cross-posted from: https://infosec.pub/post/49253806
1.4 Mission Statement The mission of the company is the well-being of all people. To accomplish this goal we will operate business ventures designed to generate income through which we can secure our own well-being and consequently become empowered to help others.
Today we are witnessing the spectacular failure of Capitalism to provide for the needs of this planet and the people on it. In previous eras of class instability, the focus was often on the bifurcation between those who wish to dominate, and those who wish for a world without domination. While the ideals of a world free of domination are admirable, its proponents face the cold reality that those who specialize in domination are able to accumulate more power than those who do not seek it.
This need to dominate is typically associated with hierarchical organizations, and for good reason as they are the mechanism that allows individuals to accumulate unconstrained executive power. However, rather than trying to dismantle hierarchical systems, our collective recognizes them as an essential tool for problem-solving and productivity. We intend to capture and incorporate hierarchical management into large, democratically owned and managed cooperatives called “Strategic Unions”. This will enable organizations with similar power compared to today’s capitalist corporations, but with social equity and Article 1.4 as their most fundamental goals.
The plan is to deploy open-source Enterprise Resource Planning software to coordinate the efforts and voting that will take place in the co-op. You then recruit like-minded workers from your area to join your server and begin organizing and holding elections. At this point, workers in your cooperative will put forward business plans and become candidates for CEO. The members vote based on the candidate and the business plan, and the person who wins is not a dictator. They are a mandated agent of the co-op, and they are removable by vote. Their job is to coordinate the business project according to their plan in order to generate revenue.
After elections, you incorporate as a Strategic Union, which means filing Articles of Incorporation as a C-corporation in your state. You will then have bargaining power in your area based on the size and specialization of your workforce. You can use the Master Staffing Agreement template to negotiate labor contracts with local businesses. Your co-op members are hired out full time, so the member-worker gets a paycheck in a similar arrangement to a staffing or temp agency. The co-op gets paid by the hour and the amount left over after paying the worker (the margin) funds the CEO’s business plan. This allows for funded without capitalist investors. It’s a “bootstrapping” process, meaning the first business plan is self-starting. Once the staffing contracts are no longer needed, they are dropped.
Following this plan, you don’t have to work at the same business to organize a union. You set up your server and organize with whomever you like.
We are asking you to take on Article 1.4 as your personal mission and join our efforts. Or, we could ride the crapitalism train to wherever it may be headed. Your choice my friends.
Apoidea Group
https://codeberg.org/Brachylophus/Apoidea
https://codeberg.org/Brachylophus/Apoidea/src/branch/main/PHILOSOPHY.md (Manifesto)
https://codeberg.org/Brachylophus/Apoidea/src/branch/main/INCORPORATION.md (Articles of Incorporation, including 1.4)
https://codeberg.org/Brachylophus/Apoidea/src/branch/main/STAFFING.md (Master Staffing Agreement)
https://matrix.to/#%2F!dVwyUzAwiuIflwnpEF%3Amatrix.org%3Fvia=matrix.org (Chat rooms)
Hmm lets talk about the executive compensation first, since I can understand how that might be a point of contention.
First off, it’s not meant to imply that the President and CEO are the only officers to get a bonus, it’s just that those bonuses are key to keeping the company in balance.
There’s not really any point to giving everyone at the company a bonus because they get dividends from the surplus, so they would get that same money anyhow.
Also, the Board of Directors may have an incentive bonus based on health and safety metrics. The CEO can share a portion of their bonus with the management in their organization. Same thing with the President’s office (basicaly HR). It will all be configurable with payroll rules, so you can set up bonuses in your co-op however you like (or not).
The two main leadership roles, the President and the CEO, are actually likely to be extremely stressful in my opinion. The President is basically HR and the software will have a system where members can submit “Issues” and tag a person for resolution. It then becomes the President’s problem to mediate the issue and find a solution.
For the CEO, the success of the entire organization hinges on their decision-making ability and their project management skills. They also have to do things like negotiate contracts with other businesses. None of those things are easy when there dozens or perhaps hundreds of people’s livelihoods on the line.
The key here is that the President and the CEO are adversarial roles. The CEO will try to increase the surplus and the President will try to direct that into payroll, resulting in a back and forth power struggle of growth vs social equity.
I guess my goal in sculpting the model the way I did was to make the leadership roles into a “prize” so that there would be a significant incentive for talented people to try out for the role.
A lot of people just want to work on the assembly line, get a paycheck, and go home to their families at night. Others are ambitious and want to lead. There is room for both types of people in this setup (and everyone in between).
Anyway we are definitely in agreement that startup funding is a huge issue. I do think it is solvable with the staffing agreements, even if people have to be patient an put in the work.
I’m not so sure about that. Having worked on assembly lines, most people I worked with were constantly trying to find a way out :) Perhaps that’s just because me and most of my co-workers were young and not crushed by the world yet. It’s truly mindnumbing and unsatisfying work though.
Anyways, I don’t mean to be too critical; just kind of thinking out loud. I find your project really interesting, and don’t want to let perfection get in the way of progress.
Hah, fair enough! Hopefully we can get rid of the crappy jobs without throwing people out on the street