I apologize if this post is not well structured.
I recently went down memory lane and saw some Gabe Newell clips. He seems like a decent guy (which is not an argument btw it’s just me pointing it out) and Valve seems like a decent place to work for (also not an argument).
Valve is a private company, with no stock to trade (no shareholders etc) and for most of its time existing it’s worked as a “company with no hierarchy” in the words of employes, as in you could work in a project this week and another project the next, without any upper management telling you what to do (although from what I could gather there’s still organization, just not in the way you’d expect).
While I do understand that private businesses are inherently exploitative and as a communist I seek to abolish such structures in favor of communal structures, am I wrong or misled to see companies like Valve Software as a major step up in comparison to others like Microsoft, Apple and the like? Of course it’d be amazing if it was a worker cooperative, for example, but Valve offers amazing services and products for customers all while not destroying its workers, even though it’s basically a monopoly in the PC market at this point. I also think most of this is due to Gabe Newell’s visions as well as employee feedback, but I have no evidence to back this.
Also, the biggest socialist experiment of the 21st century is China, and some similar company structures formed (like Huawei, for example, although it’s not 100% the same). At least in my naïve view this is a big step up from the big multinational corps, like Nestle, Coca Cola, Microsoft etc.
Anyways: I could always be wrong. Please share your thoughts on this.
Thank you for taking your time to read this and cheers from Brazil!
Great question from my gaming enthusiast perspective.
I agree with the other commenter in saying that a capitalist company is inherently exploitative and therefore evil. Is it possible that gabe has a communist ideology or tendency on vibes alone? Its possible but also there are tons of ways to make it better for the employees from a communist perspective. Mondragon is apparently an example of implemented socialist ideas in a company.
The mere point of paying people per hour is incredibly sinister. Keeping the product of their labor from the workers also is just plain evil from a communist perspective.
If he were are marxist, he would probably just share the profits with the workers and have them vote on strategy. Also, he is not doing any good by being a sole monopoly (although valve in that case just exists in the system which facilitates monopolies).
Its the contradictions we should look at. He gives some agency but not full, some good pay but not all, he cares about customers but doesnt reflect it in pricing, he could just price the games in a way that doesnt make any money besides the workers pay which would make games cheap as fuck, he could change that game studios must pay to make money and have certain requirements to make money.
I can go on all day because I’ve had this discussion before i became a marxist and since then its very obvious why I do think valve is better but still bad.
Thanks again for asking. Good idea imo.
That’s what I think as well. I don’t think GabeN is a leftist or anything, and even if he was he’d still be a capitalist (like you said: pricing, salaries etc). Valve makes some cool things like Proton and some other open source projects, but in the end it’s for profit yada yada we all know capitalism.
I still think there’s much to improve even with private corporate structures, but for that we’d need a revolution, armed struggle, etc to make such improvements mandatory and such like China and Vietnam do. I might just be too optimistic though.
Thank you for your time, comrade.
You’re welcome comrade.
I think its possible to bring change without much initiation of armed struggle at least. Most of it will be education, organization, strategy and then fighting off the counter revolution. Just from my current standpoint. Because armed struggle in the imperial core or the vassal states will be met with overwhelming force if we dont first build strong sympathies to the military and pretty much all larger structures, especially large industry and infrastructure. Because the only way in my book to get this done is turn off the country for a short time, have the military not intervene and then build up the council republic and immediately ask for help from all socialist countries to basically send help.
Thats A LOT of work.