Every company should be owned by its employees • Hacker News Board

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#351

Post by aziaziazi » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 11:14 AM UTC

Sankozi wrote: post #331

ossobuco wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A tiny, tiny percentage of Americans would literally go hungry if they didn't get their next month's paycheck "71.93% of Americans Living Paycheck to Paycheck Have $2,000 or Less in Savings"[0]. So no, it's not a tiny percentage. $2k or less in savings means being one emergency expense away from not being able to pay rent or your house loan next month. - [0]: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/banking/living-paycheck-t…

This only shows how big economic illiteracy is. Not how much people are earning vs the cost of living.

> Economic illiteracy

I respect your opinion but the stats presented before does not “shows“ illiteracy but low investments. Lack of liquidity to invest seems a very plausible raison because a revenu threshold has to be passed to be able to buy food before founds. This stat is probably almost a proxy for how many Americans are below that threshold.

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#352

Post by chronofar » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 11:15 AM UTC

zby wrote: post #324

rakoo wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Pleast don't be so naive. The reason not every company does that is that giving ownership gives power and dilutes your own, reduces the chances at doing humongus profits that can be hoarded by a minority. Business ow…

And yet people overwhelmingly prefer to work for these non-employees owned companies instead of working in cooperatives - how do you explain that? They could take those humongous profits for themselves but they don't do that. My answer to that question is that organizing people is much more difficult than everybody thinks and politics is the biggest source of inefficiencies on any human organisation bigger than a few…

> And yet people overwhelmingly prefer to work for these non-employees owned companies instead of working in cooperatives - how do you explain that?

Easily: there are far more non-employee owned companies than employee owned. Thus this isn’t a preference at all, it’s merely the availability of the market.

Now you could say that entrepreneurs who start companies have a preference for non-employee owned, thus explaining the aforementioned market allotment. Again that’s pretty easy to explain, because of course such an entrepreneur would give up ownership in an employee-owned arrangement. It’s also just the de facto paradigm most are aware of in news cycles and business schools, and is easier to setup and support.

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#353

Post by ossobuco » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 11:16 AM UTC

nec4b wrote: post #348

ossobuco wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A tiny, tiny percentage of Americans would literally go hungry if they didn't get their next month's paycheck "71.93% of Americans Living Paycheck to Paycheck Have $2,000 or Less in Savings"[0]. So no, it's not a tiny percentage. $2k or less in savings means being one emergency expense away from not being able to pay rent or your house loan next month. - [0]: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/banking/living-paycheck-t…

>> "71.93% of Americans Living Paycheck to Paycheck Have $2,000 or Less in Savings"[0]. It's a meaningless statistic. They can still have high net worth and/or large incomes even if they don't keep cash on hand.

Well it might please you then that about 50% of the respondents report low income as the cause for living paycheck by paycheck. Even more report high monthly bills as a cause.

Just read it, it's all in there.

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#354

Post by typicalset » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 11:26 AM UTC

zby wrote: post #327

typicalset wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the story is "all companies must be fully employee-owned workers' cooperatives", then first, note that you are calling for a restriction on workers' rights: they have to be given part of their pay as stocks, and they can't sell them freely. This is simply not true. Many workers' coops issue one share per worker (there may not even be stock), which affords them one vote in company matters. In such a scenario the…

If you cannot choose to work for an organization that is governed in a different way - then this is a restriction on your rights.

The employees can democratically decide how they want to run things. They can choose to issue stock, they can choose other people to make decisions about the business e.g. appoint a manager to make decisions for them. They cannot do these things in a general employment situation.

At the most bloody-minded level a food-service worker must wash their hands after going to the toilet and this is a restriction on their rights, but at the same time this infringes upon the rights of customers to not get sick eating food. Denying employees democratic control of their workplaces is a much greater restriction of their rights. And as a matter of practice, employees get the short end of the stick when they have a boss.

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#355

Post by peepee1982 » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 11:29 AM UTC

zby wrote: post #324

rakoo wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Pleast don't be so naive. The reason not every company does that is that giving ownership gives power and dilutes your own, reduces the chances at doing humongus profits that can be hoarded by a minority. Business ow…

And yet people overwhelmingly prefer to work for these non-employees owned companies instead of working in cooperatives - how do you explain that? They could take those humongous profits for themselves but they don't do that. My answer to that question is that organizing people is much more difficult than everybody thinks and politics is the biggest source of inefficiencies on any human organisation bigger than a few…

Not so many cooperatives to apply for, are there? Otherwise I would definitely prefer worker owned.

