Asklemmy

Katamari raider superfederalism

Edit: TL;DR When all you have is infantry, and the enemy brings a tank, focus on commandeering the tank.

Summary: This one is a bit more niche. It’s a short-term and last-resort revolutionary organizational strategy that aims to provide a representative democratic framework via distributed (or directed fractional) shareholding in order to (1) legally seize private capital from a hostile oligarchy, (2) operate a de facto interim government in a post-capitalist/dystopian context, and finally (3) rebuild government without the interference of capital. In short, we eat the rich.

Key ideas:

1. If progress in society and government has been frustrated by the longterm over-empowerment of corporate machinery and weakening of government, it may become prudent or necessary to opportunistically use this overpowered machinery for a nonviolent revolution.
2. This can be done, even in a hostile oligarchic setting, using proven methods of market manipulation and corporate raiding, amplified by superior numbers, and staid by the negation of growth as a shareholder concern. The only viable defense available to any targeted conglomerate would be either to (a) cede capital to scabs or competing oligarchs in exchange for rescue and/or (b) improve government regulatory power to allow intervention, both of which weaken their position.
3. Since corporations have analogues of democratic structure, they can temporarily provide a legal analog for federal self-organization that is fortified against potential countermeasures of the old, corrupted government, courtesy of said corrupted government. In other words, we’re not trapped in this economy with them; they’re trapped in this economy with us.
4. The market capture phase could take years, depending on the pace of rank and file expansion but, unlike traditional labor organization, austerity measures aren’t necessary. This strategy begins distributing spoils (dividends) to current and future participants immediately. They need only claim their shares to receive them, and this incentive increases exponentially as market capture proceeds. Ultimately these dividends become exceedingly large, well beyond any UBI proposal, such that buy-in of all economic participants is virtually guaranteed.

When to use: It would be used as a last ditch effort in lieu of simpler, more traditional forms of organization, like trade unions and grassroots political mobilization, when these methods have failed. The point would be expediency, to postpone the otherwise immediate need for massive remediation, government deposition, and legislative restructuring, and to do so without bloodshed. The core strategic use of corporate apparatus includes market capture via cascading hostile takeover of public sectors and representative superfederalist self-organization for both collective action in the market and asset management/distribution.

Market capture apparatus: Workers would commandeer the overpowered institutional machinery of modern-day corporatocracy by staging a rapid campaign of mechanized corporate raiding. This would entail using vastly superior numbers to target, devalue, then “eat” the holdings of increasingly large capitalists, via outright takeover, share dilution, the attrition of relentless greenmail, and/or similarly targeted dogpiling in the market. While this type of raiding would normally face hyperbolic friction due to market efficiency, a successfully designed apparatus would maintain the collective action necessary to sidestep these effects with minimal loss of capital.

Superfederalist apparatus: The legal tools available for modern corporate organization are extensive and flexible, and crafting democratic and representative structures within these public organizations can and should begin immediately, while market capture is underway. Using shell corporations, incremental public offerings, and equity guarantees of irrevocable trusts, we can replicate existing federal-state-local governmental structures with incentivized participation via continually increasing onboarding bonuses and weekly dividend distribution. Top-heavy federal governance (aka “superfederalism”) is particularly useful where expediency and dispatch is a priority, and is what I would recommend. Regardless, at the outset, initial articles of at least the highest umbrella corp would need to be carefully written to strictly enforce the longterm distribution of equity. Otherwise aberrant internal power fluctuation would be the Achilles heel that upends the project and ultimately returns all captured sectors to free-market equilibria.

Purpose: Once majority (or total) market capture is achieved, such that the bulk of the economy is officially owned by the federal umbrella/cooperative (the people), the economic takeover would be sufficient to develop a more sensible government without the corruption/interference of the “invisible hand.” It should then be much easier to do so after the antagonistic forces of free market capital have been neutralized.

Caveats:

1. Of course, we are talking about a monolithic transient organization, well beyond the typical monopoly, but the fact that the shareholder base includes potentially all constituents makes government intervention improbable. Regardless, institutional antitrust measures are demonstrably toothless against accumulated capital.
2. This may sound reminiscent of the ill-fated GME/AMC scheme, and is indeed similar in spirit. While the primary weaknesses of that effort should be addressed in this strategy (namely WRT collective action problems and the scope of market capture) it’s generally important to bear in mind the lengths to which oligarchs are willing to go in order to preserve their position. The key would be ensuring deterrence, such that capitalists can only choose between capitulation, scorched earth attrition, or escalation to violence.
3. This strategy requires the destruction of capital. The aforementioned devaluation tactic of corporate raiding and the longterm suppression of free market mechanics will inevitably cause massive economic recession even though participants themselves gain increasing financial stability and power well beyond any historic economic boom. But this drawdown on the old economy is a necessary sacrifice of the revolution that would be recovered in the new economy. Think of it like a controlled forest fire.
4. Ultimately it must be temporary, like an interim government, so the resulting universal revolutionary cooperative should transition following market capture and restructuring of the state. A sensible government designed by and for the people is clearly a more appropriate longterm solution than an ad-hoc public entity designed for corporate raiding.