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> Who else do you think should own and control those enterprises The employees of said companies, who have done the hard, sometimes back-breaking work to bring

> Who else do you think should own and control those enterprises The employees of said companies, who have done the hard, sometimes back-breaking work to bring said company to such a valuation. Of course, current CEOs deserve a share of it too, proportional to the work they have put in. Just not simply because they had capital from mom and pop lending them a cool 500k like Bezos did. > how should the control and ownership be taken away from the current owners Force. > Is doing so really in the public interest? Redistribution of wealth is _always_ in the public's interest. There are no good billionaires. Every billionaire has become so upon the back of stealing wages, time and money from their employees. Every billionaire has death, sorrow and blood on their hands, as a result of their actions to greedily scrunge up money for their personal gain. Not even in a "well you could stop world hunger" way. No, in a "the work conditions you imposed led the people working 16 hours a day for you into deep mental issues, or the slave labour you knowingly used has caused people to die as a result of your actions." way.

simonh 5y ago
>Redistribution of wealth is _always_ in the public's interest. My wife is Chinese, and her parents grew up under Mao. Because her father's family owned some land which they rented out to other farmers in their village, in Hebei, they were categorised as capitalist class enemies and persecuted. He was not allowed to go to school, was refused work and he grew up destitute. He still tears up when talking about that time. But hey, apparently it was in the public interest. Capitalism is based on three things. Freedom to own property and capital, freedom to buy the labour of others or sell your own labour, and freedom of association to form partnerships and companies. The reason Marxism always fails is because it is based on the elimination of those freedoms, putting power over these activities in the hands of functionaries. It takes away personal property; it coercively mandates and directs labour; it prohibits freedoms of association, organisation and communication. If you want to found an employee owned partnership there is nothing to stop you doing so. The freedoms granted under capitalism are entirely compatible with this. There are plenty of socialists in the world with large amounts of personal capital to seed such projects. Plenty of businesses are founded using loans. There's no law that says startups have to have individual founders, they could be formed as partnerships between the employees. In fact some such partnerships do exist, which shows that the reasons they are not more common are nothing to do with the regulatory environment. However such partnerships are extremely uncommon, why is this? The fact is most people choose not to take on the risks that owning and running a business entail. They don't want the responsibility in case it fails as most new businesses do, they prefer the owners and investors to take that risk and earn a regular pay packet instead. That's their choice. It's also the choice I have made throughout my career, but at least I'm prepared to take responsibility for it.
- user-the-name 5y ago
  Didn't you just say that rent-seeking is bad, and now you're defending someone who did nothing but seek rent?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - simonh 5y ago
    I was responding to a comment about billionaires in general, and have not mentioned any individual billionaires so I'm not sure what you are referring to. The only capitalist in particular I defended was my father in law. Actually his father as my father in law was a child at the time. His father was a farmer that committed the terrible crime of renting out some of his land instead of letting it lie fallow. He and his whole family worked incredibly hard in a small village in Hebei until they were evicted from their farm by the Communists.

simonh 5y ago

>Redistribution of wealth is _always_ in the public's interest. My wife is Chinese, and her parents grew up under Mao. Because her father's family owned some land which they rented out to other farmers in their village, in Hebei, they were categorised as capitalist class enemies and persecuted. He was not allowed to go to school, was refused work and he grew up destitute. He still tears up when talking about that time. But hey, apparently it was in the public interest. Capitalism is based on three things. Freedom to own property and capital, freedom to buy the labour of others or sell your own labour, and freedom of association to form partnerships and companies. The reason Marxism always fails is because it is based on the elimination of those freedoms, putting power over these activities in the hands of functionaries. It takes away personal property; it coercively mandates and directs labour; it prohibits freedoms of association, organisation and communication. If you want to found an employee owned partnership there is nothing to stop you doing so. The freedoms granted under capitalism are entirely compatible with this. There are plenty of socialists in the world with large amounts of personal capital to seed such projects. Plenty of businesses are founded using loans. There's no law that says startups have to have individual founders, they could be formed as partnerships between the employees. In fact some such partnerships do exist, which shows that the reasons they are not more common are nothing to do with the regulatory environment. However such partnerships are extremely uncommon, why is this? The fact is most people choose not to take on the risks that owning and running a business entail. They don't want the responsibility in case it fails as most new businesses do, they prefer the owners and investors to take that risk and earn a regular pay packet instead. That's their choice. It's also the choice I have made throughout my career, but at least I'm prepared to take responsibility for it.

user-the-name 5y ago
Didn't you just say that rent-seeking is bad, and now you're defending someone who did nothing but seek rent?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- simonh 5y ago
  I was responding to a comment about billionaires in general, and have not mentioned any individual billionaires so I'm not sure what you are referring to. The only capitalist in particular I defended was my father in law. Actually his father as my father in law was a child at the time. His father was a farmer that committed the terrible crime of renting out some of his land instead of letting it lie fallow. He and his whole family worked incredibly hard in a small village in Hebei until they were evicted from their farm by the Communists.