this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2023
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Answering as an American:
Because the working class understands that “elites” are a necessary decadence and side effect of free markets, and they are fine with billionaires if it means those free markets enable them to live like a king from the 1800s, and they are not consumed with narcissistic jealousy of people that have more than them. Plus they understand history, and they see how class wars worked out in the Bolshevik revolution.
I consider myself rich AF, because I have a roof over my head, AC, and healthy food to eat, which is RELATIVELY easy to come by in America. Tradespeople like plumbers and electricians are doing very well in America, and if they are reasonably fiscally responsible and save their money well, then they can retire comfortably after 15-20 years of work.
Many people all over the world understand all of this, and they clamor to immigrate to America.
between 15 and 25% of Americans are facing food insecurity. 25% of Americans are facing bankruptcy due to medical debt. 10% of Americans have no medical insurance. 63% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.
That is not doing well, that is very fucking bad. And no, free markets do not require billionaires. We can get rid of all billionaires and distribute the money to the workers who actually generated that value, and still have healthy and relatively free markets.
Yes, all workers should get stocks in the companies they work for.
CEOs get cash as well, worker should get both.
Not all that many. And it should be in addition to the cash, not an alternative. Workers should own at least 50% of all companies, and be able to outvote the board on any decisions that affect the company.
There is a better alternative to this, especially since a lot of the time this stock is virtual/ non voting stock which doesn't really change the power dynamic it doesn't give the workers control over the capital. The workers resonably should be equal owners for example in a worker co-op.
If there are limited liability business co op should also be allowed to be limited liability, also large losses where the business is in actuall cash flow trouble don't happen so frequently because they are generally less speculative, and have the option to instead of laying people off to reduce hours or pay temporarily. They largely don't even want the profits, they want to know the can live by their own therms, and work without being needlessly managed by people with no idea of the core business.
So it's the same as getting virtual stock as compensation just that you also get control over how the business is run. Which in my opinion makes the business better, you don't seem convinced but you don't seem to have a good reason for why because ..
isn't really an argument against coops, similar shortsighted thinking can frequently be found in other forms of enterprise, if a private enterprise can rationalize automation a coop can as well and they can both fail to come to that conclusion. It's just that control over this automation is in the workers hand, and even if all the workers automate themselves away without finding other places to create value, the profit of that automation wouldn't be centralized quite so aggressively, because all (former) workers share in it. The workers fundamentally don't need to preserve their own jobs, rather they aim to preserve their livelihood.
I can offer a different explanation which partially explains their uncommon existence, which points again to the central conflict under capitalism, which is the unwillingness of conventional banks to approve credit for coops, making it much harder to start anything in the first place, particularly large capital investment like automation.
Careful, if you keep licking that hard you might choke on that boot that's standing on all of our necks...
Lmao its not worth even trying to explain to you all the many ways you are wrong. 60% of my generation is so ruined by financial stress that they "are incapable of functioning". My mom died and its unironically been the only hope I will ever have of getting a home. Cheers to late stage capitalism, where I make twice minimum wage and rent is 50% of my income for one of the worst apartment buildings in my city.
I don’t think anyone wants to live voluntarily on your “healthcare” system lol, if you can even call it that.
The "just give us money and don't get sick" system. AKA the "if you get sick, give us a lot of money anyway" system.
Don't bother reading the drivel from these lobotomized rightoid incels. It'll just make you waste brain cells trying to understand how their weak grey matter was so easily captured.