The slap fight between Donald Trump and Elon Musk has highlighted the absurdity of keeping so much of our space program and satellite internet infrastructure in the hands of a single oligarch.
Post Soviet Russia. There’s a fun history lesson in there. They gave stock in all the companies to all the workers. Then a couple rich people got together and tricked all the people to accumulate all the stocks. Those people became the oligarchs. And we know what happened to the workers of Russia. They all died in a trench in Ukraine very happy story.
First of all, it was performed the way that nobody knew what to even do with those privatization vouchers. They didn’t directly give anyone stocks, just vouchers for part of a company etc. Those had to be exchanged for stocks.
People didn’t know what to do with them, people had problems feeding their families, and people were offered some money for them. And people thought that’s what capitalism is, you get offered money for something, you give it. Nobody scams you, right?
Since those oligarchs happened to all have right friends, it’s without any doubt not a mistake that those stocks could even be sold.
And - attention - another history lesson. All the Soviet propaganda against religion led to everyone becoming “kinda church-loving” in the 90-s initially. All the Soviet propaganda for scientific view of the world led to thousands of sects and charlatans, together scamming most of the population. All the Soviet propaganda for honest and labor ethic led to most people not even considering such scams really scams, because in Soviet propaganda doing business was treated same as scamming someone.
So nobody even thought what’s happening is wrong. And the part of the population which did understand was those who got the shorter stick. People losing themselves in a bottle or a needle, people literally dying from hunger, people having to do crime or prostitution or mercenary work to survive. It was an unholy kingdom where for a part of the population it seemed they are almost the middle class now, just like in those American movies and ads, and the other part saw those ads and those people daily, but could barely survive.
And then, after a few years, the former part grew some understanding that Russia is approaching fascism, and the latter part, which already lived it since 1993, was so broken that it obeyed the fascists after they gave it a bit of a life without hunger and depression in the 00s.
See, there is a layer of the Russian (and general ex-Soviet) culture, in vibes and emotions, showing things as they really were, but it’s horrible to look into that. It was plainly impossible for a normal person to accept some group of people like Anatoly Sobchak’s daughter as opposition. After real opposition figures were being marginalized, jailed and even murdered for a few years. After the Chechen wars. After the way that privatization happened, and the 1993. Nobody would follow people who are just a subset of the same evil, except playing clean because it’s in fashion.
Then, of course, such a decision, so to say, made by a whole country leads to madness.
And this is what we live since then. Those stormtroopers on crutches storming Ukrainian positions - they know that their orders come from the evil itself. They are not fighting for something or against something, only to feel that evil as more material, or take their share of the suffering, or prove something to themselves. It’s a whole society of depressed people who need to prove something to themselves, because everything around is both evil, fake and dirty, one yearns for purification. It’s desperation of the better kind of people, whether you believe it or not. The worst kind finds ways not to die. It’s even natural for humans, like best shown in Japanese culture of honorable death. In European military cultures honorable suicide was a thing, well, in 2022 a few Russian generals shot themselves. I’ve read about them.
It’s really disgusting to be of the “fat” part of the population of these two.
Thank you for elaborating my point. It’s all very reminiscent of what’s going on right now in the United States. 20 years of an infowar and the American people seem to be in a similar position. The majority of this country doesn’t understand what going on in financial markets yet they all depend on them to survive their retirements. The wealth is being massively consolidated through means that people don’t understand.
Anyway appreciate you bringing the proper details into my point. And the chilling reminder of what the future holds.
I can’t think of any examples. Taking over the company requires capital, which is the one thing that capitalists constantly extract from workers so they don’t have any.
The workers of xs4all tried when their new corporate owners, KPN, decided to dissolve them. But a combination of lack of funding and unfriendly courts prevented that. They did end up starting a new company though…
It’s a shame you commies don’t know history? Do you avoid it on purpose because it interferes with your ability to make shit up and try to sound intelligent
In the US we would remove the leadership, fix the problems with the companies. In this case it’s Elon who is a military risk and political liability. He has broken enough laws and violated our constitutional rights. We can happily remove him from the seat of his power, which are his companies, especially the publicly listed one. Under new leadership these companies can be returned to the public sector just like with General Motors.
Ya like in Russia! When all the poor got tricked out of their shares and a billionaire class was made which continued to strangle the poor for 30 years
Oh, high standing officers controlling shares in a hypercapitalist megacorp, I see how that can be confused with siezing the means of production from the jaws of capitalism, but I think you and him are talking about vastly different things to be honest
Giving companies to the state doesn’t always work well. However giving companies to the workers does.
We’ve seen China give companies to the state, but have there been any large examples of giving companies to the workers?
Post Soviet Russia. There’s a fun history lesson in there. They gave stock in all the companies to all the workers. Then a couple rich people got together and tricked all the people to accumulate all the stocks. Those people became the oligarchs. And we know what happened to the workers of Russia. They all died in a trench in Ukraine very happy story.
