I like Prof. Wolff’s idea of forcing all companies to be worker-owned cooperatives
How would that work in the real world? Like if I work somewhere there’s 100 employees, I’d have a 1% share of the company. So I’d be getting 1% of the profits. I work really hard and now the company is making a lot of profit and so I’m making a lot of money because my share in the company. That’s cool. But we’re doing so well we kind of need to expand. So we need to hire 50 new employees. Do those new employees get an equal share as me? So now I only get 0.75% share of the profit after spending a decade working on developing an awesome product and the person hired yesterday now gets the exact same 0.75% share? Do new employees have to take out a loan to buy a share to be employed? Or do we just give away the shares which will lessen the value of of my share for no compensation. Maybe we shouldn’t hire anyone new, my retirement plan involves my share in the company not losing value.
If I leave the company do I sell my share of the company? To who? The other employees? Do they pool together their money to do a buy-back? What about that person just hired doesn’t have the money to buyback the share of someone leaving the company? Are they forced to take out a loan?
It feels like an idea that sounds nice until you consider the details of how it would actually work in real life. But I guess that’s just socialism in general I guess.
How would that work in the real world? Like if I work somewhere there’s 100 employees, I’d have a 1% share of the company. So I’d be getting 1% of the profits. I work really hard and now the company is making a lot of profit and so I’m making a lot of money because my share in the company. That’s cool. But we’re doing so well we kind of need to expand. So we need to hire 50 new employees. Do those new employees get an equal share as me? So now I only get 0.75% share of the profit after spending a decade working on developing an awesome product and the person hired yesterday now gets the exact same 0.75% share? Do new employees have to take out a loan to buy a share to be employed? Or do we just give away the shares which will lessen the value of of my share for no compensation. Maybe we shouldn’t hire anyone new, my retirement plan involves my share in the company not losing value.
If I leave the company do I sell my share of the company? To who? The other employees? Do they pool together their money to do a buy-back? What about that person just hired doesn’t have the money to buyback the share of someone leaving the company? Are they forced to take out a loan?
It feels like an idea that sounds nice until you consider the details of how it would actually work in real life. But I guess that’s just socialism in general I guess.