PC CHICK SPEAKS: The MeatGrease Redemption Thread

[chrisinLA]

.

[Black Jacques]

How do you type with dough fingers?

[monsterod]

At this juncture I find it important to point out that Penis Envy endures as a fucking rocking album. Nothing can take that away from me.

there was some gay tribute show to it last year in LA. so much ass. it was great.

So you were saying Katie is in LA now

no I didn't.

I need another nap before I even attempt anything more here.

[Introvert]

My last band played this place about 8 years ago. Either they weren't all anal-anarcho back then or I just wasn't paying attention. Of course I spent the majority of the night at a bar down the street until it was our turn to play, so.....

It wasn't until they did the whole 'cops not allowed' thing a few years ago that I even heard anything about their political views. So it IS possible to avoid these people who are so far up their own asses if they aren't your cup of.....coffee. No need to nuke the town U, at least not yet....

[krudmonk]

Where does the anti-capitalism and anarchy part come in?

decor, fliers, facebook page...

[EEEOOOEEEOOOEEEOOO]

Geoff, it's a worker-owned co-operative. They're pretty common and I'm sure you have them in Boston. There are some really successful ones in the Bay Area and yeah, a lot of the worker-owners are into anarchist politics and stuff, but they don't put off this holier-than-thou flying in the face of capitalism vibe that I think is rubbing you the wrong way. As far as business models go, I think it's great!

worker-owned bakery:
http://www.arizmendibakery.org/

worker owned cheesery
http://cheeseboardcollective.coop/

worker owned strip-club (say whaaat?):
www.lustyladysf.com

[Wormholegenerator]

I'm OK with this person.

[spacehamster]

You guys know they had money and jobs in the Soviet Union too, right? Like I said, I'm not remotely questioning that these people are morons, but the way some of you guys think "WAL U HEFF A JERB UR A CAPTALUSS" is somehow a valid criticism here isn't particularly enlightened either.

Cue someone telling me I'm not allowed to use etard-speak anymore.

[EEEOOOEEEOOOEEEOOO]

It's certainly not outside of the system of capitalism, and I don't think most of the original worker-owned cooperatives were trying to escape capitalism per se. It is more democratic. Sure, very small businesses are all worker-owned, but anything the size of those links that I posted are usually not: they hire a number of people who work for wages, and the extra money goes to the owner, i.e. the person who put up the initial capital. In a worker-owned cooperative, all of the workers have an equal share of the ownership stake, which you could call capital, so they share equally from the profits. No one suffers because they didn't have the money to begin with, and (if it's run right and by the right people) workers have more dignity and a stronger work ethic because they are working for something that they are really a part of.

As to whether or not it's capitalism, narrowly defined capitalism is a system in which the end goal is the growth of capital (rather than say being self-sufficient or producing social goods). We all live in an economy driven by capitalism. I suppose you could speak of degrees to which different businesses (worker-owned or not) operate by the capitalist spirit. I guess the examples I posted above are trying to expand their businesses, which I suppose makes them capitalist? But part of their mission is to spread their business model, which is more egalitarian, rather than just producing more capital. I suppose in the end trying to come up with an "anti-capitalist" business model rather than just operating a business in a way that you think is good is a fool's game (which this cafe seems to be playing).

[EEEOOOEEEOOOEEEOOO]

You guys know they had money and jobs in the Soviet Union too, right? Like I said, I'm not remotely questioning that these people are morons, but the way some of you guys think "WAL U HEFF A JERB UR A CAPTALUSS" is somehow a valid criticism here isn't particularly enlightened either.

Cue someone telling me I'm not allowed to use etard-speak anymore.

It's true, though capitalism is a modern economic system in casual talk we often associate it with all forms of business or exchange. It's not.

[EEEOOOEEEOOOEEEOOO]

I don't know about that. I've never heard of a worker-owned business giving out charity per se, but a worker-owned bike co-op I know in Berkeley gives regular free classes in bike maintenance and even give certain kinds of repairs for free.

[riley-o]

I just don't see a ton of difference between what they're doing and what most independently owned businesses are I see around here are doing. Certainly nothing worth beating your chest over.

well it's a huge difference theoretically at least. the mom and pop store of your example eventually hires employees, make all the business decisions, and if the business is successful then the lion's share of the profits go to them. in a collectively run business all of those things change. the business effectively takes on equal partners instead of hiring employees, all partners have an equal say in the decisions, and in the (again, very theoretical) instance of financial success, it's a collective decision what is done with the money.

for the record i did work for nearly three years at a collectively run cafe/bookstore that followed michael albert's idea of parecon not dissimilar to the red&black cafe. in practice, it doesn't actually work like the egalitarian sunrise-on-a-new-day worker's paradise; it just ends up being the same bullshit underhanded maneuvering and power grabs.

[doubleblumpkin]

Will somebody please get this bitch to post here already?

