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On July 10 2019 02:59 Liquid`Drone wrote:
My brother works for an employee-owned IT company. They have 150 employees, are highly successful, all employees must own stock - but they still have a board of directors - where two are hired externally and four are democratically elected. I am not sure how those are paid, but I know that there is some differentiation in pay depending on what your specific job is, however I don't think any worker makes more than twice any other worker, and because every worker has stock, they all profit from the company profiting.
It being worker-owned does not mean there is no hierarchy or no people with decisive power - it means that the people with decisive power are democratically elected which can be presumed to make them factor in workers more when they answer to the workers than if they answer to the shareholders. It might also be presumed that it will then also yield lesser profits (as this will be the primary focus of the shareholders) but I think that's a good tradeoff. I'm also not sure it actually is less profitable; but I do think the democratization of processes makes the company more risk-averse, which I assume makes them less likely to get incredible % payoffs.
(As a sidenote, them hiring external expertise indicates that they are aware that they might have knowledge gaps - however outnumbering the external board members 4 to 2 means they end up having more of an advisory role, which to me seems ideal.)
The company has frequented some 'best work places in norway' and 'top 100 workplaces in europe' lists and frankly looks like an absolutely fantastic place to work, with a tightly knit community, a lot of worker activities and real democracy in action.
However, while I think this company is a great example of worker ownership in practice, there might be a legit counter-argument in the form of 'this can only function for highly skilled jobs where this job represents a pinnacle in the respective careers of the people working there' - meaning the turnover is very low and motivation is very high.. But then I don't actually know if this is the case, I mean I imagine that fast food stores have high turnovers because they have young people working them, but warehouses? I could certainly picture warehouses having less turnover than your average IT company, that's for sure. (Motivation? I'm damn sure owning part of your profits would increase it anyway. )
I think it's fair to presume as Kwark suggests that there are a lot of businesses/business structures that simply wouldn't exist were it not to serve a capitalist class. Fast food is basically nutrition by capitalism and I think would largely transition into more diner like establishments anyway. Other than the transient nature of some employees (typically running/hiding from another town) tend to have far less turnover than something like fast food.
Which is basically to say that there are many problems that exist because they are necessary to maintain capitalism, not a successful society.
On July 10 2019 03:04 Dan HH wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2019 02:46 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 10 2019 02:21 Dan HH wrote:On July 10 2019 02:17 Ryzel wrote:On July 10 2019 02:12 KwarK wrote:On July 10 2019 02:03 Ryzel wrote:
OK, let's take two hypothetical examples of a thing-a-ma-jig business. This business creates thing-a-ma-jigs from base materials, and sells them to the market. Creating thing-a-ma-jigs requires skilled labor; employees require at least a couple years of specialized schooling and an apprenticeship of several months before getting an entry-level position.
In one, we have a worker-owned co-op-style business consisting of 50 employees; they all play a role in making the thing-a-ma-jigs and they all have equal say in decisions affecting the business, with the intent of maximizing profits of course. They are in agreement that each employee is vital to the process, and that each should receive the same share of the profits as any other. They're currently receiving $1000/month in profits, meaning each employee is receiving $20/month.
In the other, we have a capitalist-style business consisting of 1 CEO, 4 managers, and 45 employees. The CEO is in charge of all the decisions that affect the business, and his sole role is to do whatever it takes to ensure the business creates as much profit as possible. He has gone to school for this specifically. He delegates responsibilities to the managers, whose role is to both enforce and assist the 45 employees in following the CEO's vision of the business. The CEO has no idea how to make thing-a-ma-jigs, and the managers have some knowledge but are not experts. They are also receiving $1000/month in profits; the CEO takes a ridiculous share of $205/month, the managers each get $30/month, and the employees make $15/month.
First issue comes up for both businesses; profits are down for some reason and we need to figure out why. The co-op business has several employees that notice sales are down, and have some ideas as to why. The employees all have various levels of marketing and business experience, and have conflicting ideas as to how to solve the problem. Maybe 5-10 have had a bit of formal education/experience in the area of concern are in agreement on the correct course of action, but the other 35-40 have spent their lives making thing-a-ma-jigs and don't really know what to do. Some trust the 5-10, others go off their instinct, others don't like how the 5-10 are trying to assert themselves as “right” and resent their “superiority”. It takes some time, and in the end a compromise of sorts is reached where the correct solution is partially implemented and profits go back up a bit, but slightly. The business now is making $875/month in profit, and the employees are each making $17.50/month.
The CEO of the capitalist business identifies the problem quickly and reaches out to the right people to fix it. Profits bounce back to where they were before and everyone's wages remain unchanged.
Second issue: the contracted suppliers of the base materials for both businesses have suffered issues and are no longer able to deliver. The co-op business has several of its employees reach out to different suppliers and attempt to negotiate new deals. Unfortunately, there is more disagreement between the employees regarding what the rate should be for the base materials, as some have believed for a while that the rate with the previous suppliers was too high to begin with. Negotiations take a while since it takes so long to achieve consensus, and some potential suppliers get frustrated and drop out. Eventually they get a new deal, but its not as good as before and cuts into profits. They're now at $750/month, with employees each getting $15/month.
The CEO of the capitalist business quickly identifies new suppliers and begins negotiations. His training has led him to be a shrewd negotiator, and he ends up getting a slightly better deal than previously. Profits are now $1100/month; increasing the CEO's wage to $305/month (for a job well done of course).
