very much so
I guess we'll see how this develops going forward.
I think part of it could be US cannibalizing Europe right now by luring away industry which is creating a short term economic boost we're seeing.
Cooperatives accumulating wealth is not an issue because the wealth is distributed fairly amongst the workers. Cooperatives avoid wealth concentration with individuals which is the issue with capitalist relations. When people working at a cooperative make money, they spend it on things they need which recirculates it back into the economy.
The idea of a cooperative is not that everyone gets paid the same, but rather that everyone has a stake in a business and runs it democratically. Mondragon is a great example of a large real world coop, if I recall correctly they have a cap of 10 to 1 for max pay. So, the highest paid person cannot be paid more than 10x of the lowest paid. If they want to be paid more then the base pay has to go up.
I think accepting the fact that corruption is part of a human society is the sane position to take. Corruption will happen, but its effects can be mitigated, focusing on mitigation is pragmatic.
Meanwhile, regarding public companies, there natural monopolies because some things require huge amounts of resources to do, and meaningful competition is not possible. I gave an example of Amazon earlier. Nobody can compete with Amazon because of the scale. However, state owned companies don't have to be exclusive, if a coop thinks they can add value in that area I don't see why that would be discouraged. The idea would be to provide a lowest common denominator baseline. There would be a minimum standard that's provided by the state, and people can improve on it.
I think a government of an oligarchy is much scarier because it doesn't even pretend to have interests of the public in mind. This is what capitalist societies ultimately devolve into. Here's what a decades long policy study had to say about the US system:
It's a government by the rich and for the rich, the interests of the public are completely ignored whenever they conflict with the interests of the rich. That's the government you should be scared of.
It did, but there is also a huge recession and deindustrialization which greatly reduced the use of energy.
Yeah, it's fascinating to watch the feedback loops nobody anticipated come into play. The speed at which the world is dedollariziing is absolutely astonishing. And I expect that dedollarization will continue to become easier the more countries do it because all the networks for alternative trade will be in place making it easier for other countries to follow suit.
I think there needs to be a mix of cooperative ownership and state owned industry. State owned industry does a good job providing basic services everyone needs that have to be done without a profit motive. Private industry under cooperative ownership can provide nice to have things on top of that.
The capitalist model has no place in decent society, and it's not necessary for anything. While corruption exists in all human societies, it's at absolutely stratospheric levels under capitalism. There was inequality, but there simply weren't people like Musk or Bezos running around USSR.
Changing systems demonstrably does have a huge effect on society. You can just look at what happened to post Soviet republics after introduction of capitalism. The same people who behaved decently under the communist system turned into oligarchs overnight. It's pretty clear that capitalism is in fact the problem. Communism might not be the ideal system, but it's certainly a step in the right direction.
LMFAO imagine thinking that a country that's been at war for 222 out of 239 years accounting for 93% of its existence is investing in its defence. 🤡