5 ms·

The most deliciously ironic thing is that the main Marx's grief with capitalism - the fact that the workers didn't own the means of production (or "capital") -

by jevgeni 12y ago

The most deliciously ironic thing is that the main Marx's grief with capitalism - the fact that the workers didn't own the means of production (or "capital") - was rectified exactly by the modern financial capitalism today's left love to bash. If you take a look at blue chip companies (and I bet a lot of midcaps as well) a huge amount of their shares, often way over 50%, is owned by their employees. This fact doesn't necessarily help sell Che Guevara t-shirts or help your populist party win elections, though.

GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
How many of those are voting shares tho?
- jevgeni 12y ago
  Usually most of them are common (i.e. voting shares). What has a potential to get exploited isn't the fact that people can't cast their vote, but that: - they can't (or don't care to) coordinate themselves - don't have the necessary expert knowledge to understand the impact of a lot of motions proposed to the general assembly. However, this isn't a capitalism problem, but a general power structure problem, applicable to any institution, be that capitalist or socialist.
karmacondon 12y ago
This is only kind of true. Much of the > 50% of shares that are owned by employees are owned by executives and former executives. Think about how equity is distributed at any startup. The average "worker" still doesn't own the means of production or capital. Definitely not by Marx's definition of ownership, and not by the common usage of the term in our day either. Points for political snark, though.
- jevgeni 12y ago
  I think this is dependent on the age of the company. Last one I've looked at was SocGen - an old French bank. 90% of their shares are owned by employees and I think somewhere around 7% by executives. I can easily imagine that a just IPO'ed company would have a vastly different shareholder structure, though.
  - mikeyouse 12y ago
    I just Googled SocGen's ownership and it looks like the employees own more like 7.5% of the company, and I'm assuming there's a power law in place where the C-Level execs own a vast majority of that bit too.. http://www.societegenerale.com/en/measuring-our-performance/information-and-publications/share-capital http://www.societegenerale.com/en/measuring-our-performance/...
    - jevgeni 12y ago
      Well, I'm clearly misinformed. I thought that maybe my source meant the relative size of non-public shares, but even then it's ca. 49% employee ownership. Yeah, sorry for that. I stand corrected.

by jevgeni 12y ago

GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago

How many of those are voting shares tho?

jevgeni 12y ago
Usually most of them are common (i.e. voting shares). What has a potential to get exploited isn't the fact that people can't cast their vote, but that: - they can't (or don't care to) coordinate themselves - don't have the necessary expert knowledge to understand the impact of a lot of motions proposed to the general assembly. However, this isn't a capitalism problem, but a general power structure problem, applicable to any institution, be that capitalist or socialist.

karmacondon 12y ago

This is only kind of true. Much of the > 50% of shares that are owned by employees are owned by executives and former executives. Think about how equity is distributed at any startup. The average "worker" still doesn't own the means of production or capital. Definitely not by Marx's definition of ownership, and not by the common usage of the term in our day either. Points for political snark, though.

jevgeni 12y ago
I think this is dependent on the age of the company. Last one I've looked at was SocGen - an old French bank. 90% of their shares are owned by employees and I think somewhere around 7% by executives. I can easily imagine that a just IPO'ed company would have a vastly different shareholder structure, though.
- mikeyouse 12y ago
  I just Googled SocGen's ownership and it looks like the employees own more like 7.5% of the company, and I'm assuming there's a power law in place where the C-Level execs own a vast majority of that bit too.. http://www.societegenerale.com/en/measuring-our-performance/information-and-publications/share-capital http://www.societegenerale.com/en/measuring-our-performance/...
  - jevgeni 12y ago
    Well, I'm clearly misinformed. I thought that maybe my source meant the relative size of non-public shares, but even then it's ca. 49% employee ownership. Yeah, sorry for that. I stand corrected.