Got to see "Capitalism, A Love Story" finally last night.

[Cleita]

Michael Moore does it again. Especially sad was the Illinois couple being evicted from their farm that had been in the family for generations. They took out a loan on the property to put new buildings up. Then the husband ended up on disability and he couldn't keep up with the rising monthly mortgage payments. To add to the injury, the bank gave them a $1,000 to clean up the property so they could show it to prospective buyers.

However, the reason for this post is that after the end of the movie he puts up ideas to change the system we are under as he feels Greed Capitalism is a failed experiment. He suggests cooperatives where the owners of businesses are the employees and shows a few examples that are operating profitably. I'm really intrigued by this idea and wonder how many businesses could be run like this. Sure we have most of our manufacturing and customer service jobs outsourced to foreign countries, but there are still many that have to be done here. Right now I bank at a credit union bank where I am a shareholder and receive dividends every month for the amount of money that I have in the bank. Very little comes out of my pocket for fees, only if I bounce checks or the like, and I have to buy my checks. But that's it and I have all the services I had before and for free. How many businesses can adopt models like these? Now I work for a doctor. There are only two of us and he put in the investment so he is the sole owner. But I wonder if many such like business could group together like a coop to spread the profits to everyone who works in these businesses with both boss and employees getting an equal share of the profits.

I have believed for a long time that a person's eight hours of work a day is worth a share of the revenue that work brings in. It shouldn't be going to stockholders who have done nothing towards generating that cash with their labor. How do we do this? How do we change the landscape one business at a time until there are no more Wal-Marts sucking up all the countries capital? Could we change the economic face of American in fifty years? Will our descendants look back at this time as the second era of the Robber Barons, never to be revisited again, ever?

[AllyCat]

1. Didn't that bit with the $1000 just sting?

He was all happy because it was about the only good thing to come out of the whole mess. I was so angry I could just scream!

I've been doing all my "banking" with a credit union now for years. I have NO credit cards and I don't miss them. Once I got used to it, it's really no big deal. I buy gas at the local, employee-owned gas station and buy 90% of my groceries at our local food co-op. We boycott Wal-Mart and are considering boycotting all the businesses that are known to be taking out dead-peasant insurance policies on their employees.

His website has more ideas for stopping our personal contribution to the "greed capitalism" model.

[Cleita]

6. I need to visit there more often.

Thanks for the reminder.

[Echo In Light]

2. k/r

[prairierose]

3. Here are links to a couple of articles ....

Cleveland has a good beginning....

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100301/alperowitz_et_al

And here is a link to the new Mondragon Cooperatives website

http://www.mondragon-corporation.com/language/en-US/ENG.aspx

Food for thought.

[Cleita]

7. Thanks. n/t

[Greyhound]

4. One of my favorite quotes from that film;

To the financial guys, "Every day that you go to work you make the world worse".

I'd love to be able to hear Bill Hicks set on these parasites.

[Cleita]

8. And isn't that the truth? n/t

[Oregone]

5. "How do we do this?"

Kill capitalism to start. :)

My replacement model is this (mixed with socialism of course for necessary goods and services)...outlaw non-employee private ownership, but allow non-employees to adopt a 20 or 25 year buy-back program. The profits a company recieves now buys-back ownership from non-employees. Any remaining profit then is distributed to the employees, according to the amount of stock they own. The bought-back stock then gets distributed to employees proportionally to their wages. When employees retire, they now have a retirement program, which consists of their former company buying the stock back off them (if the company does good, they retire well depending on the stock price). Allow some sort of disversified exchange, so employees can spread their ownership to 5 local companies max (just to protect retirement from going away if their company fails).

This model allows current workers to profit proportionally from their ownership (more profit for longer working workers), it allows them to gain ownership as they work, it allows them to retire with a retirement plan, and it also gives an initial private investor 20-25 years of finite returns on their initial investment (instead of perpetual infinite ROI, as is the current case).

Just a brainstorm Ive been tossing around. What worker wouldn't want to earn ownership as they work? What person below the top 5% would possibly be against this model?

[Cleita]

9. The big obstacle to me seems to be getting the seed money to set up

a cooperative. If there was a way, like a low interest government loan, to achieve this, I think you would see DUers setting up these coops all over the country.

[Oregone]

12. My model allows private investment

Just not infinite ROI from private investment. Seed capital can be provided by an investor, who sells the company back (to itself/employees) after a certain schedule of time. Existing capitalistic companies can convert into this by simply buying off all the investors over a certain period of time.

