I’ll never understand “communists” that start private capitalist companies. Seriously, why not put their money where their mouth is and start a coop? It makes no sense to me for JT to do everything he does just to end up a capitalist lmao
Coops aren’t necessarily bastions of workers’ rights you know. Coops exist within the same framework of capitalism and are guided by the same rules, they’re also businesses, they just have distributed ownership (or don’t, in the case of the one coop I worked with).
JT’s not a party leader or a revolutionary, he runs a youtube channel where he wants to make videos. I guess that best works as a private business in his situation. Running a business as a communist sounds normal to me honestly, especially if they’re in a capitalist country already.
if you wanna get into theory then I’ve always been down with Mao’s prescription of how domestic, regional bourgeoisie do not necessarily have an antagonistic relationship with the proletariat in every situation
I don’t think Mao meant that communists should become capitalists… he meant it makes sense to align with nationalist bourgeoisie to fight off a common enemy, like international and imperialist capital.
I wholeheartedly disagree that the best way to run anything under this system to be a private company. Unless “the best way” means the most profitable. Sure exploiting the labor of others is always gonna be more profitable. Even if you pay your workers well and give them nice benefits. But you’re still exploiting them, for profit.
I don’t understand how you can’t see how antithetical to what being a communist is. Unless you accept JT is just selling the product of communism and anti-capitalism, that he is just the expression of capitalism commodifying everything including the fight and resistance against itself… and like it? I don’t understand how this is fine and acceptable.
Shouldn’t we hold ourselves to higher standards…? It’s a thing being born into privilege and using that to help the communist cause. It’s another to climb the ladders of capitalist exploitation using the mantle of revolutionary thought.
Gonna be completely honest, I don’t put this much thought into how a person runs a YouTube channel because it doesn’t seem that consequential to me. It’s entertainment and a product. If JT were also a landlord or running exploitative farm labor you’d have more of a point, but if he’s making internet videos in an office I just can’t really muster the emotional capacity to say he’s betraying the working class or whatever. He’s an internet content creator, not a revolutionary with an AK.
Yes, you’re right. JT is selling a commodity. It just is what it is. You’re not going to find the fight against capitalism in YouTube videos and podcasts. They’re all commodities being sold to you. Maybe I’m cynical.
If he’s managing to provide a living for 4 people and those people are in a situation where they don’t feel exploited, I don’t really see how what he’s doing is why different than say Pravda pre-revolution, or any number of other communist newspapers/periodicals over the years that until the revolution had to support their workers through wages and sales of a product.
I mean, Marx was only able to write Capital because Engles had money from profiting off the labor of others. How is this any worse than that?
If he has no shareholders and no outside sources of debt funding (loans) to repay, his “business” never needs to make a profit though.
I think more important than co-op organizational structure would be a question of work place democracy. Are the workers given say over how their work is undertaken, do they have power over decisions? Ultimately under capitalism we are limited by the need to make enough profit to reproduce the business. The form that business takes when given those constraints can only be on some level exploitative.
The best you can do as an owner or part owner in the case of coops is to listen to your employees needs and compensate them as much as possible given the constraints of the budget.
The problem, as always, with capitalism is that exploitation goes into overdrive when the goal is to make a profit above the cost of production (including labour inputs) and this there is pressure to keep wages down and force longer hours.
If we had an unbiased look at his employees perspective and the finances, we could judge if he is engaging in profit making, or just earning enough to keep the lights on and to keep product moving. We can only take him at his word at this point.
Are there issues with this format, probably, but in the final analysis, will another pro communism propagandist be beneficial for the cause?
Not sure how he’s organized the operations between Hakim and Yugo and their production staffs, but a coop would still have employees, need to pay taxes on revenues/profits, work within the tax system of the country of operations, etc.
So effectively, there would be no difference financially. Coop organization needs to have a minimum number of people to reach quorum, annual meetings, a board of directors right? It might not be feasible for JT, Hakim, Yugopnik and their respective production staff to organize as a coop as they are all in three different countries.
The difference is a coop doesn’t exploit the labor of the workers, and there are no owners profiting off of them. Why are you all clawing at technicalities to dismiss this as an issue? It’s like if Coca Cola had a campaign saying Che was based and socialism is actually cool, you’d all be saying “fuck yeah coke is true praxis! Critical support for coke!”
Coops still exploit the labor of the workers, just not for the salary of the owner. It still exists within the capitalist paradigm, so it still exploits to stay competitive.
idk if this guy is a grifter or not, but syndicates aren’t going to topple capitalism
As long as proletarian interests are being upheld and pushed forward - we’re fine with it. JT’s channel is useful for the movement, and this is something I can attest to myself - I, for instance, got radicalized at least partly because I stumbled upon his content. We need more comrades, we need more cadres, we really need the movement to grow - thus, we can critically support JT’s work.
