4 ms·
Are you telling me that one of American capitalism's peaks is basically a worker collective?
by bogtog 2y ago
Are you telling me that one of American capitalism's peaks is basically a worker collective?
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> one of American capitalism's peaks is basically a worker collective? Finance tends to pay its workers better than shareholders—most banks’ trading and IB groups pay out more than 50% of profits to workers.
- lupire 2y agoUnknown but unlikely. Doubtful that ownership shares are anywhere near equal.
- paxys 2y agoIs Google a worker collective just because new employees are thrown a handful of shares?
- MichaelZuo 2y agoIf 80% of Google was employee owned, then it would be.
- paxys 2y agoPlenty of companies are "employee owned" because the founders control the majority of shares. One person or a small group of people – whether they are employees or not – having total decision making power is the opposite of what worker collective means.
- MichaelZuo 2y agoWho decided on that definition? In my books share ownership can be unequal, so long as the bottom rung still have a few shares each.
- paxys 2y agoAnyone can make up their own definition, but there are also some standard ones – e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative
- MichaelZuo 2y agoLike I said, please provide actual names or organizations with credible authority, such as the OED, and link the source. EDIT: I'm not going to do this work for you and dig through all the places cited at the bottom to see if there's some source with that credible authority that proposes such a definition.
- JustLurking2022 2y agoDepends on who you count as employees - Sergey? Larry?
- fire_lake 2y agoCapitalism is all about allowing many different organisational structures where the fitness function is profitability. Where it goes wrong is when the regulator fails to stop foul play…
- acegopher 2y agoIt also went wrong using only profitability as the only measure. Obviously an unprofitable company isn't long-term sustainable, but a maximally profitable company might not be either, as a company exists within a society and on a planet with limited resources.
- fire_lake 2y agoSuch a company, with no long term plan, wouldn’t be able to raise capital.
- bryanlarsen 2y agoIn a worker collective every worker has a single vote and workers are paid proportional to the value they add. Jane Street shares and profits are proportional to the capital you invest/accumulate.
- DaiPlusPlus 2y ago> proportional to the value they add How do you quantify, or even loosely, determine that? What about ancillary workers who might not add any significant value to the (e.g. office janitor or HR) but supposing there’s a serious janitor or HR shortage then the org will still have to pay enough to attract someone, but what they pay is outside of their control and unrelated to the actual value to the company. And even in a worker-owned cooperative there’s still going to be in-groups and out-groups, and the in-group is incentivised to pay the out-group as little as possible as to maximise their own returns.
- collegeburner 2y agoit's not a collective per se but employees are certainly well paid. because they are highly skilled, are not easily replaced, and could take secrets elsewhere. commodities trading houses tend to follow this model too though that is changing a bit. i remember having this discussion with a friend after he sent me a richard wolff video. nothing about our system stops coops from flourishing. one of my favorite retailers, REI, is a member-owned co-op. publix, the beloved florida grocer, is employee-owned.
- nolongerthere 2y agoI know you’re kinda joking but, The problem with socialism isn’t the voluntary organizations that people can join or leave at will, it’s the forced involuntary labor that is always brought about. Capitalism is about voluntary mutually beneficial partnerships which this is.