Variant Fund co-creation: DAO is the next stage of the labor movement

Original author: Li Jin, co-founder of Variant Fund

Original compilation: 0x22D, Rhythm BlockBeats

This article is based on the opinions of Li Jin, the co-founder of Variant Fund, on his personal social media platform, which is compiled and translated by BlockBeats as follows:

The labor movement arose after the Industrial Revolution, when workers organized to fight for their common interests and negotiate with employers for better working conditions and wages.

The legacy of the labor movement is all around us, including minimum wages, abolition of child labor, equal pay, fair employment, family leave, and more.

These rights did not come their way - they were fought for by organized workers.

Union membership has declined dramatically over the past few decades, from 36 percent of U.S. private sector workers in the mid-20th century to 6 percent in 2019. A number of factors have contributed to the decline, including employer resistance to unions and reduced government support.

1929-2019 American Private Enterprise Labor Union number of members

At the same time, the relationship between productivity growth and worker wages has diverged, with productivity growth of 62% since 1979 and Hourly compensation rose just 17.5%.

Translation: Most productivity gains go to capital, and workers do not share in this economic growth.

Despite the union victory, there was some controversy: Before the civil rights movement, many unions systematically excluded workers of color. Some unions have been plagued by graft and corruption, distorting their original purpose.

Some critics point out that as unions themselves become centralized bureaucracies, they tend to do too little because of members' opposition.

So how do we harness collective power to move forward and represent the voice of workers while minimizing centralized structures that can distort values?

The development of decentralization brings hope to the labor movement in the new century. DAOs, Internet communities with shared ownership, can function similarly to trade unions, representing the collective interests of their members and promoting beneficial policies and mechanisms.

Use Yield Guild as an example. YieldGuild is a game guild composed of thousands of P2E players. It is an entrance to allow more players to participate in P2E games. It can represent gamers and developers, so that they can jointly formulate better game rules.

The size of the YieldGuild also enables the collective to provide individual benefits and protections (e.g. health care, paid time off) are hard to obtain.

A DAO like KlimaDAO can be seen as an experiment in macro collective action: people with a common interest in fighting climate change, using their power to raise carbon The price of emission credits is forcing companies and countries to step up their efforts to tackle climate change.

DAO governance and transparency of on-chain capital flows reduces the risk of embezzlement and corruption compared to unions as it is visible how money flows in and out . Institutional discrimination is mitigated by open rules on membership access.

Maria Gomez, Julia Rosenberg, Chun Poon's article states: Because not every participant has the same goal, they are colluding to make the system's outcome favorable Specific players are difficult.

Another factor driving worker power in a decentralized organization is the freedom for contributors to withdraw and take their skills and attention elsewhere, This increases the influence of the workforce.

If game researchers could easily switch to new games, or a protocol's community could fork it and start over, then this would be in the developer's hands Create greater motivation for them to behave in a community-friendly manner.

Importantly, the DAO breaks the pattern of structurally prioritizing stakeholder interests because the DAO is "owned" by its members.

Many believe that as the network grows, the DAO will outgrow the largest corporations in existence.

Of course, DAO will face a series of challenges, including scaling, governance, and how to balance the interests of capital providers and active contributors. But there’s no question that DAOs represent a compelling new paradigm that’s different from stakeholder primacy, and one that favors workers — especially as the K-shaped recovery continues to widen economic inequality.

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