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What is a shareholder? Have you ever thought about it? What do you need to make a modern enterprise? You need tools and you need labor. Some people provide

What is a shareholder? Have you ever thought about it? What do you need to make a modern enterprise? You need tools and you need labor. Some people provide labor, and others provide the tools. Some people who can provide tools, don't necessarily want to provide labor. They are shareholders without being workers. If all the workers bring their own tools, then the enterprise can be 100% worker owned. If some workers need someone else to provide tools, they need some outside capital. That outside capital is basically outside people providing tools in exchange for some ownership in the enterprise. As enterprises become more complex, you may need more and more complicated and expensive tools ... and the people who provide the labor and the people who provide the tools can become highly specialized. There you go ... shareholder capitalism again.

forkLding 9y ago
Again this depends, you're more describing corporate capitalism, most small businesses don't go through these processes and might become worker coops to survive if can't pay wages or if nobody good enough to take over even if its a profitable and expanding small chain.(speak from personal experience) Its pretty oversimplized to describe the capital acquistion process, small businesses can last 20 or 30 years without any actual outside investment. Most small businesses dont become corporations that require extensive outside investment because its hard, thus your case is only certain if every small business becomes a corporation through outside investment but it doesnt occur everytime and is only an edge case.
abdullahkhalids 9y ago
You have precisely identified half the problem that anarcho-syndicalists (the Chomsky type) see with our economic system: that some people want to provide capital to an enterprise in exchange for ownership. The other half of the problem is that as markets work (relative scarcity of capital vs labor) the people who provide the capital end up collecting most of the profits of the enterprise. Which has resulted in the enormous wealth inequalities of our times. The anarcho-syndicalist solution is simple. If an enterprise is bigger than say 30 people, by law you cannot gain ownership of it by providing capital. In fact, the shareholding system is rather simple. If there are N people who provide labor to the enterprise, then each of them get roughly 1/Nth ownership of the enterprise. Sure, people doing more technical or more difficult work might receive a bigger salary than people doing more manual labor but it will be very difficult for anyone to amass relative massive wealth. Sure, in such a economic system, collecting capital will be hard to enterprises. "Growth" might slow down etc etc, but at least people will be fairly reimbursed for their labor.
- mdpopescu 9y ago
  > by law you cannot gain ownership of it by providing capital How do you stop (say) a hundred people getting together and agreeing to do just that, without having a state? Most people prefer job security rather than part ownership (revealed preference).
  - abdullahkhalids 9y ago
    I was waiting for this response. Anarcho-syndicalists are not revolutionaries. They don't want to upend the entire system in one go, only make simple changes that get them what they want. So really, anarcho-syndicalists are (temporarily) happy with a democratic system, with a state that enforces laws through standard methods (police etc). Once this particular change has been made they will go after other unreasonable hierarchy [1] besides wealth-inequality and try to come up with a solution for them. This methodology is not very different from that of socialist democracies, who very slowly over decades have expanded the network of protections and services offered by the state, in service of their goal of a benevolent democratic state that takes care of all its citizens. [1] Remember, anarchists (Chomsky style at least) want a society free of unreasonable hierarchies - where "unreasonable" is up for debate.
    - mdpopescu 9y ago
      So, they will forcefully prevent people from doing what they want with their property, even when that doesn't affect others. This differs from what we have today how?
      - abdullahkhalids 9y ago
        I don't think I fully understand what you mean. But I will take your comment literally and try to answer. I apologize if I misunderstood. I think every politico-economic system stops people from doing certain things - that is an inevitable consequence if a group of people with possibly conflicting goals want to cooperate for mutual benefit. The whole debate between different ideologies is what to stop people from and why. As I said anarcho-syndicalists are evolutionaries who want to start by making one simple change to our current democratic-capitalist systems - nerf the power of capital to further gain wealth (what). And they want to do this to reduce income inequality in society (why). This proposal changes our current systems in just this way. Its not intending to change the fundamental framework of law, order, economy, politics; just merely changing some laws and economic subsystems of of current framework. Anarcho-syndicalists are not rosy-eyed people that believe in the fundamental goodness of people - but realists who want to improve society through standard democratic ways. I hope I answered your question; if not I would happy if you explained a bit more.

forkLding 9y ago

Again this depends, you're more describing corporate capitalism, most small businesses don't go through these processes and might become worker coops to survive if can't pay wages or if nobody good enough to take over even if its a profitable and expanding small chain.(speak from personal experience) Its pretty oversimplized to describe the capital acquistion process, small businesses can last 20 or 30 years without any actual outside investment. Most small businesses dont become corporations that require extensive outside investment because its hard, thus your case is only certain if every small business becomes a corporation through outside investment but it doesnt occur everytime and is only an edge case.

abdullahkhalids 9y ago

You have precisely identified half the problem that anarcho-syndicalists (the Chomsky type) see with our economic system: that some people want to provide capital to an enterprise in exchange for ownership. The other half of the problem is that as markets work (relative scarcity of capital vs labor) the people who provide the capital end up collecting most of the profits of the enterprise. Which has resulted in the enormous wealth inequalities of our times. The anarcho-syndicalist solution is simple. If an enterprise is bigger than say 30 people, by law you cannot gain ownership of it by providing capital. In fact, the shareholding system is rather simple. If there are N people who provide labor to the enterprise, then each of them get roughly 1/Nth ownership of the enterprise. Sure, people doing more technical or more difficult work might receive a bigger salary than people doing more manual labor but it will be very difficult for anyone to amass relative massive wealth. Sure, in such a economic system, collecting capital will be hard to enterprises. "Growth" might slow down etc etc, but at least people will be fairly reimbursed for their labor.

mdpopescu 9y ago
> by law you cannot gain ownership of it by providing capital How do you stop (say) a hundred people getting together and agreeing to do just that, without having a state? Most people prefer job security rather than part ownership (revealed preference).
- abdullahkhalids 9y ago
  I was waiting for this response. Anarcho-syndicalists are not revolutionaries. They don't want to upend the entire system in one go, only make simple changes that get them what they want. So really, anarcho-syndicalists are (temporarily) happy with a democratic system, with a state that enforces laws through standard methods (police etc). Once this particular change has been made they will go after other unreasonable hierarchy [1] besides wealth-inequality and try to come up with a solution for them. This methodology is not very different from that of socialist democracies, who very slowly over decades have expanded the network of protections and services offered by the state, in service of their goal of a benevolent democratic state that takes care of all its citizens. [1] Remember, anarchists (Chomsky style at least) want a society free of unreasonable hierarchies - where "unreasonable" is up for debate.
  - mdpopescu 9y ago
    So, they will forcefully prevent people from doing what they want with their property, even when that doesn't affect others. This differs from what we have today how?
    - abdullahkhalids 9y ago
      I don't think I fully understand what you mean. But I will take your comment literally and try to answer. I apologize if I misunderstood. I think every politico-economic system stops people from doing certain things - that is an inevitable consequence if a group of people with possibly conflicting goals want to cooperate for mutual benefit. The whole debate between different ideologies is what to stop people from and why. As I said anarcho-syndicalists are evolutionaries who want to start by making one simple change to our current democratic-capitalist systems - nerf the power of capital to further gain wealth (what). And they want to do this to reduce income inequality in society (why). This proposal changes our current systems in just this way. Its not intending to change the fundamental framework of law, order, economy, politics; just merely changing some laws and economic subsystems of of current framework. Anarcho-syndicalists are not rosy-eyed people that believe in the fundamental goodness of people - but realists who want to improve society through standard democratic ways. I hope I answered your question; if not I would happy if you explained a bit more.