this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2023
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[–] huge_clock -5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It’s directly deployed in stocks and real estate, what do you mean?

Most capital is “collectively owned” through public corporations, pension funds, etc.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not most, in the US around 400 individuals own over 50% of wealth. Similar situation in Russia.

[–] huge_clock 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You’re right that wealth is concentrated, but I was saying that the assets are collectively owned. For example I am a shareholder of Amazon, a publicly-traded company that Jeff Bezos owns a large stake in. So Amazon is “collectively owned” but each share gets one vote instead of one person.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Shares only give you voting power if you have a massive amount of them. In the vast majority of cases shares function as either a place to store wealth to protect it from inflation or as speculative gambling, the majority of use cases is not to signify ownership. I would not classify that as collective ownership, maybe only in theory if you don't look into it too much but real world application of shares is definitely not collective ownership.

I'm very much in favour of businesses being actually collectively owned through a coop business model though.

[–] huge_clock 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Owning public stock is legally indistinguishable from directly owning a joint business venture.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Plenty of things are legally indistinguishable but real world applications are often quite different.

Though I would also challage that claim since owning a joint business gives you legal deciding power while owning 1 stock does not, you get zero votes from that.

[–] huge_clock 1 points 1 year ago

It depends on the percent of the company you own.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Gee, who decided what is legally equivalent? Certainly not the people with wealth to buy politicians and judges.

[–] huge_clock 1 points 1 year ago

I have no idea what point you’re trying to make.