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If the employees owned the company, they would not fear automation and would reap the benefits. The problem is that the company is owned by tyrants.
by tehjoker 7y ago
If the employees owned the company, they would not fear automation and would reap the benefits. The problem is that the company is owned by tyrants.
- z3t4 7y agoThe buisness model is often to buy a good or service and then sell it for a higher price. Customers might pay for human hours, or explicitly want the work to be manual. Then it would be wrong to charge 10 hours for something that only took 1 hour. And the market/demand might not be big enough for 10x output.
- btbuildem 7y agoWe're not talking about bespoke loafer stitching, more like menial and mind-numbing excel sheet collation or something of the sort.
- sokoloff 7y agoI think a lot of engineers make the mistake of thinking that "cost-plus" is the most appropriate way to price a product/service. Do I care whether Dunkin makes a nickel or $0.75 on the donut they sell me? No. Is it "unfair" for them to have 4x margins on donuts? No. Relatively few services are sold by the hour. Most spreadsheet mining is done for the value derived, not for the human labor input.
- WalterBright 7y agoEmployees can join together and start their own company any time they want to.
- leetrout 7y agoPoor people can stop being poor whenever they want to. They just need to get a better paying job. It’s not that simple at all and your comment is disingenuous.
- rumanator 7y agoWhile OP's comment points out the fact that in a liberal economy you are free to start any business as you see fit, your comment simply is intentionally absurd and pointless. You are in fact free to launch your own company or cooperative. That's an undisputable fact. If your labor is so critical and all managers are useless tyrants then why are you choosing to give away your means of production to useless tyrants? By your logic wouldn't it be obvious that starting your own company is the solution to all of your problems?
- truckerbill 7y agoCompanies usually require a lot of capital to get off the ground, I think that's the subtext there but I could be wrong. Being able to operate at a loss for an indeterminate amount of time and equipment being two costs that come to mind.
- WalterBright 7y agoI started my first business when I was 8. It cost nothing to start it. There are tons of companies you can start for nothing or next to nothing. There are books filled with ideas on such you can get from Amazon.
- bananocurrency 7y agoWhat kind of health insurance were you offering your employees at that age? MRR? Must have had a real unicorn on your hands.
- modo_mario 7y ago`There are tons of companies you can start for nothing or next to nothing.` And there are tons you can't start like that and it depends on where you live as well. Who's to say said employees are in a sector where it is that easy? And if it is one of those one could start without much but i would want to start a business that can't ruin my life if it goes bankrupt due to something weird or unforseen happening. Well I legally have to put up a large amount of cash at the start. And then there's bs like noncompete agreements in employment contracts which i've faced a few times and which I notably looked at in depth once because yeah... I could totally do what that employer was doing way better. But hey I still can't go to it's customers today.
- mattacular 7y agoDumb.
- newsgremlin 7y agoAnd then they can hire their own employees...who proceed to automate their own jobs. So nothing has changed and nothing is fixed.
- edanm 7y agoI mean, if we could automate all jobs, then wouldn't we reach a pretty great end goal of no one having to work anymore? What is left to be fixed?
- crazypython 7y agoYes, but much of the capital is controlled centrally.
- nickpp 7y agoLuckily it takes very little capital to start software companies.
- WalterBright 7y agoOr any number of other companies, like writing a book and selling it on Amazon. Or starting a lawnmowing service. Or a maid service. Or a realtor. Etc. The garage door spring on my house broke one day. I googled for garage spring repair, called the local company that did it. Turned out it was just a guy with a bunch of springs in his trunk. He had it fixed quickly, charged me, and drove off. Evidently that was a nice business he had. A car, some springs, and an advertisement.
- claudiawerner 7y agoThis only works for a subset of workers, not all of them, which I think is what GP was getting at. It's a matter of justice in society, not a subset of society (mind you, a subset that can afford to do this in the first place) just trying to better things for themselves.
- symplee 7y agoIs there a mainstream company structure that aligns interests in this way? Or would this require a paradigm shift?
- chii 7y agoit's usually called a cooperative (and a lot of farms operate this way).
- C1sc0cat 7y agoThat's a producer coop, a worker coop is what your thinking of part of KFC is a producer coop BTW
- markvdb 7y agoMondragon [0] is often seen as the most successful large scale cooperative. Don't know if that was exactly what you were asking for though. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
- rumanator 7y agoMondragón id also not free from problems pinned on the neoliberal school of management, such as bankruptcies that shut down whole factories leaving workers out to dry. https://www.theguardian.com/social-enterprise-network/2013/nov/15/spanish-co-op-workers-occupy-plant https://www.theguardian.com/social-enterprise-network/2013/n...
- tonyedgecombe 7y agoAlso John Lewis & Partners in the UK with 38,000 staff. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lewis_%26_Partners https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lewis_%26_Partners
- unlinked_dll 7y agoMarketplace had a decent episode that covered it: https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace/there-are-6000-employee-owned-companies-in-the-u-s-how-do-they-work/ https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace/there-are-6000...
- astrofinch 7y agoMost startups offer equity to their employees. "the company is owned by tyrants" Citation needed.
- unlinked_dll 7y agoall of us employees with startup equity know that it's a far cry from employee ownership, and it's disingenuous to suggest that we have any quantum of control when push comes to shove.
- rumanator 7y agoHow many quantum of control do you have on a democratic society where your vote is worth as much as the vote of any of your million fellow citizens? Not being able to force your personal will onto others doesn't mean a society or organization is not democratic.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 7y agoHaving others will dispassionately forced on you, or me, or them is a strong indicator of an undemocratic society.
- rumanator 7y agoThat definition does not make any sense. Not having your way all the time does not mean you live in a dictatorship.
- claudiawerner 7y agoIn democratic society, on principle, how much your say is worth is not determined by how much money you are able to invest in it. Your analogy would only make sense if you can "buy" votes, and arguably the political sphere is in a pretty sad state too with how much control voters actually have. At best, you're saying that a company can be just as undemocratic as the modern state. That's not a high bar to cross.
- 7y ago
- asdf21 7y agoYou realize co-ops are a thing, right?
- tehjoker 7y agoYes, I am saying much more of the economy should be organized along those lines at the very least. Heavy industries should be nationalized.