Before massive corporations like Walmart came into small towns and siphoned up all of the capital from it, permanently moving it into their own hoards, communities were full of locally-owned and operated businesses where the profits, and wages from such were directly invested back into the community. It’s truly difficult, if not impossible, to actually grasp the extent of what Capitalism has taken from us.
There used to be a cohesive concept of community, and they’d raise money using methods like bonds. The people of the community, and the people working at the actual place, would reap the benefits of their work.
A transition would be difficult, obviously, but take a look into Germany’s laws surrounding worker ownership of corporations, as well as large worker owned co-ops like Mondragon.
A loan would give partial ownership to the loaning party, right? Until the loan is paid off? Is the difference between that and external shareholders that the payment rate wouldn’t be tied to profits but be constant instead? Or is the difference that you can pay it off eventually? I’m having a hard time seeing how a loan is fundamentally different from shares.
I suppose it depends on what is the collateral for the loan. Technically I think you could take out a business loan where the collateral isn’t the business or its assets, but practically speaking what else would be used? Is the founder going to use their own personal property as collateral? Almost certainly not if they also have to share the profits of success.
For that matter how would banks work? Anyone working at the bank would share in the profits of loaning the depositor’s money? That doesn’t seem to follow the spirit of “sharing in the fruits of labor”. The depositors are the ones laboring to earn the money, why should someone working at a bank get to profit from the interest earned on the fruits of their labor?
A solution to that would be the depositors earn the profit from loans, but then we’re just back where we started. The more you can deposit and loan, the more you earn and labor becomes less and less significant. Also, what of the banker’s labor then? Are they just paid a wage and have no share in the profits of the loans? That sounds very similar to a typical company today where the shareholders reap the profits from wage workers’ labor. Will bankers be the working class of this new society?
I mean, I guess they could? I was just trying to bring up a solution that I haven’t seen anyone else in this thread mentioning. Bonds.
Municicpal bonds are used all of the time to raise money. What is a municipal government, if not just an organized group of people in a community?
If people want to enrich their community with a business, but don’t have the means, they could relatively easily create a non-profit, and use community bonds (and other fundraising methods) to get the money they need to start the business. If/when that local business succeeds, the people who invested (i.e. the community at large) get a piece of that. success The people who own the business, all the way down to the people who work there day to day (who likely also own a piece of the business) benefit when the business does well. Those profits are re-invested into the community, rather than being siphoned off by a massive corporation like Walmart, never to be seen again. The community as a whole owns and operates the company, usually by democratic rule of some type.
This isn’t some kind of pipe dream, it’s happening right now in communities that have still managed to remain tight knit (often people of color, and other marginalized groups who have historically had the deck stacked against them).
Only would only those in the community be able to invest in bonds? Otherwise big investors would invest in promising ideas. Who is in a community? Who is the community for a global operation?
I like the idea, but I think it’d be really hard to apply to things like tech or businesses with global infrastructure.
I’m not sure what you mean… This is already a thing that happens and is happening. You could choose who the bonds are available to if you want to avoid a corporation or single entity buying them all up. Or have rules around maximum % ownership, things like that.
In terms of worker-owned co-operatives, and all that, If you want to understand how something like this might work on a larger scale, look into Germany’s laws around employee ownership/participation, in corporations, as well as the Mondragon Corporation in Spain
What is the benefit to those founders? Why take on a loan or invest your own money if the rewards are split evenly between people that didn’t take the risk? It seems like the smart thing to do would be a “non-founder” since you get all of the rewards for none of the risk. Since everyone’s individual incentives are to not take the risk on starting something new I don’t see how you would get new organizations.
Founders can hold non-voting preferred stock and they can charge new workers membership fees. Rewards don’t have to be split evenly between people. The workers can jointly decide on an unequal distribution. The difference being the democracy rather than an alien legal party (the employer) unilaterally deciding.
Taking the risk refers to appropriating the negative fruits of labor. The idea that the employer is entitled to the fruits of labor because they took the risk is tautological
Well the risk is shared among all members, as well as the rewards.
As a founding member, you have more risk at the start, but that risk scales down as the operation scales up.
You’re more likely to have worker’s cooperatives that fulfill actual needs, either in local society or the participants’ lives, than capitalist firms. Less damage.
This is partly due to how there’s little incentive for aggressive profit extraction since the workers, who control the coop, often live nearby. Would you actively choose to make things worse for yourself and your neighbours, to get some more money in your pocket?
