391–400 of 1001 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
To take over the market companies need to attract customers - i.e. make their lives better. Usually there are more consumers than employees - so I think that measure works quite well with optimising for humans. Profit is a side effect of taking over the market. But actually to have any employees companies need to optimize for workers lives anyway. And it seems that cooperatives are not any better in this area - other…
> But actually to have any employees companies need to optimize for workers lives anyway. And it seems that cooperatives are not any better in this area - otherwise everybody would work for cooperatives. There's much more at play than just "cooperatives are not any better". Cooperatives don't get as much funding from investors because investors won't be owning a larger share of them, and taking their returns, they in…
Unions should put their money where their mouth is and invest in cooperatives.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd encourage you to Google for some articles on how worker-owned coops stay in business. This isn't a radical new idea that's never been tried.
Obviously they exist. But they are only certain types of business. How is a company that requires hundreds of millions of dollars before it's profitable supposed to be a co-op? Step by step?
People and organizations who talk about social welfare (e.g. unions) should put their money where their mouth is, and do the seed investments.
Employee stock options are not a new idea, obviously. If the story is "every company should offer stock options to its employees", then sure, that's often a good business plan. The reason not every company does it to all its employees is probably that for those employees, it wouldn't affect incentives much and it would make payment subject to the vagaries of the stock market. Your barista at Starbucks is not going to…
Whether it’s a bad thing to improve employee welfare over profits… I don’t think it’s that bad. It’s perhaps more efficient than hoping that the state will. And it’s probably temporary and tactical: profits still matter when you own stock.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
To take over the market companies need to attract customers - i.e. make their lives better. Usually there are more consumers than employees - so I think that measure works quite well with optimising for humans. Profit is a side effect of taking over the market. But actually to have any employees companies need to optimize for workers lives anyway. And it seems that cooperatives are not any better in this area - other…
> But actually to have any employees companies need to optimize for workers lives anyway. And it seems that cooperatives are not any better in this area - otherwise everybody would work for cooperatives. There's much more at play than just "cooperatives are not any better". Cooperatives don't get as much funding from investors because investors won't be owning a larger share of them, and taking their returns, they in…
We forcibly allocate capital less efficiently; make markets less efficient and less responsive to innovation; with the sole aim of achieving a utopian worker-cooperative owned world?
Hrmmm, where have I heard that before...
My favorite pizza place in Sunnyvale became employee-owned, and shortly after decided they only wanted to stay open 3 days a week. I'm happy for those employees but man, I also wish I could get pizza on Monday.
Employee stock options are not a new idea, obviously. If the story is "every company should offer stock options to its employees", then sure, that's often a good business plan. The reason not every company does it to all its employees is probably that for those employees, it wouldn't affect incentives much and it would make payment subject to the vagaries of the stock market. Your barista at Starbucks is not going to…
Herb Kelleher famously setup Southwest Airlines with very similar principles and stock options for everyone, with pretty amazing results for decades.
[1] https://www.starbucksbenefits.com/en-us/home/stock-savings/b...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But actually to have any employees companies need to optimize for workers lives anyway. And it seems that cooperatives are not any better in this area - otherwise everybody would work for cooperatives. There's much more at play than just "cooperatives are not any better". Cooperatives don't get as much funding from investors because investors won't be owning a larger share of them, and taking their returns, they in…
> There's much more at play than just "cooperatives are not any better". Cooperatives don't get as much funding from investors because investors won't be owning a larger share of them, and taking their returns, they instead invest in a traditional company because then they can extract as much as possible from their investments. Unions should put their money where their mouth is and invest in cooperatives.
Unions aren't structured for investing, and that's not their reason to exist.
I don't know where you are from so I can't comment on how unions function in your society, where I live they're definitely not in the same realm as a potential investor for cooperatives.
You are also asking for unions to compete against VCs, and banks, let's be realistic that even a large and wealthy union is not even close in terms of wealth management as a small to mid-size bank/investor. On top of that the union has responsibilities to provide benefits to all members, a bank or investor has none of that, tilting the scale even more in disfavor of an union assuming the role of investment.
It's a good thought though, another entity such as a credit union supported by workers in an industry which also takes the role on investing in cooperatives to foment them, would still be an uphill battle but if some good cooperatives came out of it maybe it could be another viable (albeit smaller) model to start companies.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
To take over the market companies need to attract customers - i.e. make their lives better. Usually there are more consumers than employees - so I think that measure works quite well with optimising for humans. Profit is a side effect of taking over the market. But actually to have any employees companies need to optimize for workers lives anyway. And it seems that cooperatives are not any better in this area - other…
> But actually to have any employees companies need to optimize for workers lives anyway. And it seems that cooperatives are not any better in this area - otherwise everybody would work for cooperatives. There's much more at play than just "cooperatives are not any better". Cooperatives don't get as much funding from investors because investors won't be owning a larger share of them, and taking their returns, they in…
Investors don't need to own part of a company to buy a Bond, they just want to see good credit rating and yield.
*VC is also part of capital markets but mostly private and such a small % of global investment.