|
COG
|
Social Insurance Reform Discussion |
|||||||||
| |
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index] Re: SOCIAL_INS: Re: OWNERSHIP: FICA funds to ESOPs ???
Mbindnerdc@aol.com wrote: Norm,Mike, I admire your honesty in mentioning that your arguments are based on the Marxist principles. I detected that, but hesitated to mention it for fear that some would have interpreted my comments as red-baiting. For your information, both Kelso and I accept Marx's general critique of the historically exclusionary capitalist system and his logic that if a worker had only fis labor to sell in a laissez faire marketplace, the system was designed to collapse (and Keynes' fine-tuning expedients would only delay the date of collapse. We depart from Marx on his presecriptions, many of which you seem to have adopted, perhaps with a Keynesian twist. See KARL MARX: The Almost Capitalist By Louis O. Kelso. or http://www.cesj.org/thirdway/almostcapitalist.htm Under capitalism, all factors of production are purchased at the lowest possible price and the difference between the cost of the factors and the price is the profit - which is either reinvested or distributed to the owners of the firm. The essential problem with capital is that the owners of the firm receive the surplus which is generated by the worker (whether that worker actually produces the good, designs it, accounts for it, or even manages the process).You, like Marx, are wedded to the labor theory of value, which Kelso, in my view, effectively refuts in the article hyperlinked above. You owe it to yourself to try to refute Kelso's logic. Additionally, social conditions are such that the cheapest workers possible are purchased and these workers, given unequal access to training and development resources, are forced to work as slaves in a job that may not be a match for their talents. Both of these conditions are exploitive.Agreed. But the social conditions are shaped by the legal environment and the laws can and should be changed in ways that conform to the highest principles of economic justice. The legal environment backed by the power of state force does have a tremendous impact on human behavior. That's why we want the coercive side of government to be minimized. >From my understanding, by distributing ownership to each citizen, both an alternative income is generated (so that individuals can pursue the lives that they want) and the worker receives some share of the profits as an owner of the firm. As I understand your proposals, a worker can invest both his or her funds and those of his children in the firm at which he works, a diversified account, or a range of other investment opportunities.Correct. >From my way of seeing it, this puts the worker in the position of owning the product of his own labor,Again, you're trapping yourself with the labor theory of value and you owe it to yourself to try to refute Kelso's binary theory of production. Think about what happens if robots take over most of the work of producing economic goods and services, and everyone has a more equal opportunity to engage in non-paying leisure work, like lifetime education, politics, religious work, writing, painting, child raising, etc. but may also put him (and his children) of owning, and he in controlling, the labor of other workers (particularly if he has a large family and a wife who does not work). In effect, even if worker A and worker B have the same age and seniority, if worker A is single while worker B has a non-working wife and 5 kids, then worker B has seven times the amount of control over the firm where they both work (assuming that workers A and B were hired after worker B had all of his kids). Worker A would, in effect, be worker B's wage slave, since worker B is receiving more of a return on his labor than worker A.Read Bucky Fuller's writings in the recently published book by his former partner, Thomas Zung. To me, simply providing for capital credit does not bring about justice.Not when it goes almost exclusively to current plutocrats. Accounts do not all balance out at the end. If alienation of workers from the product of their work, or wage slavery, is unjust (and it is), then nothing but the eventual ownership of the firm by only its workers must be the ultimate goal - as well as the equal periodic distribution of additional ownership shares. This is what I propose.You are missing the liberating and empowering promise of technology. Again read Fuller. Now, this arrangement is only a means to an end. Eventually, when all the workers have control, they would ALTER HOW PROFIT AND WAGES ARE DISTRIBUTED so that each worker would receive an equal base wage, an additional payout to support the members of his or her family, a mortgage on a home capable of producing the food required to feed his or her family, an equal number of shares periodically (say one share per month), funding for education to his full potential, a share of the profits of the firm from his share ownership (which would be reinvested) and a share of the profits of the firm consistent with his base wage and the extent that labor contributed to the profitability of the firm, and any incentives he has earned for increasing the profitability of the firm through invention, commission on sales or individual or group productivity. These incentive payments would come as a combined stock grant (if the action resulted in long term profitability, such as a patent or a!Mike, you, like Marx, whether you intend it or not, have built your proposals on the end to private property in the means of production and an end to the market system. Binary economics find it both unnecessary and dangerous to go down this road. Under my system, older workers will have more control over the firm, since they have more shares as well as the benefits of dividend distribution of those shares, but that is just because they built the company. Even having them continue to hold and vote these shares would be just, although upon their deaths their heirs should by divested and the remaining shares be transferred to an annuity for the surviving spouse.When the kids and their parents have their own ownership incomes to cover the costs of education they will have greater control over the quality of their education and traning and an escape from the current government monopoly over the education of the public. I prefer putting that power in the family as against those outside the family, such as teachers or bureaucrats. I will close on that note,And I will close with a suggestion that you compare our alternative systems in terms of human liberation and empowerment. I oppose any system that makes any adult individual subservient or economically dependent on others. Do you join me in opposition to concentrated economic power as the ultimate social source of human exploitation, abuse and corruption. A Quick Comparison of Capitalism, Socialism and CESJ's "Third Way." or http://www.cesj.org/thirdway/comparison3rdway.htm Norm Kurland
|