Eventually, the two businesses begin competing directly in the same market. The capitalist business utilizes its greater revenue and decisiveness to implement strategies that direct sales away from the co-op business. The co-op business loses more profits, and worker morale begins to plummet. Eventually, the capitalist business buys out the co-op business, giving each employee a one-time decent chunk of change. However, the lack of competition lets the CEO feel safe reducing the wages of the employees a bit, since there's no more competition and nowhere for the employees to go. There's now one business making $2000/month, with 85 employees making $14/month, 10 managers making $30/month, and the CEO making a whopping $510/month.
And the CEO lived happily ever after.
...after going through with this thought experiment, it seems like the best thing to do would be for the workers themselves to hire CEOs/managers for their business, and they would require annual majority votes from the workers in order to keep their jobs. Basically if the workers/producers of value were the sole shareholders of their own business. It sucks financially though because the businesses have to cut into profits to keep the workers happy and get no extra investment from them. Making the public shareholders, on the other hand, will result in gobs of money being invested into you and you don't even have to give anything back (except dividends sometimes I guess). This basically means any company that makes workers shareholders will have less resources, and probably be less successful, then an otherwise equal company that makes the public shareholders. This entire thought experiment can be summarized as “Imagine two scenarios. One is better. Which one is better? Why, the better one of course. Therefore socialism is bad”. It’s not an argument, it’s just you telling us your preconceived conclusion through a story. If you reverse the numbers then the worker owned business succeeds. Why would the numbers be reversed? I'm having trouble coming up with a scenario where a business run by 50 people of varying levels of business experience coming to a consensus, is more successful than a business run by 1 person who has nothing but business experience. By all means I'd love to be proved wrong, as I don't really like the idea of workers being screwed over. You seem to be confusing socialism with the lack of a division of labour. You would still have an engineer doing engineering decisions under socialism rather than all workers having a vote on every individual's job. It's both refreshing and weird to me people are learning what socialism is (not the capitalist propaganda) here of all places. I appreciate folks like Neb doing the leg work too. Not sure what my quote has to do with this, I was into socialism many years before I joined this forum.
Just that it's demonstrative that people are still just learning what socialism is outside of capitalist propaganda and your post kind of succinctly showed how a lot of concerns about socialism are basic misunderstandings resultant from capitalist propaganda.
There was a slight buried critique that Neb is going the next step to politely help people understand the basic premises of socialism, but it's only meant to be a motivational nudge 
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United States42260 Posts
On July 10 2019 03:09 Ryzel wrote:
@KwarK
OK great, thank you. That's good that Waitrose is thriving. What do you think about the chain allows it to compete with Sainsburys (a presumably publicly owned, larger chain)?
@IgnE
Thanks, if you think he's worth checking out I will, although the way you don't sound too enthusiastic about him lol. Are his ideas worth listening to?
@Dan HH
He's probably referring to me.
Why wouldn’t they be able to compete? I’ll pose the inverse question. Why is Sainsbury’s able to compete with Waitrose? They’re both motivated by the generation of value, whether the shareholders are a narrow group of rich individuals or a broad group of working class individuals doesn’t make much of a difference. Stop thinking of it as some kind of Soviet and think of it as a company that loans employees stock.
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Norway28600 Posts
Also, to add to Kwark's example of Waitrose, in Norway we also have a member-owned chain of stores (called Coop). If you are a member, at the end of the year, significant portions of company profits are divided between all the members. Norway is a country of a bit more than 5 million people, and a couple years ago, Coop reached 1.5 million members, all of whom, at some point of the year, receive a small portion of money representing how much they spent in coop stores in relation to the total amount of money dividable. This isn't really a worker owned chain - it's a consumer owned chain - but it showcases how a store can be profitable (and socially good) without adhering to a strict and familiar capitalistic ownership model.
They made this commercial even; https://tv.kampanje.com/-coop-thats-a-catchy-name :D
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@ Ryzel — yes dividends, the stock market as a class of appreciating assets is a derivative function, but both ways of completing the M - C - M’ cycle are what I meant
no i am not refuting that it might be easier for a corporation going public to attract more capital, i am just sharpening the question for you. whether or not billion dollar companies are possible in worker-owned or pseudosocialist conditions iis an empirical question. whether they are desirable is a moral/erotic question that admits empirical evidence. whether they themselves are the manifest self-overcoming of liberal capitalism is a theoretical question that also admits empirical evidence
as for Richard Wolff, I’ve listened to him for many hours, but then I’ve also listened to many hours of Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson. Wolff isn’t an idiot, and his stuff is designed to be accessible without dumbing it down. there are certainly worse uses of your time
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On July 10 2019 02:43 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2019 02:28 Acrofales wrote:On July 10 2019 02:03 Nebuchad wrote:On July 10 2019 01:52 Velr wrote:
If your worker owned company is doing great, what stopps the workers from selling it and buy a cheaper factory in a poorer place and live of the earnings of that company?
I guess you would say that wouldn't be allowed but what do you do then if a workforce decides to really profit of the work they did? Disallow them from ever invest/buy another company? So why even have money or ownership rights at that point?
I'm all for paying the average worker much more, companies like Amazon, Starbucks, Walmart and so on are a disgrace, but there has to be a better way than inserting some stately oversight with jnlimited power locking employes in their self iwned company forever. Simple rules about average worker pay would solve this much easier whiteout totally restructuring basically the whole economic and political system from the ground up. As you expect it wouldn't be allowed, when the companies are owned by workers you can't "buy another company" like this, it wouldn't mean anything. I don't advocate for state oversight but for workplace democracy. The workers directly own the means of production, they don't do it through state ownership. I'm not an anarchist, I do think having a state matters and is overall a good idea, but on this specifically I tend more towards anarchism than authoritarian forms of socialism. It just doesn't make sense to ban ownership in a market-based economy though. What about ownership of ideas (IP)? What about the risk that is involved in starting a new business? What about the risk? Silicon Valley startups have a notorious history of offering ownership (shares) to their first couple rounds of employees. IP? That’s easy. You can’t really own ideas.