If an investor wants to retain ownership for a longer period of time, they simply have to be employed by the company and actually contribute to production.

[Raspberry]

10. I disagree

"spread the profits to everyone who works in these businesses with both boss and employees getting an equal share of the profits."
Do you really believe that you should get an equal share of the profits of the doctor who spent many, many years learning his profession, and who takes a risk every time he prescribes something, or performs a procedure on a potentially litigious patient?

"I have believed for a long time that a person's eight hours of work a day is worth a share of the revenue that work brings in."
In a sense you already do get that--in the form of your wages/salary. That is a share of your employers' profits. The difference is that you get it even if his business takes a loss. And you DON'T have to pony up to cover "your share" of his losses.

"Right now I bank at a credit union bank where I am a shareholder and receive dividends every month for the amount of money that I have in the bank."
Your dividends are are no different than the return a stockholder gets on his investment. You just park your money there, and have nothing to do with whether or not your credit union succeeds or fails. That's more a factor of whether or not the loans are repaid.

All in all, I don't see that capitalism is such a huge failure. It has created a very successful, upwardly mobile middle class. There need to be some regulations, sure. But by no means is it a failed system.

[Cleita]

13. Yes, I do and I spent years learning my skills as well and at no less cost than him attending

college too, not to mention I bring years more experience to the job as I'm much older than him. Also, without me, taking care of other things so he's free to do the actual doctoring, he would be bogged down with doing everything himself and therefore bringing in much less income. He did do it all himself before I came on board. He was then able to see more patients and get more income as a result of my coming to work for him, three times as much actually since I started working for him. I don't renege him allowing himself a wage that is three or four times mine, however, if I buy back half his investment, then I should get half the profits. Also, it would seem if we were both owners, we are also both responsible for the liabilities. If you had seen the movie, you would see the part where the taxi driver states that they are liable for the down turns their cooperative might take. This is why shared ownership is better than the CEO and drone models because every member of the work force is invested in making the business work and profitable.

As far as my credit union, my investment stays local and doesn't migrate to NYC or overseas. That's the idea. Chase doesn't have much interest in investing in my community. My credit union does.

Laissez faire capitalism as we are practicing it today has failed every where it has been tried and in every country and historical era starting with the Romans. We need to go back to the main street model and put Wall Street back as the place where billionaires go to gamble. It has no place in our lives where our necessary goods and services are concerned. I think cooperatives as a working model time has come. Otherwise we need strong labor unions, but it's such a contentious model with management against labor all the time. In a cooperative labor is management and has a large say in the decisions and responsibility in making sure that their effort keeps the company healthy and profitable.

[Raspberry]

25. Well . . .

You may very well have spent years learning and honing your skills, but without YOU the doctor could find someone else willing and able to do your job. Without the DOCTOR you wouldn't have a physician's office, anymore. And--good luck finding a replacement doc who would be willing to share half the profits with a nurse/office staff/PA, or whatever you do. Not to say you aren't important to the practice, just probably not as crucial as the doc himself.

I don't undersand why you think that we have laissez fair capitalism here. Businesses are regulated, licenses, and taxed. OSHA, DEQ, DNR, EPA, etc. Especially for small businesses, the red tape and paperwork can be overwhelming, and the fines (when you do violate a regulation) can make the cost of doing business prohibitive.

Personally, I think capitalism is a far better system than anything else that has ever existed. Capitalism created a thriving, upwardly mobile middle class for the first time in history. The current problems we have now (credit cards, bankruptcies, foreclosures) are more due to people's inability to manage their money, to live within their own means, and to delay gratification. If people would just be smarter with their money they could still succeed, educate their children, own their own homes, and have a comfy retirement. All thanks to capitalism.

[OneGrassRoot]

26. Wow...

Surely you jest? But, if you're not joking and if you are indeed a "bootstrap" philosophy person, I'll preempt you by acknowledging that life isn't fair.

If you are sincere yet not a conservative, "all people need to do is pull themselves up by the bootstraps" person, I would love to see the world as you do and have your optimism about our system.

I see, and experience, capitalism run amok and a system in which extraordinary imbalance and inequalities are increasing, the divide between the "haves" and "have-nots" growing immensely, and NOT because people aren't working hard or being smart in most cases (though certainly that's true in some cases).

