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Does difficulty matter? Any communist revolution will be more difficult than establishing a network of cooperatives. I believe that if there is a desire for Socialism, people will spend the time to establish cooperatives.
A communist revolution would fundamentally restructure the way society operates which is a far more valuable goal than establishing a network of cooperatives which simply allows people lucky enough to work in these cooperatives to cope better with capitalist repression. These two things aren't even remotely comparable, and abandoning freedom for all workers because it's just too darn difficult is a cowardly position to take.
What can you do with a communist revolution that you cannot do with cooperatives, apart from using violence?
A communist revolution will abolish capitalist relations and allow creation of a government by the working class for its own benefit. If communist relations could be established via cooperatives without using violence then that would've happened already. People have tried doing this for over a century now with nothing to show for it. Meanwhile, communist revolutions have actually allowed workers to seize the means of production and turn them towards the benefit of the working masses. At this point I honestly can't tell if you're just trolling here.
You can't tell because I am arguing.for a position that communists somehow want to ignore.
For a communist revolution today the means of production are already necessary. Russia and China were possible because they were not industrialized.
Are there capitalist relations within a cooperative? If not then why do you need a revolution when everything is already there?
Communist revolution has nothing to do with the level of industrialization. Cooperatives would not be taking over as the dominant form of labour organization as long as a country is ruled by the capital owning class because that wouldn't be in the interest of the capital owning class. If capitalists were willing to give up their wealth and power without a struggle than revolutions wouldn't be needed in the first place. It's kind amazing that you don't understand this basic fact.
What I meant with the lack of industrialization is that those revolutions could be fought with rifles. Today you need tanks and drones. Any revolution is interrupted by cutting global supply lines.
Cooperatives don't have to be dominant. It could be that people prefer to work in classical hierarchies. There should just be so many cooperatives that whoever wants to live a socialist life can find a place to do so.
I indeed believe that revolution is not needed. There is no unified capital owning class. If you don't change the political system and let them have their power, why should they waste resources on fighting cooperatives?
That's complete and utter nonsense. First of all, revolutions happen when significant parts of the military choose to side with the populous against the ruling class. Second, modern military runs on logistics. If the workers do not support the regime then fuel won't be delivered for the tanks, food won't be delivered to the troops, and so on. Fighting a civil war is completely different from invading other countries.
Meanwhile, this notion that cooperatives don't have to be dominant is also nonsensical. As I've repeatedly explained to you here, the whole system is designed to make large scale cooperative movements a nonstarter. What you're proposing here is a fantasy that's based on your lack of understanding of how businesses actually work under capitalist system. You have this romanticized notion that's completely divorced from the real world. I highly encourage you to educate yourself on the subject instead of arguing out of ignorance based on your made up idea of how things work.
There very much is a unified capital owning class, but it's not unified in the simplistic way you seem to imagine it to be. The capital owning class is unified by their shared class interest. It's not bunch of people in a room doing a conspiracy. It's a bunch of individual actors acting in their own interest, and they all favor certain types of policies because it provides a common benefit for the capital owning class.
The relationship between a capitalist and a labourer is that the labourer sells their labour to the capitalist in return for a wage. The capitalist wishes to maximize their profit which means paying as low wage as they can while the worker wants to maximize their wage and get as much value out of their work as they can. This is the fundamental contradiction between the interests of the worker and the capitalist.
Under capitalist rule, it's the capital owning class that holds power in society. This is precisely what analysis of many decades of policy in US shows:
If the cooperative structure does not threaten class interests of the oligarchs then it's not achieving anything of value. And if cooperatives actually started cutting into the profits of the capitalists then it would be in the shared class interests of the capitalists to fight cooperatives.
You continue to argue a subject that you have superficial understanding of. Perhaps spend a bit of time actually learning about how political economy works before trying to form ideas on how to improve it.
It's interesting that 3 people seem to disagree with you without telling you why. I also would like to know why they reject your detailed comment.
Unfortunately I cannot agree with you about my lack of knowledge. I believe in cooperatives despite the valid problems that you have mentioned.
If the capital class turns full fascism to destroy cooperatives then you have your revolution. But for capitalism, cooperatives are just another member of the capital owning class. Everybody wants a monopoly but not everybody gets it.
The key problem is the reserve army of labor. If cooperatives show some restraint and don't destroy labor market rates by cornering markets themselves and distributing that surplus, then capitalism can continue uninterrupted. Not everybody wants to participate in discussions as much as cooperatives require.
If everybody wants to be a socialist then cooperatives should even create incentives to maintain capitalism. That's where I lack knowledge. I don't see how value can be determined without competition. Do we want a society without value?
Let the capitalists have their boats. You need people who dedicate their lives to business processes. There is enough value created when there is a choice to work in a socialist cooperative. Communism is not only prevented by capitalists but also by the people themselves who don't vote differently. Capitalists work with those weaknesses while communists hope that they are not a problem.
Simply believing in something doesn't make it viable. You have to look at the history of cooperatives, how they operate under capitalism, and how they fare against capitalist companies. People have been trying to achieve what you're proposing for many decades with little to show for it. You need to address why that is and why you're so convinced that it can be different given all the evidence to the contrary.
The other aspect you need to consider is that capitalist companies will always have an advantage over cooperatives because they are much more willing to exploit the workers. The willingness to exploit allows the company to increase profit and market share, so competition fundamentally favors such companies. While you could argue that workers would prefer to join cooperatives, reserve army of labour ensures that there are always enough workers to go around. And of course, traditional companies can always temporarily improve their working conditions to run a cooperative out of business. We even see this dynamic with traditional companies competing.
Meanwhile, competition is perfectly possible under the communist model. For example, USSR had plenty of different design bureaus that would compete with each other. The difference was that it was friendly competition, and results were shared. The system was more efficient than capitalist competition as evidenced by USSR leading the space race.
Communism is prevented by people buying into the current capitalist model. Traditionally this has been the case because the standard of living in the west was relatively high due to the fact that most brutal exploitation was done in the countries the west subjugates. However, we are now reaching the stage of capitalism where exploitation is turning inward and people in the core of the empire are seeing their living standards deteriorate. As this process continues going forward, more and more people will reject the system.
Communists understand the inherent self destructive dynamic of capitalism and that you can't just paper over these problems with cooperatives.
Cooperatives don't have to pay owners nor a management layer. Workers also shouldn't slack. These advantages should overcome the benefits of exploitation.
Ussr won space race and lost the microchip race. The availability of cad systems created a big advantage.
Capitalism is not inherently self destructive. Exponential growth is only needed if all investors should succeed. That's not necessary.
Capitalism will thrive when times get tough because the majority will choose to compete instead of cooperate. Cooperatives could create space for those who want to cooperate.