"I agree, with the proviso that I believe the same thing is true for contemporary democracies as well."
If the definition of democracy is a government which is accountable to its people, and a particular government isn't accountable to its people, then it isn't really a democracy. Modus tollens, right?
"That sounds very capitalistic to me. Will there be rich people? Very rich people?"
Can you explain to me why that seems particularly capitalistic? Because I'm just not seeing it.
"So, let's say I (and a bunch of other people) think the world needs another computer chip fab. They cost a couple of billions to build. Where will the money to build it come from, how will the owners of the capital be compensated, who will own the chip fab? Or let's say I'm Steve Jobs and want to make an iPhone. Most people call me crazy. Or let's say everybody really needs toilet paper, but nobody feels sufficiently motivated to start producing it. Eh, let someone else do it, everyone says."
This is where you're beginning to insert a particular vision of the Public Good: you believe that the world is better off when it is producing chip fab plants and toilet paper. If enough people agree with you, and believe that it's worth utilizing their MoP ownership claim and expending their labor, then those things will be produced; if not they won't. Either a particular version of the Public Good is worthy of those two things and it happens, or it isn't and it doesn't.
"I am sorry, the market really REALLY wants computer chips. It's willing to pay for them (I presume you'll have money in your society)."
If the market really really wants computer chips, it will happen; if not, it won't. It's just a matter of you, as a person with a vision of the Public Good which includes computer chips, being able to convince others that the world is better off following your vision of the Public Good, including computer chips. If you can't convince enough people to pool their ownership claims and expend their labor to produce them, they won't happen. My guess is, in both the computer chip and toilet paper example, you'll likely be able to convince enough people to start production of these things because the benefits from these things are fairly equitably distributed within a society--there are few people in most wealthy nations that don't benefit in some way from these two things. The private jets were a counterexample.
"It will also guarantee that this MoP will self-destruct in a very short time. I believe people occasionally try to run a business (or, actually, any complicated activity) by referendums. It's rather comical how that Just. Doesn't. Work."
So, you mean to tell me that employee-owned corporations always fail? What I've been describing is kind of one of those, but isn't based around a particular kind of production, but rather a particular kind of Public Good. The necessity of smooth operation of such a corporation is why it's so important for people to have a holistic vision of what they consider to be the Public Good.
"Not at all. Let's say I produce foozles. A production team of, say, 1,000 people is enough to fully satisfy the demand for foozles. That team is 100% redneck white male and likes it that way. Any problems?"
Yes. Autarky is incompatible with democratic society because resource depletion is a real thing; eventually, this 100% redneck white male team is going to need a new source of labor as its members die off, and raw material as its foozles are consumed; a lack of foozles will cause members to leave, and the whole thing to dissolve. And we're not just talking about production of a single type of material good. We're talking about production of all the goods needed to satisfy a particular vision of the Public Good. Perhaps you'd find a few people who are completely happy with just one, material good, but most people have a number of differing desires for both material and social conditions. Those are what this system would try to produce: lifestyles, if you like.
Note: Originally posted in Discussion, edited to take comments there into account.
Yes, politics, boo hiss. In my defense, the topic of this post cuts across usual tribal affiliations (I write it as a liberal criticizing other liberals), and has a couple strong tie-ins with main LessWrong topics:
The issue is this: recently, I've seen a meme going around to the effect that companies like Walmart that have a large number of employees on government benefits are the "real welfare queens" or somesuch, and with the implied message that all companies have a moral obligation to pay their employees enough that they don't need government benefits. (I say mention Walmart because it's the most frequently mentioned villain in this meme, but others, like McDonalds, get mentioned.)
My initial awareness of this meme came from it being all over my Facebook feed, but when I went to Google to track down examples, I found it coming out of the mouths of some fairly prominent congresscritters. For example Alan Grayson:
Or Bernie Sanders:
Now here's why this is weird: consider Grayson's claim that each Walmart employee costs the taxpayers on average $1,000. In what sense is that true? If Walmart fired those employees, it wouldn't save the taxpayers money: if anything, it would increase the strain on public services. Conversely, it's unlikely that cutting benefits would force Walmart to pay higher wages: if anything, it would make people more desperate and willing to work for low wages. (Cf. this this excellent critique of the anti-Walmart meme).
Or consider Sanders' claim that it would be better to raise the minimum wage and spend less on government benefits. He emphasizes that Walmart could take a hit in profits to pay its employees more. It's unclear to what degree that's true (see again previous link), and unclear if there's a practical way for the government to force Walmart to do that, but ignore those issues, it's worth pointing out that you could also just raise taxes on rich people generally to increase benefits for low-wage workers. The idea seems to be that morally, Walmart employees should be primarily Walmart's moral responsibility, and not so much the moral responsibility of the (the more well-off segment of) the population in general.
But the idea that employing someone gives you a general responsibility for their welfare (beyond, say, not tricking them into working for less pay or under worse conditions than you initially promised) is also very odd. It suggests that if you want to be virtuous, you should avoid hiring people, so as to keep your hands clean and avoid the moral contagion that comes with employing low wage workers. Yet such a policy doesn't actually help the people who might want jobs from you. This is not to deny that, plausibly, wealthy onwers of Walmart stock have a moral responsibility to the poor. What's implausible is that non-Walmart stock owners have significantly less responsibility to the poor.
This meme also worries me because I lean towards thinking that the minimum wage isn't a terrible policy but we'd be better off replacing it with guaranteed basic income (or an otherwise more lavish welfare state). And guaranteed basic income could be a really important policy to have as more and more jobs are replaced by automation (again see gwern if that seems crazy to you). I worry that this anti-Walmart meme could lead to an odd left-wing resistance to GBI/more lavish welfare state, since the policy would be branded as a subsidy to Walmart.