Here's a question for my fellow Razetistas and DisCO groovers: should the Management factor be compensated as part of compensation for Labor, as is Technology? Or should only Labor and Technology be compensated as Livelihood work? Management work would then be counted as Care work, and be compensated as part of C Factor compensation.
@luisrazeto @disco_coop @shaunmurdock @ecosentido @Stacco @emi
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@Matt_Noyes @luisrazeto @disco_coop @shaunmurdock @Stacco @emi I am also curious about why do you make a distinction between livelihood work compensation and care work compensation 🤔
@ecosentido @luisrazeto @disco_coop @shaunmurdock @Stacco @emi Hi Joel, sorry not to reply earlier. So, the idea is to divide allocated surplus into three buckets: Livelihood, Care, and Love. E.g. 50%, 30% 20%. Then to distribute each on a pro rata basis per hours worked. That way, if we all start doing a lot of Care or Love work, it won't drain all the resources from Livelihood (which is the work that generates revenue).
Razeto's approach is different, C Factor compensation is not distributed.
@ecosentido @luisrazeto @disco_coop @shaunmurdock @Stacco @emi
So my first question is what do we gain/lose by transposing Razeto's framework for surplus allocation to the DisCO framework?
My second question is what do we gain/lose by treating "management" as part of Care work, that is, as an element of C Factor, when allocating surplus?
Razeto's framework:
Labor (labor + technology + management)
Capital (finance + material means of production -- all internal, contributed by members)
C Factor (only C Factor, held inn common by group, not allocated to individual members -- [so not really allocated?])
Transposed to DisCO framework:
Livelihood (labor + technology)
[no allocation for member contributions of finance and materials]
Care (C Factor + Management)
Love (C Factor for non-members, e.g. pro bono work for social movement groups or a local river)
@ecosentido @luisrazeto @disco_coop @shaunmurdock @Stacco @emi
Note:
Technology here means skill, knowledge, technical capacity applied in the labor process, not machinery or other embodied knowledge. It is typically reflected in higher compensation.
Management means administration, planning, coordination, negotiation, decision-making, evaluation, etc. Also typically reflected in higher compensation.
Capital is only internal capital, that is, capital obtained through member contributions, not through borrowing or buying from external sources. In Razeto, this is compensated through labor shares.
@luisrazeto @disco_coop @shaunmurdock @Stacco @emi Ok @Matt_Noyes I am ready to answer your Q
According to Razeto, solidarity enterprises use Labor & C Factor as the main Category, so all factors become “people”:
Labor = people who do
Tech = people who know
Mngmt = people who decide
Finance = people who trust
Materials = people who own
C factor = people who unite
Through that lens, management can be compensated as Care Work unless you make a distinction…
@luisrazeto @disco_coop @shaunmurdock @Stacco @emi @Matt_Noyes The management factor can be compensated as Care Work unless you make a distinction of administrative (policy, governance) and operating (day to day) decisions, then “administrative management” can be Care Work and “operational management” can be Livelihood Work.
Does it make sense?
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@luisrazeto @disco_coop @shaunmurdock @Stacco @emi @Matt_Noyes I keep replying to these posts but can’t seem to find what I have posted or what others have written 😣
@ecosentido @luisrazeto @disco_coop @Stacco @emi @Matt_Noyes
I suspect 'Management' conflates two things:
Coordination (Techne): Organising labour to generate force. This is Livelihood.
Governance (Association): Maintaining the group/C-Factor. This is Care.
The 1936 Decree split them structurally: Gestió (Technical Directors) vs Control (Workers' Committees).
If we classify technical logistics as Care, we devalue the skill. If we classify governance as Livelihood, we commodify democracy.
@shaunmurdock @ecosentido Thanks! I agree with the recognition of some coordination, planning, and organizing work as livelihood work, especially where the production process involved has a developed division of labor.
The Techne/Association distinction seems helpful.
(Still, it's tricky, since a lot of Association work, in terms of building and maintaining C Factor takes place in the labor process where worker-members chat, listen, think, dream, etc. together.)
In the DisCO model there is also a distinction between mutual support (they have a cool buddy system to support that) and more administrative care work.
I'm not sure that classifying governance as livelihood would commodify democracy -- we are just figuring out how to distribute surplus in a way that remunerates all of the factor contributions (as Razeto says), in other words, that supports and sustains the organization and its members (including when they contribute to non-members through Love work).
@Matt_Noyes @shaunmurdock@mastodon.social @ecosentido Re-joining the thread from my new home at social.coop.
I think the bridge here is to distinguish between reproducing the product (Livelihood) and reproducing the institution (Care).
Remunerating governance hours is essential for member sustainability – it ensures participation isn’t a luxury for those who can afford 'free' time. But by categorising it as Care (Association) rather than Livelihood (Composition), we protect it structurally.
This prevents democracy from being audited as a 'productive' cost to be optimised. Instead, it is valued as the foundational work of maintaining the C Factor. We pay for it to sustain the humans; we bucket it separately to sustain the Commons.
@shaunmurdock@mastodon.social @ecosentido @shaunmurdock maybe "reproducing the social relations"?
@Matt_Noyes @shaunmurdock@mastodon.social @ecosentido 'Reproducing the social relations' is exactly it.
It moves us away from the firm-as-container toward the coop-as-process. If we don’t intentionally dedicate time (and remuneration) to reproducing those relations, the technical 'Composition' of the work eventually overrides the 'Association'.
We end up with a high-performing revenue engine that has lost its democratic soul. Calling it 'Care' or 'Social Reproduction' ensures those relations aren't treated as a byproduct of the work, but as a foundational output that requires its own structural protection.
@Matt_Noyes @luisrazeto @disco_coop @shaunmurdock @ecosentido @Stacco @emi I think the latter---so-called "management" as collective care. I like how the DisCO framework recognizes that this happens within a core set of trustful relationships
@arod @luisrazeto @disco_coop @shaunmurdock @ecosentido @Stacco @emi Thanks. That's my inclination, too, but I want to careful when blending categories from two different frameworks.