Re: Silicon Valley.
Oh, I know. It's one of the examples I brought up the last time this came around of how terribly bad worker-owned companies can treat their employees. It's basically a scam, there are 2 options:
1. Your company goes bankrupt and all those "shares" (they aren't actually shares, as you can't trade them freely, and you don't have to be bought out if you want to quit your job) are worthless. You worked for less than market value.
2. Your company starts making a profit. A venture capitalist swoops in, some accountant trickery is done and you are paid jack shit for your "shares". This option is still better than 1, but it is also far more rare, and it still isn't as good as they "sold" it to you which was that you would make millions if the company succeeded (just look at Facebook, right!)
The reason worker-owned companies are problematic for new business is hidden in number 2. These companies initially don't make any profit, and the initial "employees" foot the bill, but they often can't for long enough for the company to get up and running, which requires further up-front investment. The "employees" are unable/willing to make that investment. Either the company can't continue forward (and might go bankrupt as a result), or venture capitalists (or IPOs) are a requirement of your worker-owned companies. I guess all these situations where you sell off part of your company for cash to continue growing it would be replaced by banks giving loans? I think we tried that and it doesn't work anywhere near as well as our current model.
Re: ownership of ideas.
So someone invents something that would sell like hotcakes, but doesn't own that invention? That means he can't sell it to people who can use that invention either? I mean, I think there is lots wrong with our current system for protecting IP, but doing away with it entirely is going to crush any incentive to innovate. The reason many of those Silicon Valley startups exist is because someone has a good idea (or a bad one), and thinks they can make money with it. The reason they can make money with it is because we place value on having the idea. Putting in the work to monetize that idea is also worth money, and thus starts an intricate phase of negotiating how much of the company belongs to everybody involved. But the person having the idea is entitled to *something* beyond a thank you note. Right?
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On July 10 2019 03:11 GreenHorizons wrote:There was a slight buried critique that Neb is going the next step to politely help people understand the basic premises of socialism, but it's only meant to be a motivational nudge
This all started because I wanted to talk to Biff about "homogeneous mindset" and I happened to mention that neoliberalism is garbage in the middle of that, don't give me too much credit^^
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On July 10 2019 03:18 JimmiC wrote:
It is interesting that many businesses have done the pay employee's with stock equity early on and then move away from it as they get bigger and don't have the same cash flow requirements or concerns. I mean I believe even Walmart had some early cashiers turn into millionaires because of this. I'm interested in waitrose and going to look into it more because they seem to have scaled it up in a big way which I think might be unique (or at least rare). Westjet a Canadian airline has done this to some degree and even has their marketing campaign based on giving better customer service because "own employees are owners too". That being said they have also had some labor unrest, and formed unions as they were not getting paid as well as their competitors who were unionized and didn't have the ownership model. I'm also guessing (because I know nothing about waitrose and not a ton on Westjet) that the equity paid out was not at enough of a level and still too much heading to the top that created the issues.
No clue about your side of the pond, but it's a fairly common business model here in Europe. There's cooperatives for all kinds of things. They work well in some situations and not in others. Unsurprisingly, one size fits all is not true.
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On July 10 2019 03:16 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2019 02:43 IgnE wrote:On July 10 2019 02:28 Acrofales wrote:On July 10 2019 02:03 Nebuchad wrote:On July 10 2019 01:52 Velr wrote:
If your worker owned company is doing great, what stopps the workers from selling it and buy a cheaper factory in a poorer place and live of the earnings of that company?
I guess you would say that wouldn't be allowed but what do you do then if a workforce decides to really profit of the work they did? Disallow them from ever invest/buy another company? So why even have money or ownership rights at that point?
I'm all for paying the average worker much more, companies like Amazon, Starbucks, Walmart and so on are a disgrace, but there has to be a better way than inserting some stately oversight with jnlimited power locking employes in their self iwned company forever. Simple rules about average worker pay would solve this much easier whiteout totally restructuring basically the whole economic and political system from the ground up. As you expect it wouldn't be allowed, when the companies are owned by workers you can't "buy another company" like this, it wouldn't mean anything. I don't advocate for state oversight but for workplace democracy. The workers directly own the means of production, they don't do it through state ownership. I'm not an anarchist, I do think having a state matters and is overall a good idea, but on this specifically I tend more towards anarchism than authoritarian forms of socialism. It just doesn't make sense to ban ownership in a market-based economy though. What about ownership of ideas (IP)? What about the risk that is involved in starting a new business? What about the risk? Silicon Valley startups have a notorious history of offering ownership (shares) to their first couple rounds of employees. IP? That’s easy. You can’t really own ideas. Re: ownership of ideas. So someone invents something that would sell like hotcakes, but doesn't own that invention? That means he can't sell it to people who can use that invention either? I mean, I think there is lots wrong with our current system for protecting IP, but doing away with it entirely is going to crush any incentive to innovate. The reason many of those Silicon Valley startups exist is because someone has a good idea (or a bad one), and thinks they can make money with it. The reason they can make money with it is because we place value on having the idea. Putting in the work to monetize that idea is also worth money, and thus starts an intricate phase of negotiating how much of the company belongs to everybody involved. But the person having the idea is entitled to *something* beyond a thank you note. Right?
