Chapter 2: SKETCH OF COMMUNIST SOCIETY -- PRODUCTION
4. New types of production organizations emerge.
4.1. Socially owned enterprise and self-managed enterprise
It is well known that in modern capitalist society centered on commodity-money exchange, the production organization that plays a central role in the production of commodities is the stock company. A joint-stock company is essentially a profit-making enterprise whose purpose is to accumulate capital through the acquisition of money, and is also a community of interest whose supreme command is to seek the interests of its shareholders, who are the actual owners of the enterprise.
Capitalism is the totality of product production and sales activities carried out by stock companies as individual business entities according to their management plans based on their respective profit calculations. However, in a communist society where commodity-money exchange is abolished, the system of joint-stock companies cannot be maintained. A new production organization suitable for a communist society will be born, but what kind of organization will it be?
Just to be sure, it cannot be a "state-owned company" that is often associated with communism. As will be discussed later in Chapter 4, communist society does not have the concept of a state, so "state ownership" is logically impossible.
That said, there is no absolute formula for how communist production organizations should be, but for the time being they can be roughly divided into two types: "socially owned enterprises" and "self-managed enterprises."
Here, a "socially owned enterprise" is a business entity with a strong public nature that is placed under social supervision as a public entity of society, and in plain words, it means "everyone's enterprise". As a mark of "social ownership", these enterprises are supervised by the representative body of the people (Commons' Convention), which we will see in Chapter 4.
However, the target industries for socially owned enterprises are not very wide, and are generally limited to key industries including transportation and telecommunications, agriculture, forestry and fisheries related to food, and pharmaceuticals related to health. And it almost overlaps with the scope of the sustainable planned economy outlined in the previous section.
On the other hand, a "self-managed enterprise" is a corpotation in which production workers are united and voluntarily develop a common business purpose, and is a kind of private company that is not subject to social supervision. But unlike capitalist private companies, management and labor are not separated, and the workers themselves are in charge of management, which is called "self-management".
The target industries for self-managed enterprises cover a wide range of industries other than those for socially owned enterprises mentioned above, but in terms of scale, “self-management” is realistically possible only for small and medium-sized enterprises with a maximum of less than 1,000 employees.
4.2. Production business organization and production cooperative
From a legal point of view, the communist production organizations, which are broadly divided into the above two categories, correspond to a production business organization and a production cooperatives.
Of these, the production business organization is a legal entity corresponding to the above-mentioned socially owned enterprise. Specifically, it is a corporate body that is established for policy reasons as a single integrated business entity for each industry, such as the Steel Industry Organization, the Electric Power Industry Organization, the Automobile Industry Organization, and so on. These various organizations are also responsible for the planned economy, jointly devising and implementing economic plans through the Economic Planning Conference.
In contrast, the corporate body that corresponds to self-managed companies is the production cooperative. As mentioned above, this is a corporate form for small and medium enterprises with less than 1,000 employees (cooperative members), and can be freely established for industries that do not fall under the scope of the planned economy.
However, for large companies with more than 1,000 employees that are difficult to self-manage, a production business corporation is allowed as an intermediate form between the above-mentioned production business organization and production cooperative. It is not a socially owned enterprise per se, but is a large corporation with a structure similar to that of a production business organization in terms of its operation, as described in the next section.
On the other hand, for micro enterprises with 20 or fewer employees, it would be possible to allow a small legal entity such as a cooperative labor group with a high degree of freedom in terms of internal management.
4.3. Companies and their internal structure
Here, I would like to take a closer look at the internal structure of the above communist corporate organizations.
First, communist enterprises, whether socially owned or self-managed, do not have individual corporate owners equivalent to shareholders in a joint-stock company, so they never have an institution such as a general meeting of shareholders as the supreme decision-making body.
In this regard, the highest decision-making body of the production business organisation as a socially owned enterprise is the staff general assembly. However, since it is practically difficult for a large-scale enterprise such as a production business organisation to have a general assembly with the participation of all employees, the members of the staff general assembly are to be delegates who are selected by lottery or vote from among the employees.
On the other hand, the production business organization has a management committee as an operating body equivalent to the board of directors of a stock company, and the chairperson of the management committee as its representative assumes the CEO responsibility. The members of the management committee and its chairperson are elected for a fixed term of office at the staff general assembly.
A major difference from a joint-stock company is that there is a permanent workers' representative committee, which constantly monitors the activities of the management committee from the perspective of general worker in place of the staff general assembly and has the authority to agree or disagree with the decisions of the management committee on important matters.
It can be said that this is a joint decision system that replaces the difficult self-management in the production business organization. The members of the workers' representative committee and its chairperson are also elected for a fixed term at the staff general assembly.
In addition, the business audit committee must be established as a body to oversee the activities of the management committee mainly from the perspective of legal compliance, and the environmental audit committee must be established separately to oversee from the perspective of environmental sustainability.
The members of the business audit committee and environmental audit committee (since the audit work is suitable for highly equal consultation, the position of chairperson is not appointed.) are also elected for a fixed term at the staff general assembly.
The above internal structure provisions regarding the production business organization are almost analogically applicable to the above-mentioned production business corporation, and they are respectively the management board (and the representative manager who is responsible for it) and the workers' representative board (and its chairperson), the business auditing board, and the environmental auditing board. It is almost the same that the members of each board are elected by the staff general assembly for a certain term of office.
On the other hand, the supreme decision-making body of the production cooperative, which is a self-managed enterprise, is the members' general meeting made up of all members (however, if the number of members exceeds 500, the introduction of a representative system at the general meeting is allowed.). The board of directors, which is composed of directors elected from among the cooperative members at the general meeting, is the body responsible for management.
However, since self-management is fundamental to production cooperatives, workers' representative bodies are not in principle established, and cooperative members directly supervise the activities of the board of directors through general meetings (however, it is permissible to set up a members' representative board.).
On the other hand, the production cooperative should also have at least three permanent auditors (no board of auditors), but at least one of them must be an environmental auditor.
In the case of the above-mentioned cooperative labor group, since it is a micro-enterprise form in which a few to a dozen member workers operate on a completely equal footing, there is no "organization" at all, and its activities can be freely developed through consultation by all members. However, even in this case, it is obligatory to appoint at least one standing auditor from among non-members.
