lamp_wizard

Not to speak for Wolff, but I always understood him pushing cooperatives as also serving as a little window to see how socialism would kind of work at-large. Worker cooperatives are not socialist in and of themselves, but they do push on an important socialist idea, which is democracy in the workplace. From watching his lectures and reading his texts, Wolff seems to see cooperatives as a good way to push the idea that democracy in not just good--necessary, really--for politics but also for economics.

The added bonus is that it translates into something more concrete and material. When you ask a Marxist, Anarchist, or Socialist on how will socialism work--the answer is usually long and complicated, and almost always not super exciting, on top of being very abstract and detached from our own reality and how our own society now works. However, if we empower cooperatives (and similar democratic practices in the economy), we'll be able to point at them and be able to say: "socialism will look more like that, than [standard, un-democratic capitalist venture]" and people will see the benefits of not just cooperatives themselves, but what a socialist society could bring.

Hello professor Wolff, big fan here B)

I'm going into academia/teaching for history, but am considering also getting a degree in economics. From a leftist or anti-capitalist perspective, what is the most "exciting" up-and-coming topic of economics that is going on in academics today? Also, in your opinion, what should anti-capitalist economists focus on going forward in regards to both economics as a study/field and as politics?

Dude. I don't know if you're an ML or something so I don't want to tread on your feat, but socialism defined as worker control of the means of production is literally worker co-ops. Socialism is a mode of production, not some abstract socio-economic system.

Ehh. I'm not an ML anymore (closer to some off-branch anarchist; if anything, I'm a "moderate" socialist who sees advantages of pro-state and anti-state socialist tactics :p) but that's not a great definition of socialism. Would a market economy and a society that looks like ours but with worker co-ops make it socialist? No. Would worker co-ops make it easier for people to understand what a change towards socialism would be? Yes. That's all I essentially am trying to say.

I never said anything about central planning lmao. And you're right, it has nothing to do with socialism (or really capitalism), in terms of defining it.

I literally said that if you keep all things the same and just make all businesses cooperatives, that that would not make a society socialist. The assumption here being that if the rest of society changes, one that has worker cooperatives, that would be socialism.

Again, you're not talking to some liberal dude. I know lol.

Worker co-ops by themselves, however, are not socialist, and that's the hill I'll die on. I'm not a big fan of "market socialism", either, necessarily, but I guess that's more of an issue with definition than anything.