 🔶Mark Nicoll 3.5%🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧🇪🇺🇺🇳
     • Weasel

     @Dogzilla @weaselx86 @vikxin @Radical_EgoCom @Benfell @duckwhistle Anything a corporation can do, a cooperative can do. A cooperative is a corporation minus the conflict of interest and resource extraction. I can see no specific benefit to maintaining the existence of for-profit corporations.

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     Aaron (hosford42@techhub.social)'s status on Friday, 04-Aug-2023 15:41:59 JST Aaron

     in reply to

     • David Benfell, Ph.D.
     • Radical_EgoCom
     • 🔶Mark Nicoll 3.5%🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧🇪🇺🇺🇳
     • Weasel

     @weaselx86 @Dogzilla @vikxin @Radical_EgoCom @Benfell @duckwhistle Corporations are designed for this exact purpose. Sit between workers and customers and take a cut of every dollar that changes hands, for a 3rd party that contributes nothing. Give it a new name, "profit", and pretend it's virtuous and a goal we should all strive for. Never mind the leg up that already wealthy people have in securing such an income stream.