Jonas Sulk, Alexander Fleming, Frederick Banting, it's possible to cultivate a society of people who don't do everything for capital (it's probably not done by reforming CAPITALism though)
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United States42260 Posts
On July 10 2019 03:18 JimmiC wrote:
It is interesting that many businesses have done the pay employee's with stock equity early on and then move away from it as they get bigger and don't have the same cash flow requirements or concerns. I mean I believe even Walmart had some early cashiers turn into millionaires because of this. I'm interested in waitrose and going to look into it more because they seem to have scaled it up in a big way which I think might be unique (or at least rare). Westjet a Canadian airline has done this to some degree and even has their marketing campaign based on giving better customer service because "own employees are owners too". That being said they have also had some labor unrest, and formed unions as they were not getting paid as well as their competitors who were unionized and didn't have the ownership model. I'm also guessing (because I know nothing about waitrose and not a ton on Westjet) that the equity paid out was not at enough of a level and still too much heading to the top that created the issues.
From Wikipedia
Every employee is a Partner in the John Lewis Partnership, and has an opportunity to influence the business through branch forums, which discuss local issues at every store, and the divisional John Lewis and Waitrose Councils.[13] Above all these is the Partnership Council, to which the Partners elect at least 80 per cent of the 82 representatives, while the chairman appoints the remaining. The councils have the power to discuss ‘any matter whatsoever’, and are responsible for the non-commercial aspects of the business: the development of the social activities within the Partnership and its charitable actions.
The Partnership Council also elects five directors on the Partnership Board (which is responsible for the commercial activities), while the chairman appoints another five. The two remaining board members are the chairman and the deputy chairman.
Every non-management Partner also has an open channel for expressing his/her views to management and the Chairman.
The John Lewis Partnership publishes a weekly in-house magazine, called The Gazette. It is the oldest in-house magazine currently still being published in the UK. Each John Lewis branch also had its own weekly magazine, called The Chronicle which is no longer published. Partners can write anonymous letters to the Gazette and the Chronicles, holding management to account.
...
Partners are also enrolled in a very favourable pension scheme, are covered by death-in-service insurance. In addition to this, upon completing 25 years of service for the company, Partners are given a paid six-month break, known as "Long Leave".
Finally, every Partner receives an annual bonus, which is a share of the profit. It is calculated as a percentage of salary, with the same percentage for everyone, from top management down to the shop floor and storage rooms. The bonus is dependent on the profitability of the Partnership each year, varying between 5% and 20% of the Partners' annual salaries between 2000 and 2018, falling to 3% in 2019, the lowest since the 1950s.
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United States42260 Posts
Sulk? The guy who discovered the vaccine for Poutio?
Edit: I’m just messing with you. My phone autocorrected it to Silk the first time too.
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On July 10 2019 03:24 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2019 03:16 Acrofales wrote:On July 10 2019 02:43 IgnE wrote:On July 10 2019 02:28 Acrofales wrote:On July 10 2019 02:03 Nebuchad wrote:On July 10 2019 01:52 Velr wrote:
If your worker owned company is doing great, what stopps the workers from selling it and buy a cheaper factory in a poorer place and live of the earnings of that company?
I guess you would say that wouldn't be allowed but what do you do then if a workforce decides to really profit of the work they did? Disallow them from ever invest/buy another company? So why even have money or ownership rights at that point?
I'm all for paying the average worker much more, companies like Amazon, Starbucks, Walmart and so on are a disgrace, but there has to be a better way than inserting some stately oversight with jnlimited power locking employes in their self iwned company forever. Simple rules about average worker pay would solve this much easier whiteout totally restructuring basically the whole economic and political system from the ground up. As you expect it wouldn't be allowed, when the companies are owned by workers you can't "buy another company" like this, it wouldn't mean anything. I don't advocate for state oversight but for workplace democracy. The workers directly own the means of production, they don't do it through state ownership. I'm not an anarchist, I do think having a state matters and is overall a good idea, but on this specifically I tend more towards anarchism than authoritarian forms of socialism. It just doesn't make sense to ban ownership in a market-based economy though. What about ownership of ideas (IP)? What about the risk that is involved in starting a new business? What about the risk? Silicon Valley startups have a notorious history of offering ownership (shares) to their first couple rounds of employees. IP? That’s easy. You can’t really own ideas. Re: ownership of ideas. So someone invents something that would sell like hotcakes, but doesn't own that invention? That means he can't sell it to people who can use that invention either? I mean, I think there is lots wrong with our current system for protecting IP, but doing away with it entirely is going to crush any incentive to innovate. The reason many of those Silicon Valley startups exist is because someone has a good idea (or a bad one), and thinks they can make money with it. The reason they can make money with it is because we place value on having the idea. Putting in the work to monetize that idea is also worth money, and thus starts an intricate phase of negotiating how much of the company belongs to everybody involved. But the person having the idea is entitled to *something* beyond a thank you note. Right? Jonas Sulk, Alexander Fleming, Frederick Banting, it's possible to cultivate a society of people who don't do everything for capital (it's probably not done by reforming CAPITALism though)
For every one of them there are 10 Edisons.
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On July 10 2019 03:29 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2019 03:24 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 10 2019 03:16 Acrofales wrote:On July 10 2019 02:43 IgnE wrote:On July 10 2019 02:28 Acrofales wrote:On July 10 2019 02:03 Nebuchad wrote:On July 10 2019 01:52 Velr wrote:
If your worker owned company is doing great, what stopps the workers from selling it and buy a cheaper factory in a poorer place and live of the earnings of that company?
I guess you would say that wouldn't be allowed but what do you do then if a workforce decides to really profit of the work they did? Disallow them from ever invest/buy another company? So why even have money or ownership rights at that point?
