In Honor Of May Day...What does Means of Production really mean
I'll not do the other definitions. Most don't work anyway. But I will pose this scenario. Picture a business of some sort. Of all the people that work there including the stock holders which ones are workers and which ones are not?
The objective answer of course is everyone stockholders especially union retirement funds provide the start up and expansion capital. The employees from the CEO on down to the night janitor/security guard do what work is needed to produce a service or a job. They are all the means of production if the relationship is not askew.
the only exception I can think of are they non employee disinterested parties. Not the customers mind you.
People like Tax collectors and EPA inspectors who contribute not much if anything are not the means of production.
What I'm describing is a form of capitalism and since the other systems don't work ....
Well it's not the real reason for honoring May First. I turned 39 again and it was so embarrassing seeing those full time moochers distributing Workers Of The World in betwen trips to the food banks and welfare office i had to come up with something a bit more honorable. Think about it. What employee does not contribute something to the effort of the entire business? Assuming it's a well run business and minusing the depradations of government.
The objective answer of course is everyone stockholders especially union retirement funds provide the start up and expansion capital. The employees from the CEO on down to the night janitor/security guard do what work is needed to produce a service or a job. They are all the means of production if the relationship is not askew.
the only exception I can think of are they non employee disinterested parties. Not the customers mind you.
People like Tax collectors and EPA inspectors who contribute not much if anything are not the means of production.
What I'm describing is a form of capitalism and since the other systems don't work ....
Well it's not the real reason for honoring May First. I turned 39 again and it was so embarrassing seeing those full time moochers distributing Workers Of The World in betwen trips to the food banks and welfare office i had to come up with something a bit more honorable. Think about it. What employee does not contribute something to the effort of the entire business? Assuming it's a well run business and minusing the depradations of government.
The only hiccup in the employee-owned model has been the stock valuation. Without market forces driving the stock price, estimates can be uninformed "guesstimates." Often the self estimate by the company is inflated, usually unveiled when the company has a third party perform the value estimate. I was fortunate, because the third party estimate mandated when the company went public revealed the stock value had been underestimated by almost an order of magnitude. Better yet, the company had ordered a tenfold split in the stock just before the decision to go public. Sometimes these things work out.
Only the employees including everyone from CEO or whatever to Janitor can make decisions that will affect the success of any endeavor. Then carry them out. Each employee should be individually responsible for the well being of the effort be it infantry unit, assembly plant, cross country transportation research unit, educational institution, or government agency and as a whole responsible for all other employees.
All employees have one thing in common. Their skills are for sale and that is their sole business .
Carried out wth professionalism and treated with respect.
Thus the chasm is bridged.
periodic campaigns to harass/ban/restrict us street
vendors, I got up and spoke at a City Council
meeting (something that used to scare the h--l
out of my boss, as he feared some sort of reprisal, I guess). Somebody had proposed that
the City should own the carts and lease them to
the vendors. I said, "I think that this notion of
having the City own the carts and lease them to
the vendors is an essentially Socialistic one",
which seemed to amuse someone on the Coun-
cil considerably; I said that I had read that
"public ownership of the means of production"
was a Socialist, or Communist, tenet, and that
I didn't believe in Socialism.--Anyway, in the end
they didn't do it. (I still have a sort of solidarity
with the street vendors of Richmond, although
I have not been one since the boss died in 2010).
"Worker's Paradise Promised an End to Money"
(I wrote this for my comrades in numismatics.)
http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/20...
Another communist idea that permeates our culture is that when the CEO is "paid" millions of dollars, that he has it in a vault in his basement and he porpoises around in it like Scrooge McDuck. In fact, all the CEO gets is a check and maybe a receipt for an option to buy stock or for the execution of a stock option.
It is not as if Bill Gates could sell off a billion in Microsoft stock so that he can have some walking around money.
I always thought (and very little) the "means of production" referred to machinery, the assembly line, etc. But in the big picture, which I think your getting at...is the whole of it...everything and everyone.
PS. ...how many times have your turned 39?
HR I had to think what the hell is that? Human Resources? Should mean what I was referring to but in this day and age it means slave market.
Yes, human resources.
Means of production versus slave market...hmm...I've witnessed many businesses that fit that bill...don't know if it's in fear of or an infection of the left....in any case it's not like it used to be...and that is not nostalgia, it's practical experience.