A distraction from the election: The case for employee-owned companies
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/column-the-case-for-employee-owned-companies
“Ellerman has for years made an argument as startling as it is hard to refute: “the labor theory of property.” It’s that employees should own the firms they work for because of very simple logic: If they’re responsible for the consequences of their actions while on the job — committing a crime, say — how can it be that they’re not responsible for the positive things they do?”
But the founders are the ones risking their capital to start the business. This sounds like socialize the gain, privatize the losses.
As it is now, employees carry a hell of a lot more risk than founders of a business and get none of the gain from its success.
Sure, the founders risk their capital investment if the business fails completely, but the vast majority of them will still have plenty of resources left to live off of and/or able to get loans or debt forgiveness to cover at least some of the loss.
Workers, though? They’re constantly one bad quarter from the risk of losing their only means of income and most aren’t even making ends meet as it is and have no savings.
When the company’s doing well, workers don’t benefit from it and STILL risk being laid off because some MBAsshole wants to show everybody how “lean” (read: barebones) the company can be.
With worker ownership, the risks and rewards are for everyone and everyone is motivated to make the company successful.
The founders can hold more or all non-voting preferred stock in the worker coop to represent their larger stake and investment. They can also use a separate corporation, which only the founders own, with no employees to hold their capital and then lease it the worker coop
@politics
I don’t think that works unless it is dissolved and the shares distributed when the initial investment is recouped (with reasonable interest). And that value would have to be reasonable and fixed at the outset.
Otherwise, the capital class seems to have the same motivation to grow that value at all costs in perpetuity the same way they do today. Taken to a cynical conclusion, your suggestion reminds me of the situation with red lobster (and local hospitals, etc) where VC buys the company, sells the assets (to themselves at grossly undervalued rates presumably to payoff debts owed by the company), and leases them back.
If the labor class doesn’t have the ownership stake in the capital investment (including any IP), it seems to violate the very basic principles presented.