I'm all for paying the average worker much more, companies like Amazon, Starbucks, Walmart and so on are a disgrace, but there has to be a better way than inserting some stately oversight with jnlimited power locking employes in their self iwned company forever. Simple rules about average worker pay would solve this much easier whiteout totally restructuring basically the whole economic and political system from the ground up. As you expect it wouldn't be allowed, when the companies are owned by workers you can't "buy another company" like this, it wouldn't mean anything. I don't advocate for state oversight but for workplace democracy. The workers directly own the means of production, they don't do it through state ownership. I'm not an anarchist, I do think having a state matters and is overall a good idea, but on this specifically I tend more towards anarchism than authoritarian forms of socialism. It just doesn't make sense to ban ownership in a market-based economy though. What about ownership of ideas (IP)? What about the risk that is involved in starting a new business? What about the risk? Silicon Valley startups have a notorious history of offering ownership (shares) to their first couple rounds of employees. IP? That’s easy. You can’t really own ideas. Re: ownership of ideas. So someone invents something that would sell like hotcakes, but doesn't own that invention? That means he can't sell it to people who can use that invention either? I mean, I think there is lots wrong with our current system for protecting IP, but doing away with it entirely is going to crush any incentive to innovate. The reason many of those Silicon Valley startups exist is because someone has a good idea (or a bad one), and thinks they can make money with it. The reason they can make money with it is because we place value on having the idea. Putting in the work to monetize that idea is also worth money, and thus starts an intricate phase of negotiating how much of the company belongs to everybody involved. But the person having the idea is entitled to *something* beyond a thank you note. Right? Jonas Sulk, Alexander Fleming, Frederick Banting, it's possible to cultivate a society of people who don't do everything for capital (it's probably not done by reforming CAPITALism though) For every one of them there are 10 Edisons.
Shitty inventors who steal people's ideas to make gobs of profit? I know...
On July 10 2019 03:27 KwarK wrote:
Sulk? The guy who discovered the vaccine for Poutio?
Edit: I’m just messing with you. My phone autocorrected it to Silk the first time too.
lol I was going to say, no obviously he invented poutine
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On July 10 2019 03:16 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2019 02:43 IgnE wrote:On July 10 2019 02:28 Acrofales wrote:On July 10 2019 02:03 Nebuchad wrote:On July 10 2019 01:52 Velr wrote:
If your worker owned company is doing great, what stopps the workers from selling it and buy a cheaper factory in a poorer place and live of the earnings of that company?
I guess you would say that wouldn't be allowed but what do you do then if a workforce decides to really profit of the work they did? Disallow them from ever invest/buy another company? So why even have money or ownership rights at that point?
I'm all for paying the average worker much more, companies like Amazon, Starbucks, Walmart and so on are a disgrace, but there has to be a better way than inserting some stately oversight with jnlimited power locking employes in their self iwned company forever. Simple rules about average worker pay would solve this much easier whiteout totally restructuring basically the whole economic and political system from the ground up. As you expect it wouldn't be allowed, when the companies are owned by workers you can't "buy another company" like this, it wouldn't mean anything. I don't advocate for state oversight but for workplace democracy. The workers directly own the means of production, they don't do it through state ownership. I'm not an anarchist, I do think having a state matters and is overall a good idea, but on this specifically I tend more towards anarchism than authoritarian forms of socialism. It just doesn't make sense to ban ownership in a market-based economy though. What about ownership of ideas (IP)? What about the risk that is involved in starting a new business? What about the risk? Silicon Valley startups have a notorious history of offering ownership (shares) to their first couple rounds of employees. IP? That’s easy. You can’t really own ideas. Re: Silicon Valley. Oh, I know. It's one of the examples I brought up the last time this came around of how terribly bad worker-owned companies can treat their employees. It's basically a scam, there are 2 options: 1. Your company goes bankrupt and all those "shares" (they aren't actually shares, as you can't trade them freely, and you don't have to be bought out if you want to quit your job) are worthless. You worked for less than market value. 2. Your company starts making a profit. A venture capitalist swoops in, some accountant trickery is done and you are paid jack shit for your "shares". This option is still better than 1, but it is also far more rare, and it still isn't as good as they "sold" it to you which was that you would make millions if the company succeeded (just look at Facebook, right!) The reason worker-owned companies are problematic for new business is hidden in number 2. These companies initially don't make any profit, and the initial "employees" foot the bill, but they often can't for long enough for the company to get up and running, which requires further up-front investment. The "employees" are unable/willing to make that investment. Either the company can't continue forward (and might go bankrupt as a result), or venture capitalists (or IPOs) are a requirement of your worker-owned companies. I guess all these situations where you sell off part of your company for cash to continue growing it would be replaced by banks giving loans? I think we tried that and it doesn't work anywhere near as well as our current model. Re: ownership of ideas. So someone invents something that would sell like hotcakes, but doesn't own that invention? That means he can't sell it to people who can use that invention either? I mean, I think there is lots wrong with our current system for protecting IP, but doing away with it entirely is going to crush any incentive to innovate. The reason many of those Silicon Valley startups exist is because someone has a good idea (or a bad one), and thinks they can make money with it. The reason they can make money with it is because we place value on having the idea. Putting in the work to monetize that idea is also worth money, and thus starts an intricate phase of negotiating how much of the company belongs to everybody involved. But the person having the idea is entitled to *something* beyond a thank you note. Right?