It's a systemic problem, IMHO.



edit for typo

[Cleita]

27. Like I wouldn't find another doctor to work for. You have to try to put a

little more thought into your argument. I think many doctors would be willing to step into an already established practice even if it were run as a cooperative especially if they are progressive thinking like my doctor/boss, who was raised by a social studies professor, who believed in socialism. btw Everyone has a skill set and necessary knowledge to do the job, even the janitor. Their eight hours of labor frees up another person with a different skill set to be able to do their job in their eight hours. It works like that.

[AllyCat]

21. I get a vote at my credit union. The money stays here too.

[Cleita]

28. Exactly, the credit unions invest in the community.

The too big to fail banks take the money out of the community, and often the state and the country leaving nothing behind.

[Mari333]

11. knr I saw it too, and it re iterated everything I knew would happen

back when Raygun busted up the unions, deregulated the banks, and gave all the multinational corporations tax breaks...and the SOB stood there and said
"with this money the corporations will rebuild America!"
lying sack of shit
they took All the jobs overseas and out of the country for short term profits.
I saw this coming back then
and now we are suffering the effects of it.
and I dont see Obama doing much to slap the shit out of corporations, or force the repeal of NAFTA, or put huge tariffs on imported products or regulate the motherfucking wall street bankers...the same bankers on his staff...

No, I see the end of an empire and the whole movie just pissed me off again.

knr.

[OneGrassRoot]

14. I started a thread in the small business forum here....

as I've been rather obsessed about cooperative models for a long time and am interested in how they can be instituted in a variety of ways. And how they are created to begin with.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=264x454


:hi:

[Cleita]

15. See my answer #14 on your post in the small business forum.

Tell me what you think.

[Uncle Joe]

16. I have yet to see Moore's movie but I plan on doing so.

Thanks for the thread, Cleita.:thumbsup:

[Ichingcarpenter]

23. You can see it if you have broadband

Here
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/capitalism-love-story/


Also many great documentary films there

[Uncle Joe]

24. Thanks for the link Ichingcarpenter.

:) :thumbsup:

[JustAnotherGen]

17. I love the co-op idea

I'm launching an online publication next month, and I believe I will do well. I'd like to grow it, hire people, and make them 'owners' per se. A co-op of women entrepreneurs/writers. That's part of my five year business plan.

Now off to review the Small Business Owners forum. I had no idea it existed here. I hope to find tips from other Progressives on creating fair and healthy working environments.

[troubledamerican]

18. When Moore attacks capitalism itself, yet honors FDR who protected it...

This was Michael Moore's first movie that I have problems with.

Instead of urging a return to Glass-Steagall & restoring FDR's New Deal safeguards & regulations against banks, Moore turns himself into an anti-capitalist CARTOON, saying "All Capitalism Is Evil" and fulfilling every Neocon cartoon lying smear of Moore that's ever been minted.

Yet Moore ends the film by extolling FDR -- in contradiction to his entire thesis.

Why, Michael? Don't you see your own contradiction? Thanks for making it harder for us.

[Cleita]

19. He ended the film extolling FDR's new Bill of Human Rights not

all his policies. I don't think Moore was attacking capitalism. After all for coops to work there had to be enterprise and some capitalism. He just thinks we need to make it work for everyone not just 5% of the population. I don't see a contradiction there.

[troubledamerican]

20. MichaelMoore.COM -- "Capitalism is evil" says my new movie

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-in-the-news/capitalism-is-evil-says-new-michael-moore-film

He ended the film extolling both FDR's Bill of Economic Rights (not Human Rights) -- AND Franklin Roosevelt. Neither of which I have ANY problem with.

But since Moore believes in FDR (don't make me go find links), WHY BLOW YOUR CHANCE TO RESTORE FDR'S LAWS & REGULATIONS????

[Greyhound]

29. If you watched the film you might have noticed that he used the teachings of Catholicism,

which do very plainly identify it as evil. At the root of capitalism is the theft of another's product, the gain of one at the expense of many.

That is evil.

Now, there are many ways to ameliorate the foundational wrong, but it is still wrong. So the question becomes, how much wrong is acceptable to you?

[eridani]

22. Once upon a time, my folks took us to one of their favorite restaurants

--when we visited Chicago. Armandos on Rush St., owned by its waitstaff. When my dad explained that arrangement to me, it set my politics for life in a sense. The people who do the work should get the money. Fantastic!