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This system tries to put into your head that you either are exploited (worker) or are the exploiter (owner), while we could try to arrange our society in a more

This system tries to put into your head that you either are exploited (worker) or are the exploiter (owner), while we could try to arrange our society in a more cooperative way, e.g. with worker cooperatives. Unfortunately the whole system is stuck against such cooperative structures, because elites don't want these type of arrangements to become legitimized on a big scale.

njarboe 3y ago
Startups at their best are worker cooperatives. Not everyone has an equal share or say in the company, but with each person having a meaningful amount of stock options you can look at it that way. It's not clear exactly what would be the best distribution of ownership but definitely the less stock held by people not working at the firm the better if one is trying to get out of the exploited and exploiter mentality. How big can this scale? Would like to read a good study on this.
- TotalCrackpot 3y ago
  I can't agree, sure early employees have some stock (still usually muuuuuuuuuuuch less than founders) but a lot of the time there is a specific class of decision-makers/owners. Workers in big companies like Google get stock that through some fancy beaurocracy doesn't give them decision making-opportunities. I think workers-owners can agree to unequal salary, but even in startups they don't actually make decisions. The biggest known worker cooperative is Mondragon, so this can scale. I would probably try creating different type of structure to this from Mondragon (they still have director class that is chosen by majority vote), but it's an example of big worker coop. Motion Twin would be an example of a small worker coop, they have fixed equal salary which I think was a problem for them, they didn't want to scale so after they developed the game Dead Cells that was a fairly big success some people from this company created another company to be able to scale to develop the game.

njarboe 3y ago

Startups at their best are worker cooperatives. Not everyone has an equal share or say in the company, but with each person having a meaningful amount of stock options you can look at it that way. It's not clear exactly what would be the best distribution of ownership but definitely the less stock held by people not working at the firm the better if one is trying to get out of the exploited and exploiter mentality. How big can this scale? Would like to read a good study on this.

TotalCrackpot 3y ago
I can't agree, sure early employees have some stock (still usually muuuuuuuuuuuch less than founders) but a lot of the time there is a specific class of decision-makers/owners. Workers in big companies like Google get stock that through some fancy beaurocracy doesn't give them decision making-opportunities. I think workers-owners can agree to unequal salary, but even in startups they don't actually make decisions. The biggest known worker cooperative is Mondragon, so this can scale. I would probably try creating different type of structure to this from Mondragon (they still have director class that is chosen by majority vote), but it's an example of big worker coop. Motion Twin would be an example of a small worker coop, they have fixed equal salary which I think was a problem for them, they didn't want to scale so after they developed the game Dead Cells that was a fairly big success some people from this company created another company to be able to scale to develop the game.