J LouOct 7, 2025

RE: https://mastodon.social/@davevolek/115331893716519727

With #taxation, the key is simplicity to prevent loopholes.

It isn’t clear when reforming the US tax code will be feasible with these demonic administrations.

In light of this, we should explore implementing private democratic associations of worker co-ops that use tax-like fees to provide startup capital to new worker co-operatives, buy out capitalist firms to democratize and mutual aid to members.

The worker cooperative legal form doesn’t give the full picture.

#capitalism #anticapitalism

Show threadJ Lou

Some ESOPs are also majority worker-owned and some of those are democratic.

Particular #taxes that can be implemented in private democratic federations of worker #cooperatives are

- Harberger taxes
- Transfer taxes
- the most important tax is a exit tax to prevent people from taking capital accumulated in one community and using it to fuel the #capitalist sector.

See: E. Glen Weyl’s work

#coops #TaxPolicy

Oct 7, 2025 at 5:26pmWeb
Show threadDave VolekOct 7, 2025

@jlou

I belong to two co-ops. They are customer based co-ops.

I have had some association with other co-ops, but they too were customer based.

I have heard of worker-based co-ops, but I don't have any first-hand experience with any. I have not heard of any in southern Alberta. I suspect this business model is not that viable.

Show threadJ LouOct 7, 2025

@davevolek

Consumer co-ops involve the same violation of workers’ property rights and inalienable rights as traditional corporations.

In the US, majority employee-owned companies are more popular than worker co-ops. Theoretically, there’s no fundamental economic reason why they shouldn’t be viable. Their rarity is better explained by inherent collective action problems in a system where voting rights in firms are alienable.

https://www.nceo.org/research/employee-ownership-100-largest-employee-owned-companies

I plan to start my own worker co-op.

The Employee Ownership 100: America's Largest Employee-Owned Companies

A list of the 100 largest U.S. companies that are employee-owned through an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) or other means, ranked by the number of employees.

Show threadDave VolekOct 7, 2025

@jlou

Having been in business and around many businesses, I recognize the challenges of staying in business, let alone earn a profit in that business. Successful businesses need to have a "killer instinct."

I am hoping the spolu helps workers find their killer instinct AND consumers prefer to shop there. Not one or the other, but both have a stake.

Show threadJ LouOct 7, 2025

@davevolek

I just don’t see another path for my generation other than changing the system, so we have to try something different.

My hope with the structure I’ve been thinking about is consumer membership at the level of the federation can help with consumers wanting to shop at these companies. Additionally, the consumer federation benefits will be paid out in the federation’s currency, so exit taxes will incentivize more transactions and commitment to the federation and exercising voice.

Show threadDave VolekOct 7, 2025

@jlou

I buy all my gasoline and about half my groceries at South Country Co-op. I believe the gasoline prices are competitive. But it's not hard to see that prices at the Co-op are 10% to 15% more than my Walmart.

But if more people shopped at the Co-op, it could afford to lower prices. We need more civic empathy for where we shop.

Show threadJ LouOct 7, 2025
@davevolek The exit fee helps with this by making it so that those that accumulate within the federation are obligated to the federation at an incentive level. This allows some degree of mutual aid in the form of below market rates among federation members because they can be assured that counterparties to internal transactions are committed to the same federation. Customers might receive their slice of the federation membership benefits in the internal currency.
Show threadDemocranomicOct 11, 2025

@jlou

I had not heard of Glen Weyl or "quadratic voting" before. It seems like a very useful social technology.

Gemini's summary was helpful in understanding it as, quote:

- a novel voting system designed to better reflect the intensity of voters' preferences rather than just their direction of choice.

- Voters are given a fixed budget of "vote credits". ... To cast N votes on an issue, it costs N^2 credits. For example, 1 vote costs 1 credit, 2 votes cost 4 credits, 3 votes cost 9 credits, and so on.

- mitigate the "tyranny of the majority" that can occur in "one-person-one-vote" systems. In traditional majority rule, a large group that only slightly prefers an outcome can overrule a smaller group that cares intensely about the opposite outcome. QV addresses this by allowing the intense minority to buy more votes and increase their influence on the issues that matter most to them.

So each person is given the same number of credits. A person can express the intensity of their preference by putting more votes on a single issue, but each additional vote on that single issue costs more credits. Meaning they have less vote credits to spend placing votes on other issues. Or they can put just a few votes on many issues. They can choose their balance of intensity vs. breadth.

Seems like some gaming could happen by whoever gets to choose the group of votable issues given to voters (i.e. putting many issues known to be important to the minority to force them to dilute their ability to register their intensity on any one issue). But still seems like a net positive compared to majority rule.

Thanks for sharing this.

Show threadJ LouOct 11, 2025

@cobber2005

Quadratic voting is definitely an interesting idea, but I had in mind more so his other ideas. For example, the first chapter of a book he co-wrote called Radical Markets, which can be found here:

https://assets.press.princeton.edu/chapters/s11222.pdf