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So it's all nice in theory, but I have questions...
the workers own their workplace
Based on previous discussions, I understand the commonly proposed model here would be a workers' collective of some sort. People involved in the collective's production share the proceeds - we made N number of tractors and took them to market and received X value units; we spent Y value units in the production process, so we can distribute (X - Y) value units among the members of the collective. The workers own the equipment and infrastructure used by the collective and share responsibility for production. If a worker moves from workplace A to workplace B for whatever reason, they cease to share in the proceeds and responsibility of workplace A's collective and take on the responsibilities of workplace B's collective and share in its proceeds.
(Aside: What if X is smaller than Y? Should members then add back the difference for the next production cycle, so production materials can be procured?)
Let's look at the (X - Y) part a bit more closely. This defines the benefit that members of the collective derive from the enterprise, so they are collectively incentivised to make the difference as big as possible - to benefit themselves rather than a capital owner. Let's assume that all collectives can procure production materials equally with no supply and demand market forces (unlikely). Let's further assume that the market value for the goods produced is fixed (questionable, but OK). So anyone involved in producing tractors pay the same number of value units for raw materials and components and can only ever sell tractors for the same number of value units as everyone else. This means that an individual collective is heavily incentivised to reduce the raw materials needed per tractor (production efficiency), make better tractors than other collectives (market attractiveness), or increase the number of tractors they take to market in a given time period (increased production). Each collective, and ultimately its members, thus stand to benefit from having the most skilled tractor builders, innovative tractor designers, and an all-round hardworking membership. A more successful collective would draw more workers with such beneficial traits and become even more successful in the process. It would also be in the interest of the collective to either push out members that do not contribute according to their full ability, or reduce their share of the proceeds. The former would result in some workers not being accepted into any collective after a while and thus not contributing to any production, the latter in performance-based remuneration that creates societal inequality.
Congratulations! You just created market forces in the labour market that will have winners and losers.
a.k.a the means of production
Can someone explain to me what this means in today's world, beyond factories making physical goods (such as tractors) using physical machines and manual human labour?
production is then planned by elected committees
There are some details missing here. Who elects these committees - workers, or society in general? What are the requirements for being electable for such a role? How are these committees held accountable for failures? Do they plan production at a society-wide level, each in a specific industry, or down to regions or specific production facilities? Do they serve only a planning role, or are they also responsible for execution?
What checks would be in place to prevent professional popularity contest participants (those we call politicians at the moment) from adopting a facade of ideological purity and getting elected on popularity rather than merit? How would they be insulated from outside influence by those affected by their decision making? Do we really need more tractors, or do they still have friends in Worker's Collective 631 that makes tractors?
Congratulations! You just created a managerial class (at best) or just the usual corrupt cabal that run things to their own benefit.
increases productivity as workers are more happy and committed
That's a big assumption. Anyone have any data from wide sampling across multiple industries to support this as a long-term sustained effect?
work to better ourselves and humanity
If you replace "humanity" with "our close community" this might be realistic. I don't think the "and humanity" has ever happened at a macro level.
Based on previous discussions, I understand the commonly proposed model here would be a workers' collective of some sort. People involved in the collective's production share the proceeds - we made N number of tractors and took them to market and received X value units; we spent Y value units in the production process, so we can distribute (X - Y) value units among the members of the collective. The workers own the equipment and infrastructure used by the collective and share responsibility for production. If a worker moves from workplace A to workplace B for whatever reason, they cease to share in the proceeds and responsibility of workplace A's collective and take on the responsibilities of workplace B's collective and share in its proceeds.
This is Market Socialism, not Marxism. Marxism is what is depicted in the above graphic. Marxists aim to satisfy the needs of the whole using the production of the whole, not just competing cooperatives.
Can someone explain to me what this means in today's world, beyond factories making physical goods (such as tractors) using physical machines and manual human labour?
All Capital, ie everything used in the commodity production process. If your aim is to get into the weeds about what is considered Capital, edge cases can be decided by committees.
There are some details missing here. Who elects these committees - workers, or society in general? What are the requirements for being electable for such a role? How are these committees held accountable for failures? Do they plan production at a society-wide level, each in a specific industry, or down to regions or specific production facilities? Do they serve only a planning role, or are they also responsible for execution?
The society in general is the workers. Requirements can be decided by the people. These committees are held accountable via election, and a recall election can be held at any time. There are multiple rungs of planning, from society wide to regional to facility levels, with committees for each. They can serve planning and execution, as workers participate.
What checks would be in place to prevent professional popularity contest participants (those we call politicians at the moment) from adopting a facade of ideological purity and getting elected on popularity rather than merit? How would they be insulated from outside influence by those affected by their decision making? Do we really need more tractors, or do they still have friends in Worker's Collective 631 that makes tractors?
Recall elections. Why would producing more tractors in collective 631 benefit that collective if the goal is to satisfy the whole from the whole?
Congratulations! You just created a managerial class (at best) or just the usual corrupt cabal that run things to their own benefit.
Managers are not a class, they are an extension of the workers.
That's a big assumption. Anyone have any data from wide sampling across multiple industries to support this as a long-term sustained effect?
Yes, across numerous studies worker participation in steering companies has resulted in higher satisfaction and stability.
If you replace "humanity" with "our close community" this might be realistic. I don't think the "and humanity" has ever happened at a macro level.
You're arguing against a chimera of random mish-mashed ideas from several different strains of Socialism that argue for different forms as though they are one and the same.
This is Market Socialism, not Marxism. Marxism is what is depicted in the above graphic.
