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Every company above a certain employee count (100ish)/annual world wide revenue must be at least 51% [1] owned 1/n by all existing employees. Obviously taking c

Every company above a certain employee count (100ish)/annual world wide revenue must be at least 51% [1] owned 1/n by all existing employees. Obviously taking care of loopholes like contractors is implied. If you want the economy to serve the people, it must be controlled by the people. [1] I personally would advocate 67% as the number. So the 33% capital owning class needs at least half the employees to agree that their plans are best for the company.

Temporary_31337 3y ago
Clearly you have not witnessed communism first hand.
- EdwardDiego 3y ago
  That's not Communism.
- drpixie 3y ago
  "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
  - HDThoreaun 3y ago
    The proletariat owning the means of production by law is exactly what communism means.
    - abdullahkhalids 3y ago
      In communism, all of the people collectively own all the means of production. What I am suggesting is very different from that. Companies are owned only by their employees and the capital investors. There is still competition, there is no central planning as in the USSR, people are free to work in whatever field and company they want to (unlike the USSR), etc. This is barely different from modern capitalism.
      - drpixie 3y ago
        Yes - widely the case in Europe. Germany has substantial worker ownership requirements - they seem to be doing reasonably well.
- ClumsyPilot 3y ago
  First rule of politics - if you propose any change that does not favour the rich, it's communism. Closed tax loopholes? They will be sending you to Goolags next.
oersted 3y ago
This is the definition of a Co-op. The model has been reasonably successful in some cases. There are co-ops with >$10B annual revenues, although it took them half a century of steady solid business to get there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation The main issue is that such companies do not attract large investment, so they cannot really take advantage of modern capital markets. It would lead to slower productivity growth, with fewer crisis, maybe that's better, maybe not. But co-ops are not immune to spectacular failures either (see Fagor). The do not attract large investment, but they can also be an effective solution to a lack of capital. Mondragon (linked above) was a collective grassroots venture in post-war isolated Spain, were regular workers got together to bootstrap employment for themselves. Oddly enough, led by a young Catholic priest. It doesn't really fit cleanly into the Capitalism vs Communism worldview. On the one hand, it is definitely about collectivism and labour rights. On the other hand, a co-op is a lot like a modern neo-liberal startup, just with a large and flexible group of founders, where the shareholders and the most productive workers are one and the same. Again, the piece that doesn't fit nicely: investors. That's the main weakness. Bootstrapped by design. Successful members of society cannot help others accelerate their ventures. They just use their wealth to aggressively consume, or just save a lot. Neither of which is great for efficiently improving the world. Hard to tell if this is a better model, might be slow but sustainable. The promise of equitably distributed rewards (as in Communism), while still having individual incentives for productivity (as in Capitalism), is rather attractive conceptually at least.
- abdullahkhalids 3y ago
  1. Unlike Co-ops, what I am proposing [1] allows for companies to still sell part of themselves to investors to raise capital. There is just a proposed limit on this by law, so the capital owning class can't exploit workers. So, these companies can still raise medium amounts of money. Sure, this will limit growth in some ways, but in others it will improve things. Uber, would long ago be profitable and stable business than it is now, for instance in this world. 2. This has nothing to do with communism. Communism advocates for the collective ownership of the means of production, i.e. the entire society owns all means of production. Here, every company is still owned by a limited number of people, and there are markets and competition. People are free to join whichever company that will take them. I am simply proposing a fix to imho the worst feature of capitalism. [1] inspired by anarcho-syndacalism
tacitusarc 3y ago
Companies wouldn’t hire people in that case, they would just use contractors, which would be a worse state of affairs.

Temporary_31337 3y ago

Clearly you have not witnessed communism first hand.

EdwardDiego 3y ago
That's not Communism.
drpixie 3y ago
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  The proletariat owning the means of production by law is exactly what communism means.
  - abdullahkhalids 3y ago
    In communism, all of the people collectively own all the means of production. What I am suggesting is very different from that. Companies are owned only by their employees and the capital investors. There is still competition, there is no central planning as in the USSR, people are free to work in whatever field and company they want to (unlike the USSR), etc. This is barely different from modern capitalism.
    - drpixie 3y ago
      Yes - widely the case in Europe. Germany has substantial worker ownership requirements - they seem to be doing reasonably well.
ClumsyPilot 3y ago
First rule of politics - if you propose any change that does not favour the rich, it's communism. Closed tax loopholes? They will be sending you to Goolags next.

oersted 3y ago

This is the definition of a Co-op. The model has been reasonably successful in some cases. There are co-ops with >$10B annual revenues, although it took them half a century of steady solid business to get there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation The main issue is that such companies do not attract large investment, so they cannot really take advantage of modern capital markets. It would lead to slower productivity growth, with fewer crisis, maybe that's better, maybe not. But co-ops are not immune to spectacular failures either (see Fagor). The do not attract large investment, but they can also be an effective solution to a lack of capital. Mondragon (linked above) was a collective grassroots venture in post-war isolated Spain, were regular workers got together to bootstrap employment for themselves. Oddly enough, led by a young Catholic priest. It doesn't really fit cleanly into the Capitalism vs Communism worldview. On the one hand, it is definitely about collectivism and labour rights. On the other hand, a co-op is a lot like a modern neo-liberal startup, just with a large and flexible group of founders, where the shareholders and the most productive workers are one and the same. Again, the piece that doesn't fit nicely: investors. That's the main weakness. Bootstrapped by design. Successful members of society cannot help others accelerate their ventures. They just use their wealth to aggressively consume, or just save a lot. Neither of which is great for efficiently improving the world. Hard to tell if this is a better model, might be slow but sustainable. The promise of equitably distributed rewards (as in Communism), while still having individual incentives for productivity (as in Capitalism), is rather attractive conceptually at least.

abdullahkhalids 3y ago
1. Unlike Co-ops, what I am proposing [1] allows for companies to still sell part of themselves to investors to raise capital. There is just a proposed limit on this by law, so the capital owning class can't exploit workers. So, these companies can still raise medium amounts of money. Sure, this will limit growth in some ways, but in others it will improve things. Uber, would long ago be profitable and stable business than it is now, for instance in this world. 2. This has nothing to do with communism. Communism advocates for the collective ownership of the means of production, i.e. the entire society owns all means of production. Here, every company is still owned by a limited number of people, and there are markets and competition. People are free to join whichever company that will take them. I am simply proposing a fix to imho the worst feature of capitalism. [1] inspired by anarcho-syndacalism

tacitusarc 3y ago

Companies wouldn’t hire people in that case, they would just use contractors, which would be a worse state of affairs.