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#356

Post by pydry » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 11:30 AM UTC

pie_flavor wrote: post #202

infotainment wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so bizarre, considering that the modern CEO's only job is to issue meaningless positive statements to shareholders. If you look at many top CEOs resumes, they are almost always devoid of any real experience. People talk about replacing various jobs by AI, but I'm pretty sure an LLM could replace most CEOs and no one would notice.

If it's so easy, why aren't you doing it? Presumably it requires some amount of investment to break into, but with such a high upside it's still massively +EV.

I dont know why on earth youd assume that the executive/board/CEO club is meritocratic or that it would be open to talented outsiders.

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#357

Post by chillingeffect » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 11:30 AM UTC

pembrook wrote: post #325

stavros wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then maybe "taking over the market" is a bad metric, and we should be optimizing for making a company that makes the workers' lives better. The US cultural bias is showing here, as it's assumed that profit is above all else, and a company that forgoes profit to make workers happier must thus be less good. The vast majority of people in companies are workers. Let's stop optimizing for owner wealth and start optimizing…

The point of a company is to make a product that customers want, and make it as accessible as possible. “Taking over the market” and producing profit is only a byproduct of doing that. A competitor would wipe out that profit if there existed a cheaper option that delivered the same value to customers. The minute you start optimizing for employees instead of customers, you’re delivering less value to customers (the wo…

>The minute you start optimizing for employees instead of customers, you’re delivering less value to customers (the world) and asking to be disrupted.

False comparison bc today's companies balance customer value with shareholder value. Collectives can do the same thing.

The fatal scenario of companies optimizing for owner's benefit is in fact the scenario we have today where investor-owned companies benefits themselves more than customers, eg pollution, disposable plastic products that can't be repaired or maintained, like the millions of apple tvs that just become landfill overnight, fake shortages to raise prices, stock buy backs, low quality processed foods manufactured in at bliss point.

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#358

Post by cen4 » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 11:32 AM UTC

jack_pp wrote: post #302

cen4 wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Domesticated animals are also housed and taken care off very well. Their appearance is beautiful and they are very grateful to their masters. The circus lion is bred and trained from birth not ask too many questions. But once you give the circus lion access to the internet, sooner or later the lion is going to ask why am I jumping through hoops? It just take one of them to find a better answer and a better purpose in…

I'm sorry but how many men do you think enjoy the work they do in order to provide for their family but do it anyway in service of their family? Your analogies are all over the place, like a dog's life is similar to a circus tiger? A lot of women find that they've been sold this lie that getting a corporate 9-5 is more empowering than caring for their children or even having children at all and are going back to trad…

Those who can escape the construct will do so. The number of routes available have increased thanks to globalization. You are not being imaginative enough. Look at people who don't have opportunities in their countries. Do they sit there and cry we don't have opportunities or are they moving? People are watching all this on their streams 24x7. And one thing people are good at is blindly copying what others are doing. Those who are clinging to the status quo are totally delusional about what globalization has done to the West.

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#359

Post by uxcolumbo » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 11:33 AM UTC

jltsiren wrote: post #286

uxcolumbo wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you define socialism? I think it’s one of those terms that people define differently for themselves.

This sounds like actual socialism. The kind of socialism that seeks to abolish private property and the concept of ownership. Only personal property remains, and workers controlling the companies they work in as a natural extension. It may not be intended to be socialism, but it would lead to socialism if universally adopted. On the average, when someone says "socialism", it's intended to be an insult. It also serves…

That sounds like concentrated power in a hands of a few people, government officials who decide what's what. This leads to oppression. And central planning for everything is definitely bad. Plenty of examples from China and former Soviet block.

Our current system (which is not true capitalism in my view) also has concentrated power in the hands of a few people.

So what do you call a system where the majority of people can't be exploited by the 1%?

I like Carl Sagan's answer to this topic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDK2chgNPZM

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#360

Post by infecto » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 11:40 AM UTC

stavros wrote: post #122

dash2 wrote: post #94

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…

Then maybe "taking over the market" is a bad metric, and we should be optimizing for making a company that makes the workers' lives better. The US cultural bias is showing here, as it's assumed that profit is above all else, and a company that forgoes profit to make workers happier must thus be less good. The vast majority of people in companies are workers. Let's stop optimizing for owner wealth and start optimizing…

Why are there so many more startups in the US compared to Europe?

While not a perfect measurement, there is more innovation and economic generation that happens in the US compared to Europe. Time will prove which culture of business wins.