i know wolff is trying to present workable alternatives, and i give him credit for it, but i think he's missing the point: the apathy about worker co-ops is built in large part by the absence of meaningful working class jobs. organizing a mcdonalds is not just different than organizing a car factory on a question of scale, it's different on a question of value. do we really want worker-run fast food restaurants, grocery stores and call centres? does that really have the potential to improve anybody's life?

the numbers points towards mechanization, rather than offshoring, as the prime contributor. isn't this a step forward in quality of life over actually running the factories with manual labour? if we could seize these forces of production for everybody....

i'm on record for my disdain of zizek, but something he's pointed to repeatedly is the idea that we've already passed through the socialist stage. marx wasn't a clairvoyant. historical materialism is more magic than science. maybe it's time to look around us and realize that actual communism is within our reach.

this is what the kids can see, and why they're convinced this co-op shit belongs in the 20th century.

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/20991-worker-coops-and-left-strategy