Cosplay Socialist Fires Staff for Starting a Workers Co-Op

[Endus]

True that Conservatives have always distorted definitions of socialism.
But honestly, Cosplay Socialists have also distorted Socialism greatly over the past few years.

• For the first two hundred years socialist tried to create a vision of socialism that centered on industrial workers and farm laborers.
• Cosplay Socialists focus their brands around the idea of Luxury Space Communism. Everyone gets a cool job, free house, and a government issued PS5.

Online socialist seem to eat this shit up, and bristle whenever their podcasters get criticized.
Street level socialist hate that these guys dominate the information bandwidth.

I can get a little behind you on the Current Affairs guy firing everyone who tries to establish a co-op, but this? There's nothing about supporting a socialist framework that would require you to not pursue success while living within a capitalist one. Here, he isn't even exploiting workers; he's a Twitch streamer, and probably doesn't have staff at all (while Twitch obviously would, he's not a part of their corporate framework; he's a client.)

There's literally no hypocrisy to be had with this guy.

[uuuhname]

I can get a little behind you on the Current Affairs guy firing everyone who tries to establish a co-op, but this? There's nothing about supporting a socialist framework that would require you to not pursue success while living within a capitalist one. Here, he isn't even exploiting workers; he's a Twitch streamer, and probably doesn't have staff at all (while Twitch obviously would, he's not a part of their corporate framework; he's a client.)

There's literally no hypocrisy to be had with this guy.

I mean I can understand people who are organizing and protesting things like oil pipelines and such not being huge fans of people like Piker but you said it, this guy isn't taking anything away from others and pushes a leftist agenda while doing so. so what's the god damned problem?

[Lenonis]

"Hasan Piker has a big house" yeah, you totally called that one.

In general I've not really understood this argument. Someone can be successful and wealthy and still believe in income inequality and feeling like the rich should pay more in tax.

[uuuhname]

In general I've not really understood this argument. Someone can be successful and wealthy and still believe in income inequality and feeling like the rich should pay more in tax.

it's an incredibly lazy, half baked "gotcha" is what it is.

[JohnBrown1917]

If they are well-off they are hypocrites and if they are poor they are jealous.

[tehdang]

Classic cafeteria socialism. This is the guy who posts on his Twitter how great it would be for other companies to select their bosses.


Just look at the thought behind the sentiment. Wow, the era of bosses like feudal tyrants is so old, everybody knows workers should control their workers and select their bosses. Everybody knows that’s the right way to do things.

He should be first in line to let the workers in the company reorganize their work relationship. And yet, he can’t practice what he preaches. Begone, hypocrite.

[Yadryonych]

Cosplay Socialists focus their brands around the idea of Luxury Space Communism.

Wrong term again, these "cosplay socialists" are just grifters alleviating the cash from the clients stupid enough to buy their Luxury Space Communism bullshit

[s_bushido]

[*]For the first two hundred years socialist tried to create a vision of socialism that centered on industrial workers and farm laborers.

So tell the class: What's your ridiculous label for people who still think they're living in the 1920s?

[downnola]

Never trust a man who regularly dresses like he just walked off the set of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Nathan J Robinson hates Marxism and Marx, is he even a Socialist? His thing is "Sheep dogs for the Democratic Party and dresses like a freak"

Socialism with Nathan J. Robinson characteristics and a dash of Roger Stone aesthetics, innit.

[Diaphin]

Not to defend the guy, because this was a shitty move, but if you think "socialism" means "Marx", you have literally no idea what you're talking about.

Marx did not in any way originate the concept of socialist theory.

Still, while I wouldn't describe myself as a Marxist myself, being more in favor of market socialism, why would anyone hate Marx outside of being a contrarian? No matter if you ascribe to his ideas or not, there is no denial of him being a genius economist and philosopher. I mean, outside of being jealous that we germans have the coolest philosophy boys.

[jonnysensible]

why would anyone hate Marx outside of being a contrarian?

to be fair his wife and children had some cause.