[riley-o]

So everyone made the exact same amount of money, no matter what? That's interesting. I say that with no trace of irony, seriously.

well again, that's theoretically. when i worked there, everyone's paycheque was minimum wage.

here's a funny bit of history from that place that serves as a good example of how corrupt and hollow the politics were there.

our business cheques for paying bills were such that two members had to sign. naturally in this sort of environment romantic relationships occurred between members. one of the founding members was a very smart lady. she and another founding member were in a relationship when the place was opened. he cheated on her eventually and she, in a fury, started dating the dumb, self-important, easily manipulated guy from the store.

they quickly had children.

the way it worked was everyone's tasks rotated; you would spend six months in charge of ordering food, then six months in charge of paying the bills, then six months in charge of building maintenance etc etc.

well when it was my turn to pay bills, one day i noticed our bank balance was lower than it should be and flipped through the chequebook. i noticed one of the cheque stubs was unfilled-out besides the amount of $500 and the two members in the relationship had signed it. so i asked them what it was for and was told that "it was to support their family" in about as cold of terms as you can imagine.

so i brought this up at a meeting. to my surprise, quite a few people sided with them being allowed to do this and in no way viewed this as a theft or a betrayal of the principles of the business. even when i said that it's up for debate if families should earn more than non-families, it certainly shouldn't be up for debate whether that's a decision made without discussion with the rest of the collective.

honestly most people just were quiet during this; after i was called anti-family and a bad person and the mother stormed out in a forced display of tears, the people who agreed with me in private were too uncomfortable to say so in the meeting.

at the end of the meetings there's a check-in period where everyone says how they feel about the meeting and how everything went. someone thanked me for "being brave enough" to bring up the issue (this struck me as so fucking telling since if this is what bravery is to you then y'all niggaz is way too big of cowards to take on a project like this). when it got to the father's check in, he said, "yeah i'd like to thank you too, riley. thanks a lot for ruining my wife's night, and for trying to destroy this group of people. you know, where the fuck do you get off talking to people like this ?" he then also stormed out of the meeting.

that was definitely toward the end of my time there.

i'm almost totally incapable of holding grudges against people but i think about them and i'm still filled with the same fury that i was when i left ten years ago.

[EEEOOOEEEOOOEEEOOO]

Haha, fuck. That doesn't surprise me at all. I've never owned a business but it obviously seems like a really ambitious and painfully difficult endeavor. I'm sure most of the people who want to get into worker-owned collectives are people who were too unstable to hold their normal shitty job and think everything will be better in a co-op. i.e. the exact people who shouldn't be taking on that responsibility.

[riley-o]

Was the minimum wage just standard? Like, if you had a great month around christmas, did everyone still make minimum wage? And if so, where did the extra money go?

the money would just go into our account to tide us over for the lean months. we were always just on the verge of not being able to pay ourselves, there were even a couple of times a few of us volunteered to postpone our paycheques in tight times. there was seriously no chance of us getting a raise.

which, obviously, was another thing that made them stealing money that much more insulting. while everyone else is tightening their belts, they just volunteer themselves to get some extra money.

i don't think they would have gotten that money if they had brought the suggestion to a meeting though, for just those reasons.

Haha, fuck. That doesn't surprise me at all. I've never owned a business but it obviously seems like a really ambitious and painfully difficult endeavor. I'm sure most of the people who want to get into worker-owned collectives are people who were too unstable to hold their normal shitty job and think everything will be better in a co-op. i.e. the exact people who shouldn't be taking on that responsibility.

i wouldn't say most of the people were like that. there were a lot of idealists who truly believed in the idea of it and i got along best with those people because if everyone plays fair there's no reason it can't work. obviously you still have to succeed as a business and provide something people want etc etc but what i mean is the model should work the only problem you're never going to get a group of people who are all going to play fair. you're always going to have power plays and splinter groups working for their own ends.

there was a guy who basically steamrolled anyone who stood against his ideas and would make major decisions without discussing it with the group. there was one time when our paycheques bounced because he ordered a massive shipment of text books and paid for it immediately. he wasn't the one in charge of paying bills either. nothing ever happened, though. it was brought up at a meeting, people said he shouldn't do it, he said he absolutely had to even though he didn't.

honestly in my experience it's better having one person making the decisions for a business. at least then when something goes wrong because of those decisions there's an obvious line of responsibility and usually someone to be held accountable.

[kelly]

I'm not surprised either. And it's a pretty good example of how corruption will always exist no matter what kind of business. Try as you might to deny hierarchy, but the way I see it is a founding member used her [unspoken] tenure or seniority to act and make a decision without consulting the rest of the group.

It seems like one of those ideas that looks HEY GUYS THIS IS GREAT! on paper, but in practice people are the same whether it's corporate or worker-owned, and are fueled by emotion and reaction, rather than by objectivity.

[riley-o]

I'm not surprised either. And it's a pretty good example of how corruption will always exist no matter what kind of business. Try as you might to deny hierarchy, but the way I see it is a founding member used her [unspoken] tenure or seniority to act and make a decision without consulting the rest of the group.

It seems like one of those ideas that looks HEY GUYS THIS IS GREAT! on paper, but in practice people are the same whether it's corporate or worker-owned, and are fueled by emotion and reaction, rather than by objectivity.

i think the seniority thing played a huge part in that situation and in general with issues with her. at that point she was the only founding member from the original collective.

i'm not sold that anti-hierarchical workplaces can't work, at least for that generation and in small numbers. i think if you had a group of people with similar ideas and vision working together for a couple of decades in a business where you all have specific different interests/skills brought to the table and each do their share of the shit work that no one wants to do (cleaning bathrooms etc).

once original members leave and new members come in though it's over. it's like van hagar all over again.

[MeatGrease]

Food for thought...If she was raped by a black guy do you think she would feel guilty about it?

There was an incident where a person just like that was doing activist work in Haiti. She was raped and then 2 weeks after it happened she put out a statement where she basically blamed white patriarchy for the incident. People like that are capable of astonishing leaps of logic in order to preserve their idealism. It can be both sickening and pitiful...

[MeatGrease]

I also forgot to mention leah is on food stamps...

[doubleblumpkin]

I also forgot to mention leah is on food stamps...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[riley-o]

[a world of no]

[Geeheeb]

but they owe us a living...

[a world of no]

of course they do