acquiring investment capital is a problem and silicon valley is full of duplicitous practices sure, i just suggest that we disentangle the 10x funding problem from the more generic problem of establishing a profitable business of any kind. maybe you have arguments about why network/social media businesses simply have to be 10x to be successful at all, but that’s complicated and i don’t want to get into it right now
i don’t thinks a radical overhaul of IP would kill innovation for a lot of complex reasons. rather than talk about those reasons i will problematize two aspects of your argument: i contest the “we” that finds most of silicon valley “valuable.” most people would not have paid for the chance to use their networks. it’s a scam not unlike startup shares in which these companies let us buy in for free then sold us to the advertisers who find our attention valuable. we are the product that is paid for. to go even further, however, i contest the idea that simply creating, diverting, and capturing desire always adds value to society (quantified in earnings/GDP). this is a complex argument about value that i have not fully worked out though and so would rather not get into.
but should someone in our current IP regime try to get paid? well, everybody’s gotta eat, and if anyone makes money off of it, i’d rather she did than (just) the capital owner/investor
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4713 Posts
On July 10 2019 02:52 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2019 02:36 Destructicon wrote:
I think socialism is utopic and impossible to implement without it breaking down.
Almost always the redistribution of wealth will involve a mechanism which inevitably gets corrupted to the detriment of the many.
I also think socialism actually promotes a toxic long term mindset, if you know you don't get to keep the majority of the wealth you create then you'll be encouraged to just be lazy and just do the minimum of what you need. And if the vast majority of people become lazy then the system breaks down. To actually achieve socialism you'd have to change the way humans thing so they continue striving despite the wealth redistribution, and I don't think its possible to socially engineer humanity like that.
I believe in meritocracy, the more or harder you work the better off you should be. If you do have what it takes to work 80 hours a week until you're 40 you deserve better than someone who's only worked 40 hours/week till he was 40. I think that's fundamentally a healthy mindset as it promotes self discipline, self reliance and leads to self respect.
So in that regard I think capitalism has done better as it many ways it does promote a sort of meritocracy. But I won't say capitalism is perfect, all systems have problems and its looking more and more like capitalism has the same problem of concentrating wealth into the hands of a few, albeit much, much more slowly than in socialism.
From my limited point of view it feels like there are two problems:
1. Certain activities or commodities are valued disproportionately high or low to each other.
2. The difference between those quantified values just keeps getting bigger and bigger.
I'm not sure how you stop or limit this, especially in today's global economics where you have tax havens, outsorcing etc. I think a bigger deep dive into this and how the entire system operatives would be more useful.
On just a philosophical level I think promoting personal responsibility, self reliance and meritocracy in a economic system is just going to have better results than promoting laziness. Your theory of laziness being bad is groundbreaking. I think we can pretty much wrap up economics now. Thanks for sharing that insight. If I can offer but one suggestion to your thesis, you’ve confused capitalism and socialism. In socialism the proceeds of the labour are divided between the labourers, rewarding them for their hard work directly. The harder they work, the more they get. In capitalism the proceeds of labour are given to the capitalist class, such as landowners, renters, shareholders, banks etc. who performed no labour in the activity that created value. The labourers are awarded a flat amount, regardless of profits, calculated as the amount so low that nobody else would do the job. It is capitalism that is incentivizing me to lazily explain this to you while at work because I am not rewarded for generating additional value. Consider the feudal landowner. He can grant the use of the land to whomever he wishes, rent is therefore set at the highest rate that someone would still be willing to farm the land and pay. If the land gets more productive the farmer gets no greater share, his share is dictated by the supply of labour. If anything the farmer gets a greater proportion of the total yield as productivity goes down due to rent varying with productivity while the amount allocated to the farmer for his efforts remains tied to labour forces. The landowner performs no farming but he owns the land and collects rent from the farmers which he uses to draw labour from the surrounding area for a team of servants, groundskeepers, cooks, maids, footmen, etc. Consider the amount of man hours wasted in the manor. If all the farmers got together one night and burned him alive in his manor the entire affair would be far more productive for everyone involved. Now consider the absentee shareholders of today. Consider the amount of man hours wasted feeding their vanity. Consider how few labourers in the modern economy are actually involved in value generating activities, as opposed to feeding the needs of the capitalist class. The manors of old are a paragon of efficiency in comparison.
What I was thinking when I mentioned socialism was a centralized economy and forced redistribution of wealth, where the state would take it from the people and redistribute it back according to their needs but not according to the work they put in.
The socialist system you described, with the labor being rewarded proportional to their yield, sounds very fair and I can get behind it. And it definitely sounds fairer than the last job I had in a corporation.
As I've said I don't think capitalism is perfect, I do hate how the executive branch are paid ludicrous amounts while the working class suffer. We've had tons of recent examples as well with Acti-Blizz, laying off 800 + people in the year they posted record profits, just to appease shareholders while, at the same time hiring a CFO with on a huge salary.
I think some of the biggest corporations of today have really reached a critical mass where they are causing more harm than good.
The way you framed it I agree with you.
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United States42260 Posts
On July 10 2019 03:46 Destructicon wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2019 02:52 KwarK wrote:On July 10 2019 02:36 Destructicon wrote:
I think socialism is utopic and impossible to implement without it breaking down.
Almost always the redistribution of wealth will involve a mechanism which inevitably gets corrupted to the detriment of the many.
I also think socialism actually promotes a toxic long term mindset, if you know you don't get to keep the majority of the wealth you create then you'll be encouraged to just be lazy and just do the minimum of what you need. And if the vast majority of people become lazy then the system breaks down. To actually achieve socialism you'd have to change the way humans thing so they continue striving despite the wealth redistribution, and I don't think its possible to socially engineer humanity like that.
