Venture Communism

[Dmytri Kleiner <dk@xxxxxxxx>]

Hello, I am working on the idea of Venture Communism, which I describe
below, I would very much appreciate the critical feedback of the group.
Don't wory about nitpicking, all comments are welcome, I want the language
and ideas to be clear and economicaly sound. Also references to other,
related ideas are very welcome. Thanks!

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Venture Communist Prospectus
Dmytri Kleiner -- DRAFT I

The Venture Communist is a Public Entrepreneur, Venture Communism is
not a political model, but rather it is a transitional tactic
designed to promote an equitable distribution of wealth via the
enterprising initiates of communities, rather than through the
central authority of the state.

Venture Communism is an alternative Revolutionary Strategy to Violent
Revolution, one that preserves existing social accumulation rather
than destroying it.

The basic plan is to literally buy the world back from the
Capitalists. The value of the future is far greater than the value of the
past, therefore if Venture Communism can do better than Venture Capitalism in
it's investment performance it can achieve this goal.

In the growth theory and production functions of economics, Labour
(Human Capital) and Capital (Money Capital) can typically replace each
other.

This means that to increase production, either increasing labour
investment or increasing money investment is possible. The money can
increase productivity through the purchase of 'Capital Goods', i.e. Machines,
where there is sufficient underutilized labour. The labour can directly
increase production, especially in situations where the marginal productivity
of labour is high and/or existing Capital Goods are underutilized.

Venture Capital is the Capital made available to high risk
opportunities, usually to new and expanding enterprises, this Capital
can theoretically be invested in terms of Labour or Money.

However, for the Venture Communist, this is an important distinction,
since Human Capital, while not perfectly distributed by nature, is
still far better distributed than Money Capital is. In other words
Human Capital is more equitable than Money Capital.

Since Human Capital is more equitable than Money Capital, investment
in a Venture Commune is made by contributing labour, not money, and
shares in the commune can not be bought nor sold, only earned by labour
contribution.

A Venture Communist is a person who makes such investments. A
Venture Commune is a partnership that primarily invests the capital of
third party investors in enterprises.

A Venture Commune accumulates it's Capital (Human Capital) by
soliciting labour investments and then invests this labour in high
risk enterprises that promise high return on investment. The Venture
Commune winds up with an ownership stake in the enterprise.

However, the primary distinguishing feature of a Venture Commune from
a traditional Venture Capital Fund is that the share of each member
is EQUAL. Every investor has an equal vote and an equal dividend. In
this way the profitability of the Venture Commune has a progressive
distributive effect.

Also, because the Venture Commune must insure that the control of
investors of Human Capital always exceeds the control of the
investors of Money Capital, the Venture Commune must insist on have a
Majority Ownership Share in the enterprises it invests in.

The role of the Venture Commune includes providing labour for
high risk, high return ventures, assessing and revising the proposed
business models and strategies, and placing key personnel.

Venture Communists must be very selective in deciding what to invest
in. Because Labour is their primary Capital investment, the venture must
be in areas where the Marginal Productivity of Labour is high and any
required Capital Goods are already in place. Also, the nature of the
enterprise must be compatible with the general goal of promoting the
influence of Human Capital over Money Capital.

The Ventures must be have high growth potential as only
ventures with high growth potential are capable of providing the
return that Venture Communism requires to keep the value of shares
rising and encouraging new investments of labour. The Marginal
Productivity of it's Human Capital must out pace the growth of it's
Membership or else the per-capita profitability, and thus
redistributive effect will decrease.

Also, since Venture Communism is in direct competition with Venture
Capitalism for the productivity of the future, high growth areas are
of critical strategic importance.

The Venture Commune assigns personnel not only in labour positions,
but in management positions as well and also obtains seats on the
enterprise's board of directors.

Since the ventures undertaken are high risk, the Venture Commune
must try to mitigate this problem through diversification. The
risk level of the total portfolio is reduced by investing in different
industries and different countries. The successful projects must
compensate for the unsuccessful projects.

A Venture Commune is formed by issuing a public offering for a
fixed initial share cost, in labour hours, for a limited number of
initial shares. Individual Venture Communists pledge labour to the
Commune and become the founding members, electing the founding board.

The board then appoints officers from this labour pool who attempt to
invest the Human Capital in such a way as to generate the highest
ethical return, when the Human Capital is exhausted, a second round of
shares is issued and expansion continues in this way until Venture
Communists have majority interests in all of the enterprises in the world,
then the buy-out of the Capitalists is complete, all existing social
accumulation is secure, and the implementation of a post-capitalist
society can begin. Venture communism makes no commitments as to what
this post-capitalist society will be, choosing instead to develop and
entrust these details to a well worked-out democratic practice for the
members of the futures to use.