Democratic capitalism (capitalism + democracy) alongside a strong and efficient social welfare system is what I personally adhere to.
Democratic capitalism (capitalism + democracy) alongside a strong and efficient social welfare system is what I personally adhere to.
Then i think we’re largely in agreement. People should always be free to form small groups to follow their passion.
Though there is another concern. Co-ops that get larger than (guessing here) around 100 or so employees will start to act in the selfish greedy ways of current corporations. Even an employee owned co-op will eventually try to do everything in their power to make a buck. They’re directly incentivized to do so.
So aside from the outright regulation from the social democracy, I’ve been toying with the idea of a requirement for a publicly appointed employee(s) that have power over major decisions. They’d probably need to be appointed via sortion, recallable by the public, and their wages independent of wellbeing of the co-op.
Another concern is the prioritization of common goods, and the actual mechanisms for welfare and social safeguards. Some number of co-ops would need to exist as contractors of the state, providing critical needs paid for by the state.
Oh, I imagine there would need to be quite a few regulations and regulatory bodies to oversee such matters. Even if they were operating with the best of intentions, which are often in short supply, the behavior of entities with narrow goals must be regulated to ensure harmony with the broader goals of the population (like “Living in a society where the rivers don’t catch on fire if you drop a match in them”).
Power corrupts, and all that jazz - for workers as much as bureaucrats and private parties. Only by ensuring that there are numerous power bases with the ability to effectively restrain one-another, and relatively free entry/advancement in each, can a free equilibrium be maintained in a society.
Of course, we have quite a few regulations and regulatory bodies nowadays, so the only real question is in the details of it, rather than the general concept. The concept is obviously workable.
Agreed. Any system is going to require a strong system of checks and balances. That’s one of the few good ideas the founding fathers had. They gloriously fucked up the implementation obviously. But the core concept is critical.
For now we do.
More generally, I meant simply that government regulation is proven as a workable solution, conceptually, to restrain third-parties. The only remaining questions are tied up in ‘how to regulate the details’ and ‘how to maintain the regulatory body’, both of which we are currently experiencing… deep imperfections in the current implementation.
Any system with checks and balances will fail when they are ignored. The current US situation is the continuation of at least a century of not holding the people who have tried to overthrow the governement accountable.
That’s where they fucked up the implementation. It’s being ignored because 1 party controls all 3 branches of the federal government.
They implemented a voting system that naturally devolves into a two parry system. Checks and balances don’t work when you are the one checking yourself.