I believe in meritocracy, the more or harder you work the better off you should be. If you do have what it takes to work 80 hours a week until you're 40 you deserve better than someone who's only worked 40 hours/week till he was 40. I think that's fundamentally a healthy mindset as it promotes self discipline, self reliance and leads to self respect.
So in that regard I think capitalism has done better as it many ways it does promote a sort of meritocracy. But I won't say capitalism is perfect, all systems have problems and its looking more and more like capitalism has the same problem of concentrating wealth into the hands of a few, albeit much, much more slowly than in socialism.
From my limited point of view it feels like there are two problems:
1. Certain activities or commodities are valued disproportionately high or low to each other.
2. The difference between those quantified values just keeps getting bigger and bigger.
I'm not sure how you stop or limit this, especially in today's global economics where you have tax havens, outsorcing etc. I think a bigger deep dive into this and how the entire system operatives would be more useful.
On just a philosophical level I think promoting personal responsibility, self reliance and meritocracy in a economic system is just going to have better results than promoting laziness. Your theory of laziness being bad is groundbreaking. I think we can pretty much wrap up economics now. Thanks for sharing that insight. If I can offer but one suggestion to your thesis, you’ve confused capitalism and socialism. In socialism the proceeds of the labour are divided between the labourers, rewarding them for their hard work directly. The harder they work, the more they get. In capitalism the proceeds of labour are given to the capitalist class, such as landowners, renters, shareholders, banks etc. who performed no labour in the activity that created value. The labourers are awarded a flat amount, regardless of profits, calculated as the amount so low that nobody else would do the job. It is capitalism that is incentivizing me to lazily explain this to you while at work because I am not rewarded for generating additional value. Consider the feudal landowner. He can grant the use of the land to whomever he wishes, rent is therefore set at the highest rate that someone would still be willing to farm the land and pay. If the land gets more productive the farmer gets no greater share, his share is dictated by the supply of labour. If anything the farmer gets a greater proportion of the total yield as productivity goes down due to rent varying with productivity while the amount allocated to the farmer for his efforts remains tied to labour forces. The landowner performs no farming but he owns the land and collects rent from the farmers which he uses to draw labour from the surrounding area for a team of servants, groundskeepers, cooks, maids, footmen, etc. Consider the amount of man hours wasted in the manor. If all the farmers got together one night and burned him alive in his manor the entire affair would be far more productive for everyone involved. Now consider the absentee shareholders of today. Consider the amount of man hours wasted feeding their vanity. Consider how few labourers in the modern economy are actually involved in value generating activities, as opposed to feeding the needs of the capitalist class. The manors of old are a paragon of efficiency in comparison. What I was thinking when I mentioned socialism was a centralized economy and forced redistribution of wealth, where the state would take it from the people and redistribute it back according to their needs but not according to the work they put in. The socialist system you described, with the labor being rewarded proportional to their yield, sounds very fair and I can get behind it. And it definitely sounds fairer than the last job I had in a corporation. As I've said I don't think capitalism is perfect, I do hate how the executive branch are paid ludicrous amounts while the working class suffer. We've had tons of recent examples as well with Acti-Blizz, laying off 800 + people in the year they posted record profits, just to appease shareholders while, at the same time hiring a CFO with on a huge salary. I think some of the biggest corporations of today have really reached a critical mass where they are causing more harm than good. The way you framed it I agree with you.
Command vs free economies are a separate issue up capitalism vs socialism. Capitalism and socialism just speak to how the proceeds of labour are allocated. In the former the worker’s share is dictated by the supply and demand for labour and, beyond the need to generate more value than cost, is completely disconnected from productivity. You could earn the investors millions each year but if someone else is willing to do the same job for $20k/year then that’s all you’re worth. It is the owner who gets the surplus. In the latter the worker is also the owner. In a simplistic example it is a farmer farming his own land. The problem is how to scale it above a farm. Worker cooperatives are a popular solution that don’t involve command economies though, and the “capitalist” United States has an awful lot of government intervention in the market anyway.
The core point though is that Americans are taught capitalism vs socialism backwards. In socialism the workers reap the profits. In capitalism the owners reap the profits. In a capitalist society with inter generational compounding wealth the feudal aristocracy reap the profits.
Working class Americans are taught to be paranoid that somewhere someone is getting socialist benefits they totally didn’t earn while the shareholders reap the lion’s share of value created by working class Americans without lifting a finger. If you’re a cashier in Walmart it’s not the lady with unearned food stamps who is robbing you, it’s the guy on an island who gets billions each year from the value that you and your colleagues generate, simply for who his dad was. It’s just that the welfare queen scamming for free groceries is in front of you whereas the billionaire whose scam is enshrined in law has become so remote they’re forgotten.
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On July 10 2019 03:57 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2019 03:46 Destructicon wrote:On July 10 2019 02:52 KwarK wrote:On July 10 2019 02:36 Destructicon wrote:
I think socialism is utopic and impossible to implement without it breaking down.
Almost always the redistribution of wealth will involve a mechanism which inevitably gets corrupted to the detriment of the many.
I also think socialism actually promotes a toxic long term mindset, if you know you don't get to keep the majority of the wealth you create then you'll be encouraged to just be lazy and just do the minimum of what you need. And if the vast majority of people become lazy then the system breaks down. To actually achieve socialism you'd have to change the way humans thing so they continue striving despite the wealth redistribution, and I don't think its possible to socially engineer humanity like that.
I believe in meritocracy, the more or harder you work the better off you should be. If you do have what it takes to work 80 hours a week until you're 40 you deserve better than someone who's only worked 40 hours/week till he was 40. I think that's fundamentally a healthy mindset as it promotes self discipline, self reliance and leads to self respect.
