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

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#551

Post by asoneth » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 2:58 PM UTC

SoftTalker wrote: post #537

This is a really bad idea for the average worker. "We've got a number of people that have been here 15, 20 years and they have $1 million plus balances" Sounds good but they are catastrophically undiversified. Nobody should have their entire nest egg in one stock. Yes they are motivated for the company to do well, but so many things play into a stock price that are out of any one person's control. Just giving them pr…

Agreed that there are some downsides for employees.

I worked at a company that incentivized owning the company's stock. The company was doing fine but it was still controversial among employees because of the risk of correlating your employment and investments -- if the company does poorly then you may lose your job and a large chunk of your investment at the exact same time.

(In practice there also ended up being some jealousy as people who decided to play it safe missed out on some large gains.)

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#552

Post by talkingtab » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 2:59 PM UTC

Corporations pay employees and generate profits for owners. The third party is the customers. The first comment (currently) uses the word "profitable", in other words it asks what happens when a corporation is NOT profitable.

We live in a time when profit is shrinking or drying up. So what happens? Corporations are controlled by owners, so they do two things: - they lower wages (inflation) - they raise prices

This happens even when the owners have made stupid decisions. This happens even when the owners have committed criminal acts (Boeing, Sacklers, and many more). And the owners are also protected from legal consequences.

The corporate model is obsolete. Simplistic answers like letting employees also be small owners will not fix this. We need a new model that provides the benefits of Corporations while ending the excesses, irresponsibility and criminality of owners.

In the USA our constitution does not allow any action that denies equal protection under the law. Corporations have decide they enjoy the rights of citizens to buy elections. Owners, having made this decision may not enjoy any protection under the law that are not provided to ordinary citizens. No protection of their assets from bankruptcy and no protection from criminal prosecution. If you as an individual decide to sell OxyContin to any and everyone you would go to jail and you would be bankrupt. But not owners.

[edit: typo "if owners ..." => "if you as individual ..."

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#553

Post by charles_f » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 3:01 PM UTC

empath75 wrote: post #457

t0mas88 wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea is that employees make most money from the profits paid to them as owners, instead of an increase in the stock price and then selling.

Companies frequently make no profits. Imagine missing your rent payment because your company had a bad quarter.

> Every worker gets a salary but also a percentage of their salary in stock ownership

That's in the second paragraph. I don't know what the fixation is in finding problems with paying more the people who produce what the company sells.

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#554

Post by hellojesus » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 3:01 PM UTC

piva00 wrote: post #478

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On top of that the union has responsibilities to provide benefits to all members, a bank or investor has none of that A bank has responsibilities to its shareholders.

But not to all members participating in the machine, hence my point that unions have a responsibility over all its members.

To the extent the bank wants to retain employees, it does need to provide some minimum level of utility. That may be as simple as an hourly wage for some, but both shareholders and employees are participating in the machine.

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#555

Post by tempfile » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 3:01 PM UTC

blackhawkC17 wrote: post #524

danaris wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We're into late stage capitalism and you're telling me the world was experimenting with making employees lives better? They're repeating propaganda about communism and socialism. It's tiresome, really, the degree to which Americans have bought the propaganda that countries like the Soviet Union themselves spread, that they were communist, when in fact they were authoritarian dictatorships with a few very-badly-thou…

[flagged]

It is easier to have a productive conversation if you actually address the points being argued, rather than dismiss them out of hand with no justification.

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#556

Post by charles_f » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 3:02 PM UTC

habosa wrote: post #480

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…

> Your barista at Starbucks is not going to increase the stock price Not sure I agree. If all the baristas did a better job then I think that would positively affect company value.

And they would probably do a better job being happier and less stressed about money related issues

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#557

Post by sqeaky » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 3:03 PM UTC

imgabe wrote: post #492

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…

You are responsible for optimizing your own happiness. A company can't and shouldn't do that for you. Unhappy with your job? Find a different one. I don't presume to know what will make you happy and dictate to you how you need to live to achieve that and neither should you presume to do that for me. Some people are happy focusing on their family. Some people are happy working hard in their career. Some people just w…

It is easy to "find a new job" but things like healthcare, geographic location, and creditworthiness are tied to employment.

If employment were more isolated this argument would still only be superficially reasonable, because we also live in a society with structural sexism and racism and other bigotries. Plenty of people have fewer employment options because of the circumstances of their birth.

Then look at me, I am professional contractor and not the obvious target of any of those bigotries. 16 contracts (often 6 or 12 mo), in the past 20 years. of that maybe 3 weren't complete shitholes. How long is one person supposed to keep making major life changes to search for a job that doesn't abuse them? Because a 1 in 5 hit rate implies some things.

Setting a floor on how shitty companies can be to their employees would a boon to everyone and likely make the whole economy more productive simply by reducing depression by a double digit percentage.

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#558

Post by francisofascii » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 3:03 PM UTC

SoftTalker wrote: post #537

This is a really bad idea for the average worker. "We've got a number of people that have been here 15, 20 years and they have $1 million plus balances" Sounds good but they are catastrophically undiversified. Nobody should have their entire nest egg in one stock. Yes they are motivated for the company to do well, but so many things play into a stock price that are out of any one person's control. Just giving them pr…

Isn't there some asset insurance vehicle to protect against a catastrophic loss?

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#559

Post by charles_f » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 3:03 PM UTC

sqeaky wrote: post #521

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…

This sounds like someone saying that banning children from mines is a restrictions on the child's right to mine coal. If society would be a better place than short term growth be damned.

I'm not sure why so many people want to find issues with giving more to employees.

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#560

Post by kerkeslager » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 3:04 PM UTC

vrotaru wrote: post #134

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…

Stop optimizing for consumers, start optimizing for producers. Maybe, you want to rethink that.

Well, it sounds like a step up from most companies, which is don't optimize for consumers, don't optimize for producers, optimize for shareholders.