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Venture Communism?!

Venture Communism is an investment model designed to be a form of revolutionary worker's struggle. The Venture Commune is a type of voluntary worker's association, designed to enclose the productivity of labour and enable the possibility of the collective accumulation of Land and Capital, which, in the endgame, will eventually allow the workers to buy the entire world from the Capitalists.

Help.  I can't make my head stop spinning.  Help.

Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

by poemless on Thu Dec 13th, 2007 at 05:32:22 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I know: great stuff eh, Comrade?
by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Thu Dec 13th, 2007 at 05:34:08 PM EST
[ Parent ]
You know, my friend and I were discussing business models over wine last night.  No, this is a true story.  I'm not really a business model type of person.  Not something I think about when I let my mind wander.  Which is why I'm such a Comrade.  Property, money, business ... I can't get past "Why don't we all just split everything evenly and go home and concentrate on more important things?"  So my friend wants to start this ... business.  And when you said "Venture communism" I thought you were describing something along the same lines.  I wont go into specifics, but it would be part retail space and part social services and part arts center and be run like a collective.  

Not sure about the Workers buying out the Capitalists.  Wouldn't that make them... Capitalists?  

Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

by poemless on Thu Dec 13th, 2007 at 05:45:02 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Why don't we all just split everything evenly and go home and concentrate on more important things?"

Now that's music to my ears, poemless. There is plenty enough to go around if spread equitably.

As for Capitalism: well yes, we all should be Capitalists. But it won't be Capital as we know it, Jim....

If you are planning a "cooperative of cooperatives": or a "networked collective", then that is exactly the sort of thing I've been working on for years.

Sounds like you may be a Venture Communist.

by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Thu Dec 13th, 2007 at 06:13:50 PM EST
[ Parent ]
- or however you spell it in romaji.

Ah hah - poemless is a closet co-oper. You will join Milo - I can see it now.

paul spencer

by paul spencer (spencerinthegorge AT yahoo DOT com) on Thu Dec 13th, 2007 at 11:46:44 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I'm not really a co-oper.  My friend is.  Something too...  cultish about co-ops.

Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
by poemless on Fri Dec 14th, 2007 at 12:11:39 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Yup, I'm interested in "cooperation" in the broader sense of collaboration.

The most resistance I get to the ideas I am putting forward actually comes from within the Cooperative movement, where the people who run Co-ops (not the members....) are quite happy with the structures they have, thank you very much.

The UK lawyers for the big UK Coops think I'm the anti-Christ, since, as they are paid by the hour, the last thing they want are simple structures and consensual agreements...

So complex and "genetically modified" forms of "For Profit" Corporations will do them nicely.

by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Fri Dec 14th, 2007 at 01:23:34 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Just because a person works in a Co-Op that doesn't mean they aren't a small-minded, short-sighted, power-hungry, south-end of a north bound horse.

A doo run-run-run, a doo run-run
by ATinNM on Fri Dec 14th, 2007 at 10:41:29 PM EST
[ Parent ]
The swedish Kooperativa Föreningen, more known under the trademark Coop, is a prime example. It is a huge organisation, owning among other things the second largest chain of grocery stores in Sweden. The members hardly know that they are members, much less what they can do to affect the organisation in any manner. It is run by and for the benefit of managment, probably top managment.
by A swedish kind of death on Sat Dec 15th, 2007 at 10:20:18 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I think the UK's Coop is very similar. We get a glossy magazine with articles on green issues and polls about the Coop's ethical corporate policies, but other than that it's just like any other business.

We have met the enemy, and he is us — Pogo
by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Dec 19th, 2007 at 05:57:55 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Mondragon has many of the same issues outside of Spain, but up there in Basque Country-Navarra, they're pretty awesome.  And they own Eroski, and I forget the other smaller food retailer, I want to say Consum.....

And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg
by ManfromMiddletown (manfrommiddletown at lycos dot com) on Wed Dec 19th, 2007 at 06:04:12 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Not sure about the Workers buying out the Capitalists.  Wouldn't that make them... Capitalists?

Nope.  It makes them owners.

BTW, there's nothing inherently evil about the economic function of providing capital.  

A doo run-run-run, a doo run-run

by ATinNM on Fri Dec 14th, 2007 at 10:38:50 PM EST
[ Parent ]
BTW, there's nothing inherently evil about the economic function of providing capital.

There's also nothing inherently evil about peanuts, but some people are fatally allergic to them.  

Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

by poemless on Thu Dec 20th, 2007 at 03:32:24 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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