this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2024
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That's a fair question, but there are many different answers. Not all leftist schools of thought fully advocate for removing a management style hierarchy, though some do. Some ideas push for rotating management with either a round robin selection, a raffle system, or democratically elected managers. Not dissimilar to how many countries run their governments.
Alternatively, if it fits the workflow, a flat style structure where no one inherently has a defined role, so teams form naturally to work on what they want or deem necessary. Someone will still often fill the role of "project manager" mind you, but the who and how are determined based on what works best for the situation. Not unlike letting students form their own groups for projects.
If you are genuinely curious, there is no shortage of books, YouTube videos, and websites just waiting to opine about their preferred methodology that would give you a much more authentic and robust understanding. Or I bet if you thought about it, you could even come up with some variations yourself.
The important point to get across for leftists is that the structure of economic production should be such that its aim is to benefit the general populace as evenly or equitably as possible. This is opposed to an "owner class" who uses their power, usually in the form of wealth, to take control the economic means of production, who then sets out to have the workers create more value than they will be given in return, so that the "owner" can take the excess value generated by the workers to increase their own wealth and/or power.
tl;dr
The lynchpin question for leftists isn't "who runs the factory?", but "who reaps the rewards?".
It sounds very theoretical. I don’t know of a large modern example.
The main problem with organizing work is that it’s very very difficult to do and the more people involved the more difficult it is. A hierarchical structure may not be ideal, but as with American democracy, it’s the worst thing we can think of besides everything else that has been tried.
See, I would look at that as the linchpin question for capitalists.
I like how you scrolled past a comment with a huge list of worker co-ops just in the US (there are also multinational ones) to tell someone else that it sounded too theoretical and complicated to work, lmao.
What huge list?
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/11507669
The one in that comment under the spoiler tag.
Wild, I didn't see that at all - like it should have shown up in my replies, but I didn't see it.
Well, it looks to be very similar to the other list I replied to, so I'm guessing it's probably the same although I didn't do a 1-1.
Suffice to say - yeah there are a lot of worker-owned businesses in the sense that it's at least 100 and a few of them (Publix, HyVee) are pretty big. Again, not a lot of technology in them, but more stable industries where the same equipment and processes year after year can produce good results.
Which is good!
I mean, it is the lynchpin question for capitalists as well, the origination of modern leftist thought was a critique of capitalism. They basically share all of the same questions.
And it is difficult to do, though no more difficult than our current systems. Large scale systems are always hard to manage. But how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. We don't need to completely undo society to start moving towards a more equitable future.
And it is highly theoretical, no doubt about that. That's how you start to improve anything, you theorize about solutions, impliment the best ones you can, and iterate overtime.
That's not actually true, work has been organized in a multitude of ways throughout history to various levels of effectiveness. And the outcomes of these structures have been largely situational. Saying hierarchical structures are the "least worst" is a broad generalization. Also, as I already pointed out, not all schools of leftist thought do away with hierarchy in the management of work. The only thing leftist schools of thought universally push for is changing the distribution model of value generated from said work.
Though if hierarchical structures are kept, how the hierarchy is determined is obviously usually changed as well. Given that our current model ties these decisions to the "owner" of the business, who's status as owner would need to be removed or at least reimagined to work within the new value distribution model.
Also, I have to refute your "American Democracy is the worst thing we have tried except all the others". That is just a thought killing statement meant to prevent discussions of better options.
We know for a fact that capitalism creates an ultra wealthy class that is comprised of a very small percentage of the population while also leaving a significant portion of the population in abject poverty. Even when it has the resources to support it's entire population, at least at a "base necessities" level, as is the case in America.
You could argue that you don't agree with the various solutions presented by any and all leftist (though it sounds like you really haven't bothered to research it either), but understand that it is this inherent and unnecessary cruelty that pushes people to seek out a better system. And from a leftists point of view, every single person in poverty is a failure of the current system, every person who dies from inadequate health care coverage a reason to rework our systems, every extravagant dinner a billionaire eats while a child goes hungry proof that this system is in dire need of change.
Maybe you believe capitalism is somehow the best solution to these problems, and that we could do no better, that we truly have reached the "end of history", but I doubt it. But if you think we could do more to help people, then you too might be more of a leftist than you realize.
And while most of us on the "far left" would love to see a future where we do away with the capitalist class, most of us would settle for health care and school lunches in the near future for now.