I’m done googling things for you until you tell me how much you enjoyed Homage to Catalonia.
But, FYI: the organizational structure that Mondragon uses is not at all a good analogy to a modern western political jurisdiction. Bottom up organizations are distinctly different than top down organizations.
Today I learn paying $50M in labour costs to workers is just an unnecessary footnote in history.
I guess this is where you can make some inroads with me. It’s unfortunate and sad (to me) if this is what it takes to make improvements to the system, but it’s certainly welcome to see some meaningful improvements. Even if I cannot support the stated objectives in their totality.
I’m not going to go back and look but I’m pretty sure you offered. I don’t typically ask people to go do stuff for me that I can do myself if I’m interested.
Being horizontal isn’t a destination, it’s a journey.
We build the road as we travel.
Every successful strike is a partial expropriation.
Building the new world in the shell of the old.
Preconfiguration.
So if the Capitalist would just “step out of the way” the workers and the producers and consumers would magically come together and achieve what we sought after without paying the excess to the “middle man”.
Let’s test this theory with a sprinkle of thought.
How do we go from there, all 3 of us looking at this piece of dirt, to a $100M dollar tower being built? You told me the capitalist was just standing in our way from this happening.
Do we just snap our fingers?
Naw, I’m just making fun of myself. It’s all good. If I didn’t feel like doing so, I’d do something else. 
But seriously, read Homage to Catalonia. It’s a good short read.
Homage to Catalonia is an awesome book and it’s quite short. It’s not really about the nuts and bolts of worker organization or anything like that, but that’s part of it. It’s Orwell’s description of his time spent in Spain during the revolution in which he fought. You/everyone should read it.
The only lesson that needs learning is that it makes no difference where the $50 million comes from and that merely having $50 million on hand should entitle you to something you didn’t make.
Does it entitle you to something if the absence of the $50 million means nothing happens?
Ok I’ll read it this weekend. After I read the stuff about the water rights issue in Florida that I’ve been meaning to get to.
The $50M goes something like this: The Federal Reserve, acting under all of our authority and ostensibly for all of our benefit, causes some digits to be added to the accounts of member banks. Those banks cause some digits to be added to the accounts of “investors”. Those “investors” cause some digits to be added to the accounts of different kinds of “investors” who hold onto supplies. Those “investors” cause digits to be moved into the accounts of people who move supplies around and fashion them into buildings. At the end of this the rights to the building are held by the member banks (unless they package these rights and sell them on Wall St.)
The scenario of “how does housing get built without capitalists” is actually not hypothetical. Millions of homes are built every year so its actually very real and not hypothetical.
Let’s make it more simple to you.
We are looking at a piece of dirt together where I want to live. How do we get this house built? How do we go from looking at dirt to me living in this house?
Well then what is preventing stuff from springing up all over right now?
Let’s flesh out your hypothetical and add a fourth option:
Here is the challenge, each of us has to eliminate one of the 4, and still create housing that people are using. Which one of those four will you eliminate?
I’m claiming that we can create housing that people are using without #4. And trivially so. You can’t eliminate 1, 2, or 3 and complete the challenge. Because those three are the only essential ones.
I’d also like to point out, once again, that we got about a generation worth of useless wasteful empty housing. That last damn thing we need is more of the shit “springing up” right now.
Capitalism isn’t a system of production. The only thing it “creates” is misery. Capitalism is a system of distribution. Who gets what.
Now we are having a discussion. Adding that 4th option Capitalist that we want to eliminate.
House will cost $100 000 to build.
Labourer says it will take him 1 year and $50000 in his time to build.
Producer says his materials cost him $50000 to supply.
So Labour and Producer need to get paid. The consumer (me) only has $1200-$1500 a month to pay. I make a $50 000 salary and don’t have much in savings.
We have a $100K problem here.
There are two problems. One is land and owning it. For some crazy reason land is all owned up. The other is organization. People generally don’t want to do it. People don’t want to be committed to anything. People don’t want to be responsible for anything. If PocketChads could find 100 people who were committed and organized, they could definitely get some communal housing done.
Regarding Homage to Catalonia. It’s an incredible snap shot into the Spanish Civil War. And pre-emptive TL:DR if anyone isn’t a history buff.
Imagine an alternate history where in 1936 a democratically elected government in France is hit with a right-wing/facist coup. Hitler and Mussolini actively support the perpetrators of the coup during a 3 year civil war. Nazis supply arms, material, and men against the democratically elected government of France. The USA and Great Britain tell France “You’re on your own, bruh. And now that you mention it, those coup leaders are kinda cool with us”. Tens of thousands are KIA, MIA, and purged. In 1939, just five months after the France Civil War ends, Germany invades Poland, and THAT is when our history books say that the Nazis started WWII, and not moment before! After defeating Germany in WWII the Allies allow the Nazi supported and facist governement in France to stay in power for the next 4 decades.****** End alternate history.
Just substitute Spain in for France in that alternate history, and that is basically what happened.
It is amazing that Franco was in power in Spain until 1975 and people from all of the world, including the US, would just visit Spain like it was no big deal.