[Diaphin]

to be fair his wife and children had some cause.

To be fair, I have a hard time imagining that Nate cares much about Marx wife and children or women in general. Just a feeling.

[Jotaux]

What was the purpose of the worker co-op?

[Themius]

I honestly don't know enough about this to have an informed opinion, but just based on what I've read in the past 5 minutes, this looks to me like another one of Milch's "Neo lib bashing everyone left of Ronald Reagan" threads.

From what I understand here is that Current Affairs is an LLC set up by Robinson who seems to be the sole owner. He created and ran a horizontal structure within his company, but nevertheless it was his company, and his staff essentially asked of him to turn his company into a worker's coop and thus make them co-owners/shareholders, that's not something Robinson was comfortable with, so he did away with the people pushing for this.

Now, if you want to criticize "leftism" or "worker coops" or "leftists" it would be nice if you'd first fucking understand what a worker's coop is, and how they emerge and how anarcho-syndicalists typically imagine the emergence of worker coops.

1. A worker coop is not a Union. I've seen several people in this thread confusing these things. A Union is a worker's organization meant to represent and protect the interests of laborers. A worker coop is a corporate entity whose owners and shareholders are its employees.

2. A worker coop typically emerges in 1 of 3 ways. 1 is a corporation that is either started through the consolidation of smaller existing businesses (like farms, or bicycle repair shops) or when a non-profit or a social purpose company switches to a for profit company structure, 2 when a group of entrepreneurs start a business that incorporates "part ownership" into the remuneration packages of new hirees, 3 when employees (typically via a Union) buy out part or full ownership of the company where they are employed, this usually happens when businesses requiring financing turn to their own employees for that financing.

Socialism and private ownership are not mutually exclusive. Most socialists, anarcho-syndicalists etc are often opposed to ideas like forced expropriations of private property. There are about 9.5 billion things we could do the encourage and assist the emergence of worker coops as a business model without recurring to forced expropriations.

I don't know enough about this Robinson person to be clear on whether he's being a hypocrite or not here, because whether he is or not is largely determined by what his past stances were on the different models for emergence and creation of worker coops.

Otherwise this is another one of those Milch threads where he goes "Socialist ate Big Mac! Hypocrite!!!!".

That about sums it up.

I need to pay attention to avatars... both of your names confuse me lol.

[PC2]

What was the purpose of the worker co-op?

It's always the same story. Jealous people want to usurp the person above them and take their decision making power. Even if the envious people haven't done anything to earn it and even if they're not the people who took the risk/time to start the organization in the first place, they still feel entitled.

[uuuhname]

It's always the same story. Jealous people want to usurp the person above them and take their decision making power. Even if the envious people haven't done anything to earn it and even if they're not the people who took the risk/time to start the organization in the first place, they still feel entitled.

this dudes PARENTS own and pay for the whole thing to even exist, what are you even talking about.

[Egomaniac]

Endus, stop being a pedantic prick. You do it with alarming regularity and all it does is alienate potential allies in a discussion. There are ways to present salient information without being a jerk about it.

Why don't you try it yourself then? When you start off with a personal attack all it does is alienate potential allies in a discussion...

[PC2]

this dudes PARENTS own and pay for the whole thing to even exist, what are you even talking about.

I was talking about why they did this. If Nathan's parents are funding everything then his colleagues are idiots for trying to peer pressure him out of his leadership position.

They should be more grateful to his family for funding their hobby project.

[uuuhname]

I was talking about why they did this. If Nathan's parents are funding everything then his colleagues are idiots for trying to peer pressure him out of his leadership position.

They should be more grateful to his family for funding their project.

your entire complaint hinges on this fantasy where "the boss" had to make sacrifices and work hard to be in the position he is, when that is so clearly not the case, at all. these people who wanted to organize are the one's taking risks to make it so everyone has equal standing in the company.

and no fuck that peasant mentality.

[Themius]

I suspect they're getting cancelled by socialists now. A quick check says... yup people are looking for alternatives.