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!
They are basically using Agile methods, which are typical in software companies. It has its advantages in the digital field especially but it does not change the underlying relation of production, that Gabe is the sole owner (I did a quick check on that but not too deep).
Stock options for employees are also not unheard of, though I think it’s more common in the US than outside of it. Basically employees get company stock as bonuses or reward, which makes them part owner but mostly means that they have a vested interested in the company’s success. It’s still majority owned by Newell.
Both agile and stock options are ultimately capitalist leverage on employees. Agile like I said does have its advantages in digital companies and it’s not so far removed from what we would like a workplace to be in socialism, but it’s also a way for companies to retain talent and employee motivation by giving them the option to work on what they feel like. Stock options also help with motivation and retaining employee (you might not want to sell your stock if you believe it will grow, but you have to sell when you leave, so you stay). Though in Valve’s case since they’re not publicly traded I don’t really get what good this stock does them, but I didn’t search too far either.
What Newell does well is actually implementing agile and not obstructing it with manager bullshit that feels scared they are losing control over the process. This is how agile is meant to work, but it’s also kind of a response to the old-school (1950s and up) rigid top-down pyramid structure, so ultimately it’s just another way to organize the labor of dozens of people, without speaking to what that labor is used for (in capitalism, to make profits).
For a company that makes so much so much money and has a monopoly they don’t particularly pay employees what you’d expect, it’s pretty much the average for the country and sector, between 60 and ~160k$ per year depending. All the nice bonuses that companies like Google offer like free catering, a gym on campus etc is so that employees will stay late at the office and not take their vacation days. Same with these companies that started offering “unlimited vacation days”, what people found was that when you were technically allowed to take a day off any time, they didn’t take any because they thought “eh, I can always take it later”
Companies like Huawei are a contradiction of China’s socialist market economy, or rather it’s their way of reconciliating the contradiction long enough to make it out and into the stage of socialism where they won’t need such companies anymore. Huawei is a wholly employee-owned company (workers coop) but not every employee is an owner, and they still compete against the global capitalist economy (ask a Huawei employee how many hours they work in a week haha).
So in terms of steps up, yes and no. It depends if you like that structure but ultimately in capitalism this structure is wholly capitalist. In China this structure is socialist market, and in the ussr it wouldve been state-owned socialist. I don’t think there’s any revolutionary potential there either by showing this type of structure works because the retort will be “well but if it exists in capitalism why do we need socialism”, but I could be wrong of course.
I do not have much to add to your great arguments, comrade. Just wanted to thank you for taking the time to reply. Cheers from Brazil!