Thread: Workers as Share-Holders

I've always been very supportive of this idea, worker co-ops, almost a fairer form of capitalism in a way because the worker is sharing the risk as well.

A wage should be paid aswell, but as in a normal company, there is both wages and dividends, the dividends would top-up the wages.

How would the shares be divided?
I assume there would have to be some sort of minimum share per worker, depending on their position?
If it were decided with contracts, you'd end up with the same situation we have now because desperate people would sign any contract (work for basically nothing).

Why do you think this is superior?

Walmart does that, I think they like match any shares the employee buys to some limit. They also give bonuses to people at stores that do really well. It doesn't seem to be very effective however, since most people at wal-mart still don't seem to like their jobs very much, and as I understand it, things like that are meant to be motivators.

Walmart also takes out life insurance poilicies on carefully selected employees that fit certain statistical data. If a walmart employee dies the store cashes in on their death. They make a tidy sum from their insurance policies. They don't care about their employees at all.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

the totalitarian aspects of communism

Surely you're not this dumb. You mean to refer to Stalinism. Russia had true communism for all of about 2 months. Marx would have been one of the last people to advocate totalitarian anything.

Aside from that, I think this is a very interesting idea, and this is the kind of discussion that needs to be going on on a large scale right now.

Originally Posted by Alric

Walmart does that, I think they like match any shares the employee buys to some limit. They also give bonuses to people at stores that do really well. It doesn't seem to be very effective however, since most people at wal-mart still don't seem to like their jobs very much, and as I understand it, things like that are meant to be motivators.

They don't do what I'm talking about. Giving stock options to employees is a different style than basing the ownership of a company around the workforce.

Originally Posted by Supernova

Surely you're not this dumb. You mean to refer to Stalinism. Russia had true communism for all of about 2 months. Marx would have been one of the last people to advocate totalitarian anything.

Aside from that, I think this is a very interesting idea, and this is the kind of discussion that needs to be going on on a large scale right now.

I agree but most considerations of communism have been manipulated to consider it the same as a Fascist Government Monopoly on industry. What I was trying to say was imagine communism without a centralized power structure (in b4 cmind says then its not communism), but rather that businesses remained independent (aside from regulation to protect the environment and stuff) but also adopted a model where the workers owned the companies they work for.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

imagine communism without a centralized power structure

In other words, communism.

I think that's an interesting idea, but there should absolutely be a wage that can sustain employees, since the success of the company is not entirely reliant on their own work.

If it were, say, 10% of their wage, that would be a pretty interesting idea.

I know it isn't exactly the same, just setting up a reference to similar things that are actually done. If you own any stock, in a sense you do own part of the company. So any sort of stock sharing program does kind of do it. If the stocks are not options and just given then people might start wondering if its coming out of their pay and if they would get paid more if they turned the stocks down.

I think what you are talking about does happen in small businesses though. Especially when a few people create the business them self and are all partners. The thing is the new people they bring in are usually not brought in as partners but instead as employees.

I worked for an employee owned company, at first I thought it was lame because you have to work an x number of hours before you're given company stock, and it was something like, three years :b

Well, turned out I was stuck there for three years so I got stock in the company! This year I'll be able to take out money! Yay! All companies should be employee owned, and that means every member in the company gets stock.

Originally Posted by Supernova

In other words, communism.

I am distinguishing between actual communism and the practice of communism/misconceptions of communism. Forgive me for not ignoring the commonly held (but misconstrued) definition of the philosophy.

Anyways, this hybrid form you guys are talking about isn't exactly what I had in mind because it's too easy to cheat the workers or, as someone pointed out, make them think they're getting paid in stock when they really just want a paycheck.

I'm thinking, since Walmart was brought up, that the Walton's should only own as much stock as would be due a manager, which should not be too much more than what the average worker gets. I think industry is the root of power and therefore democracy can only work when it starts within industry, with the employees electing their overseers, and deciding the direction of their company, rather than being subject to this antiquated system.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

I am distinguishing between actual communism and the practice of communism/misconceptions of communism. Forgive me for not ignoring the commonly held (but misconstrued) definition of the philosophy.

Anyways, this hybrid form you guys are talking about isn't exactly what I had in mind because it's too easy to cheat the workers or, as someone pointed out, make them think they're getting paid in stock when they really just want a paycheck.

I'm thinking, since Walmart was brought up, that the Walton's should only own as much stock as would be due a manager, which should not be too much more than what the average worker gets. I think industry is the root of power and therefore democracy can only work when it starts within industry, with the employees electing their overseers, and deciding the direction of their company, rather than being subject to this antiquated system.

So basially, one could speak of it as a mixed economy, but rather than mixed capitalism/soialism, mixed capitalism/communism. It's a very interesting proposal, one that I think deserves further examination (though to actually achieve it would not be easy because the companies, especially the most significant ones, are currently owned by the high upper class, and I'm sure you've noticed they don't often like to share willingly).

It would have to prove more successful, not just more fair. The concept would have to triumph on the open market.

Edit: Or perhaps it would require a revolution. Apparently this idea already took the form of the IWW and the Anarcho-Syndicalism philosophy, but the movement was crushed, the advocates rounded up and given 20 year prison sentences, and the public mind warped to associate the organization with the Bolsheviks. I wonder, were the idea to regain popularity now, could the reaction be similar?

One of the potential problems of this idea that I can see is the loss of said workers' savings (for retirement etc) due to overinvestment in company shares.

I like this idea, but I doubt that it could work anytime soon because workers don't have any means of making it happen. And the consumers simply don't give a fuck outside of the short term. This could happen if consumers decided to think about the long term effects of their purchases, but we need a cultural revolution for that to happen.

There are companies like this that already exist, but not many.The Thermo Twin Story. It's a great idea, but it requires people to think about something other than themselves while shopping which seems impossible at the moment.

Also even if you did this would the workers really have a say? I'm not sure how the stock market works but wouldn't a low level employee at wal-mart have such a small percentage(like .001%) that they wouldn't have any say in hiring of managers and things like this? This is another big part of the problem with getting something like anarcho-sydicalism working in the modern world. Massive corporations like this just aren't compatible with that sort of thing. It requires people to change their lifestyle which doesn't seem likely until something forces them too.

It could not be a hybrid form, that much is clear. Giving employees stock options is not at all a viable means of this. Non-producers would have to be prohibited from owning stock in the company. I'm not saying the entire company would have to be run by the factory workers, but the factory workers would elect the managers and CEOs the same way the stock-holders do in this society.

Here's a video on anarcho-syndicalism and libertarian socialism, skip to 1:30 to get past the norwegian introduction



Chompsky: "State Socialism is a contradiction in terms"

You cannot give the worker control over production while centralizing control into one monolithic overseer.