So in that regard I think capitalism has done better as it many ways it does promote a sort of meritocracy. But I won't say capitalism is perfect, all systems have problems and its looking more and more like capitalism has the same problem of concentrating wealth into the hands of a few, albeit much, much more slowly than in socialism.
From my limited point of view it feels like there are two problems:
1. Certain activities or commodities are valued disproportionately high or low to each other.
2. The difference between those quantified values just keeps getting bigger and bigger.
I'm not sure how you stop or limit this, especially in today's global economics where you have tax havens, outsorcing etc. I think a bigger deep dive into this and how the entire system operatives would be more useful.
On just a philosophical level I think promoting personal responsibility, self reliance and meritocracy in a economic system is just going to have better results than promoting laziness. Your theory of laziness being bad is groundbreaking. I think we can pretty much wrap up economics now. Thanks for sharing that insight. If I can offer but one suggestion to your thesis, you’ve confused capitalism and socialism. In socialism the proceeds of the labour are divided between the labourers, rewarding them for their hard work directly. The harder they work, the more they get. In capitalism the proceeds of labour are given to the capitalist class, such as landowners, renters, shareholders, banks etc. who performed no labour in the activity that created value. The labourers are awarded a flat amount, regardless of profits, calculated as the amount so low that nobody else would do the job. It is capitalism that is incentivizing me to lazily explain this to you while at work because I am not rewarded for generating additional value. Consider the feudal landowner. He can grant the use of the land to whomever he wishes, rent is therefore set at the highest rate that someone would still be willing to farm the land and pay. If the land gets more productive the farmer gets no greater share, his share is dictated by the supply of labour. If anything the farmer gets a greater proportion of the total yield as productivity goes down due to rent varying with productivity while the amount allocated to the farmer for his efforts remains tied to labour forces. The landowner performs no farming but he owns the land and collects rent from the farmers which he uses to draw labour from the surrounding area for a team of servants, groundskeepers, cooks, maids, footmen, etc. Consider the amount of man hours wasted in the manor. If all the farmers got together one night and burned him alive in his manor the entire affair would be far more productive for everyone involved. Now consider the absentee shareholders of today. Consider the amount of man hours wasted feeding their vanity. Consider how few labourers in the modern economy are actually involved in value generating activities, as opposed to feeding the needs of the capitalist class. The manors of old are a paragon of efficiency in comparison. What I was thinking when I mentioned socialism was a centralized economy and forced redistribution of wealth, where the state would take it from the people and redistribute it back according to their needs but not according to the work they put in. The socialist system you described, with the labor being rewarded proportional to their yield, sounds very fair and I can get behind it. And it definitely sounds fairer than the last job I had in a corporation. As I've said I don't think capitalism is perfect, I do hate how the executive branch are paid ludicrous amounts while the working class suffer. We've had tons of recent examples as well with Acti-Blizz, laying off 800 + people in the year they posted record profits, just to appease shareholders while, at the same time hiring a CFO with on a huge salary. I think some of the biggest corporations of today have really reached a critical mass where they are causing more harm than good. The way you framed it I agree with you. Command vs free economies are a separate issue up capitalism vs socialism. Capitalism and socialism just speak to how the proceeds of labour are allocated. In the former the worker’s share is dictated by the supply and demand for labour and, beyond the need to generate more value than cost, is completely disconnected from productivity. You could earn the investors millions each year but if someone else is willing to do the same job for $20k/year then that’s all you’re worth. It is the owner who gets the surplus. In the latter the worker is also the owner. In a simplistic example it is a farmer farming his own land. The problem is how to scale it above a farm. Worker cooperatives are a popular solution that don’t involve command economies though, and the “capitalist” United States has an awful lot of government intervention in the market anyway. The core point though is that Americans are taught capitalism vs socialism backwards. In socialism the workers reap the profits. In capitalism the owners reap the profits. In a capitalist society with inter generational compounding wealth the feudal aristocracy reap the profits. Working class Americans are taught to be paranoid that somewhere someone is getting socialist benefits they totally didn’t earn while the shareholders reap the lion’s share of value created by working class Americans without lifting a finger. If you’re a cashier in Walmart it’s not the lady with unearned food stamps who is robbing you, it’s the guy on an island who gets billions each year from the value that you and your colleagues generate, simply for who his dad was.
This part is so key I thought it deserved to be highlighted.
The core point though is that Americans are taught capitalism vs socialism backwards. In socialism the workers reap the profits. In capitalism the owners reap the profits. In a capitalist society with inter generational compounding wealth the feudal aristocracy reap the profits.
Working class Americans are taught to be paranoid that somewhere someone is getting socialist benefits they totally didn’t earn while the shareholders reap the lion’s share of value created by working class Americans without lifting a finger. If you’re a cashier in Walmart it’s not the lady with unearned food stamps who is robbing you, it’s the guy on an island who gets billions each year from the value that you and your colleagues generate, simply for who his dad was.
Remember the food stamp lobster guy Fox News tried to turn into a weekly recurring segment? That's an example of the naked propaganda aimed to reinforce this paranoia, meanwhile you got people like Forbes who says "there's nothing wrong with nepotism as long as you keep it in the family" or whatever.
EDIT: It's also why the first counter-arguments to come up when arguing this stuff (food stamps, basic income, healthcare, housing) is almost always "what about all the lazy/unmotivated people that will get rewards without contributing!?!?".
"You mean like the Waltons?"
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United States42260 Posts
It’s also worth reminding people that wage theft by employers is the biggest kind of theft.
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EPT