The graphic with the big caption "SOCIALISM". But fair point on me not addressing the specific implementation suggested with the presence of the Marx and Lenin characters.
If your aim is to get into the weeds about what is considered Capital, edge cases can be decided by committees.
Well yea, the devil is in the detail so it can't just be waved away. The "commodity production process" still implies physical goods made from physical resources and that it's the production facilities and resources that should be seized. (Side note: this assumes all the underlying resources are present within the area controlled by the proletariat.) Not seen any ideas proposed beyond that, but perhaps I'm not hanging around in the right places... Hopefully the committees will have people available that can figure it out after the fact?
Requirements can be decided by the people. These committees are held accountable via election, and a recall election can be held at any time. There are multiple rungs of planning, from society wide to regional to facility levels, with committees for each. They can serve planning and execution, as workers participate.
Yea, you've clearly never worked in a "design by committee" or "management by consensus" situation. Nothing ever gets done, and when some decision is finally made on anything it tends to be the shittiest common denominator option that thinly and evenly spreads the collective responsibility. Not the best option, but the one that everyone can kind of agree on and thus be collectively accountable for. The exception might be when a very small number of people that are agreed on an end goal and share the same vision for reaching it work together. But I assure you, that does not scale - even if people are in full agreement on the end goal.
Why would producing more tractors in collective 631 benefit that collective if the goal is to satisfy the whole from the whole?
Because human beings.
Managers are not a class, they are an extension of the workers.
Fair point. I guess I was a bit caught in the popular narrative where managers are the enemy of the workers.
Yes, across numerous studies worker participation in steering companies has resulted in higher satisfaction and stability.
Of course, and I'm a fan. I'm not disputing that places where extensive consultation happens with the people responsible for delivering are nice places to work at. But that consultation process is usually very closely managed and the ideas to take forward are cherry picked to give enough "they listen to me" feel good vibes, while also not interfering too much with the business' priorities. Really taking the inputs of large employee groups seriously on the things that matter cannot happen outside of an adversarial setting, because the interests of the worker and those who benefit most from their labour are fundamentally in conflict. The point I'm rambling towards is that I doubt there are studies that looked at situations where employee inputs in decision making (beyond window dressing) was sustained over very long periods of time at a scale relevant to what you envision. (There are exceptions, but only in small groups of highly-aligned people in a horizontal structure that are deeply vested in the success of the venture.)
You’re arguing against a chimera of random mish-mashed ideas from several different strains of Socialism that argue for different forms as though they are one and the same.
I guess you're right on that, yes. The thing is that I've been thinking about details like these (and many more) for at least 25 years (beyond "edgy teenager" or "social media fad" or "my parents are fascists" stages), since I would prefer that the fruits of my labour (to at least some degree) benefit other people rather than feed a system that heavily incentivises the shittiest parts of human beings and is also inherently cruel. Over the years I've also read pretty widely on this topic - from the purist theoretical ideologies to the practical compromises to the counterpoints to the criticisms. (Hell, I even lived in what was basically a workers' collective for almost a year, but it only worked because it was a small community of ~100 people with close social and familial ties.) So in my mind the lines between specific flavours of socialism are pretty blurry these days, while the common fundamental challenges keep standing out.
What truly frustrates me is the constant arguments about which is the best flavour, while ignoring how to actually realistically practically progress towards something better. Spending the day fighting about which flavour of ice cream to buy instead of figuring out how to get to the ice cream shop on the other side of the city in the first place.
That, and I am yet to see something proposed that doesn't completely ignore predictable human reactions or result in some degree of authoritarianism. (Nordic-flavour (kind of but not really) Market Socialism is perhaps the closest to something that might work, but it also heavily relies on a fairly homogenous society with a culture that sees value in the interests of that society over total individualism.)
You're not liberating literal serfs that never knew personal agency from a literal monarch. You're trying to get people that are exploited by a system while also benefitting from it to willingly abandon that system for something that might be better (if it worked) or might not be - the plans for the "something" are fuzzy at best so who knows. The details matter, and interrogating the details is not reactionary behaviour.
Congratulations! You just created market forces in the labour market that will have winners and losers.
Yes. Market Socialism (which would have supply and demand and competing worker-owned firms) doesn't solve everything. I advocate for it because I think it's a good, achievable medium-term goal that would be a vast improvement over what we have now. Something we could see in my lifetime. Once we get things there, workers are in a better position to advocate for further changes, like dumping money altogether.
However, there's plenty of people who think we should jump right past that and into the Anarco-Communist end goal.
One of the ideals of being a cooperative is "cooperation among cooperatives" as dictated by the Rochdale Principles. So by definition worker co-ops shouldn't be competing with each other. Instead consolidation of corporations to force a sort of cooperation to increase profit we'll ideally have worker cooperatives working with producer co-ops for example.
Not entirely sure the implications of supply and demand market forces but I imagine its a step up from our current system. We'll have democratically controlled work places where workers dictact the direction of supply and not necessarily for the sole purpose of increasing profits. In any case what I think we need is a new systematic way of measuring the growth of an economy in conjunction with worker co-ops.
That would likely happen on its own. If the UAW took over everything at Ford and GM, they would likely merge the companies, because why not? Even in industries where unions don't straddle companies like that, it's only a matter of time.
But that happens after they take over.
achievable medium-term goal that would be a vast improvement over what we have now
Yup.
people who think we should jump right past that and into the Anarco-Communist end goal
Well good luck to them on getting that done in any society with a reasonably functional democracy.