It's a meme
this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2023
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I think your worries are misplaced. I work for an employee owned cooperative with about 60 employees. I think half of the employees are also owners. There's still a CEO, chosen by the board of directors, who are elected by the employee-owners. Day to day operational decisions are made by whoever is in charge of the relevant department, just like a shareholder-owned corporation. Bigger decisions, like long term strategy or how to distribute profits among employees, are voted on by all of the employee owners instead of shareholders. It's been in business for about 20 years and makes enough money to share profits with all employees regardless of their ownership status. So essentially this business operates like any other, but the profits are shared with the employee-owners and employees instead of going to shareholders or insane CEO salaries (compressed pay structure).
This is exactly the problem with such discussion. We end up with anecdotes. Yeah, I gotta see that company's financial statements, their business model, and their growth, to decide whether this is a good thing. In fact, the idea that it makes "enough money" doesn't sound good good. This kind of "stability" (I'll call it) is either due to a niche field or a dying company that sooner or later will become irrelevant. It's not how the real world works.
And even with this model you proposed, someone eventually can put their foot down. Those employees can sell their shares if they want, and we're all the way back to the (evil) capitalist model you don't like.
Worker coops are a good thing because unlike employer-employee-based firms they don't violate workers' inalienable rights. The justification is a principled ethical argument.
The workers' voting shares should be inalienable and attached to the functional role of working in the firm. The employer-employee contract would be abolished, so there would be no mechanism within the legal system for having a capitalist firm.
An inalienable right is one that the holder cannot give up even with consent
Until everyone fights what "rights" are, which is kind of the problem everywhere. You have a picture of these rights, which are pink and rosy. I believe you have good intention. But you have to imagine an contentious environment where everyone will disagree with you to maximize their gain, and minimize their effort. Any system you put in place and anything you define as rights will be malleable and will be up for thousands of debates, and eventually you'll be the dictator for setting up a system that you think will work. Back to square one.
This is why I said it's opinion. I got my answer. You agree with firing people. Good enough for me for now. Others don't.