First of all, it was performed the way that nobody knew what to even do with those privatization vouchers. They didn’t directly give anyone stocks, just vouchers for part of a company etc. Those had to be exchanged for stocks.
People didn’t know what to do with them, people had problems feeding their families, and people were offered some money for them. And people thought that’s what capitalism is, you get offered money for something, you give it. Nobody scams you, right?
Since those oligarchs happened to all have right friends, it’s without any doubt not a mistake that those stocks could even be sold.
And - attention - another history lesson. All the Soviet propaganda against religion led to everyone becoming “kinda church-loving” in the 90-s initially. All the Soviet propaganda for scientific view of the world led to thousands of sects and charlatans, together scamming most of the population. All the Soviet propaganda for honest and labor ethic led to most people not even considering such scams really scams, because in Soviet propaganda doing business was treated same as scamming someone.
So nobody even thought what’s happening is wrong. And the part of the population which did understand was those who got the shorter stick. People losing themselves in a bottle or a needle, people literally dying from hunger, people having to do crime or prostitution or mercenary work to survive. It was an unholy kingdom where for a part of the population it seemed they are almost the middle class now, just like in those American movies and ads, and the other part saw those ads and those people daily, but could barely survive.
And then, after a few years, the former part grew some understanding that Russia is approaching fascism, and the latter part, which already lived it since 1993, was so broken that it obeyed the fascists after they gave it a bit of a life without hunger and depression in the 00s.
See, there is a layer of the Russian (and general ex-Soviet) culture, in vibes and emotions, showing things as they really were, but it’s horrible to look into that. It was plainly impossible for a normal person to accept some group of people like Anatoly Sobchak’s daughter as opposition. After real opposition figures were being marginalized, jailed and even murdered for a few years. After the Chechen wars. After the way that privatization happened, and the 1993. Nobody would follow people who are just a subset of the same evil, except playing clean because it’s in fashion.
Then, of course, such a decision, so to say, made by a whole country leads to madness.
And this is what we live since then. Those stormtroopers on crutches storming Ukrainian positions - they know that their orders come from the evil itself. They are not fighting for something or against something, only to feel that evil as more material, or take their share of the suffering, or prove something to themselves. It’s a whole society of depressed people who need to prove something to themselves, because everything around is both evil, fake and dirty, one yearns for purification. It’s desperation of the better kind of people, whether you believe it or not. The worst kind finds ways not to die. It’s even natural for humans, like best shown in Japanese culture of honorable death. In European military cultures honorable suicide was a thing, well, in 2022 a few Russian generals shot themselves. I’ve read about them.
It’s really disgusting to be of the “fat” part of the population of these two.
Thank you for elaborating my point. It’s all very reminiscent of what’s going on right now in the United States. 20 years of an infowar and the American people seem to be in a similar position. The majority of this country doesn’t understand what going on in financial markets yet they all depend on them to survive their retirements. The wealth is being massively consolidated through means that people don’t understand.
Anyway appreciate you bringing the proper details into my point. And the chilling reminder of what the future holds.
I’m not sure our idea of happiness aligns.
I can’t think of any examples. Taking over the company requires capital, which is the one thing that capitalists constantly extract from workers so they don’t have any.
The workers of xs4all tried when their new corporate owners, KPN, decided to dissolve them. But a combination of lack of funding and unfriendly courts prevented that. They did end up starting a new company though…
It’s a shame you commies don’t know history? Do you avoid it on purpose because it interferes with your ability to make shit up and try to sound intelligent
I know it’s asking a lot, but you could give an example instead of insulting me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
In the US we would remove the leadership, fix the problems with the companies. In this case it’s Elon who is a military risk and political liability. He has broken enough laws and violated our constitutional rights. We can happily remove him from the seat of his power, which are his companies, especially the publicly listed one. Under new leadership these companies can be returned to the public sector just like with General Motors.
Yes sorry. We nationalized General Motors in 2009 Amtrak in 1973 the banks in 2008.
Don’t even get me started on World War II
All of these were taken by the state, not the workers, which was the question.
True. We have a lot of public owned companies in Croatia, they are the most corrupt. Big comoanies are too, but not to that extent
If the state is bad giving it a company just seems dumb. Giving the workers ownership, like profit share, only supports working class people.
Ya like in Russia! When all the poor got tricked out of their shares and a billionaire class was made which continued to strangle the poor for 30 years
Which… is mostly what SpaceX already is. It’s a privately owned company, and the employees own a huge amount of the shares
Oh, high standing officers controlling shares in a hypercapitalist megacorp, I see how that can be confused with siezing the means of production from the jaws of capitalism, but I think you and him are talking about vastly different things to be honest
Any evidence to this? Even if it is true I doubt it’s evenly distributed.