Far from all activity in the world needs a person who wants to get rich, spearheading them.
We have organizations in civil society too, don’t we?
For simplicity let’s say I found a brand new co-op that sells ice cream. I use my personal money to buy an ice cream van, do all the legal paperwork to form the company, buy all of the initial product that I’m going to sell. The first week goes well and the business looks promising, but I need some help so I hire someone. Let’s say after 3 weeks we pay off all my initial investment, the van, the other start up costs. Now we’re purely in profit mode - do we split the profit half and half? If so, I have made a terrible decision to start a business. I placed myself at financial risk for future profits while my employee took no risk and gained the same exact reward.
On the other hand, if we split the profits unequally in any way, how would that be different from the status quo? As soon as a company can choose unequal splitting of profits wouldn’t self interest dictate the founder take the largest percentage as possible so long as it doesn’t lose employees? If they can find employees willing to take 0% profit for a steady wage we are back where we started.
The key missing piece is democratic participation. Anyone involved in the process of the generation of wealth should have a say in what to do with that wealth, so you and the “employee” (who would be a co-owner if we are talking about a worker co-op icecream business).
But then how do you determine how you get paid back for your initial investment?
There are many options, but if we accept that capital doesn’t do anything, then the idea of making a profit on your financial investment is moot. How are you paid for your idea then? Well, you have a business which you are in control of (at least in part), and are no longer alienated from your work.
One option would be to pay back everyone’s initial investment at some rate agreed upon by the workers, and then decide (democratically) what to do with the rest of the profits. This doesn’t mean every cone you sell you vote on, but perhaps once per week, month, quarter, etc., everyone involved in the process decides collectively what to do with the surplus money.
As a side note: every “employee” takes a risk when they join a company. There is no guarantee that the job is permanent, so any changes in their life (moving, giving up other opportunities, etc) are a great risk. And while those are similar for a small business owner, with the additional risk of losing some initial investment, the employee has no say over what happens to the profits or the operation of their workplace,and therefore has to hope the employer is generous and clever enough to keep them on. By running a company collectively, even without even initial investments, the risks are better distributed, and probably lower as well, as it’s easy to make a bad decision on your own, it’s much harder to do so when others are involved.
These are just some ideas about how a business may operate in this example, it is by no means prescriptive, and I am sure many others can fathom better methods.
There can be an internal capital account that keeps track of what the founder invested to buy all the initial product and ice cream van. This account would give the founder a recoupable claim on that value they invest.
The founder can charge new workers a membership fee.
There is nothing wrong with unequally dividing the profits, but that has to be a democratically accountable decision.
The moral difference in favor of the worker coop is that it is democratic
So because you put in some initial effort, you’re entitled to an outsized share in perpetuity?
Also, you’re completely overlooking another key aspect of cooperatives. Democracy.
If they were so inclined, the other members could vote to give you a larger share. Or pay you back for your initial investment. But it would be different from the status quo because the workers have ownership and agency in their workplace, and can actually participate in important decisions.
How do new cooperatives form then? Who fronts the materials to start a new endeavor?
Communities? Bonds?
Before massive corporations like Walmart came into small towns and siphoned up all of the capital from it, permanently moving it into their own hoards, communities were full of locally-owned and operated businesses where the profits, and wages from such were directly invested back into the community. It’s truly difficult, if not impossible, to actually grasp the extent of what Capitalism has taken from us.
There used to be a cohesive concept of community, and they’d raise money using methods like bonds. The people of the community, and the people working at the actual place, would reap the benefits of their work.
A transition would be difficult, obviously, but take a look into Germany’s laws surrounding worker ownership of corporations, as well as large worker owned co-ops like Mondragon.
A group of people? One person?
Like any other company. They may have to take out a loan, for example.
A loan would give partial ownership to the loaning party, right? Until the loan is paid off? Is the difference between that and external shareholders that the payment rate wouldn’t be tied to profits but be constant instead? Or is the difference that you can pay it off eventually? I’m having a hard time seeing how a loan is fundamentally different from shares.
Loans are temporary and typically involve less oversight than shareholders.
Also a key difference is that if an already established co-op decides to take out a loan/etc, that decision is made democratically.
I suppose it depends on what is the collateral for the loan. Technically I think you could take out a business loan where the collateral isn’t the business or its assets, but practically speaking what else would be used? Is the founder going to use their own personal property as collateral? Almost certainly not if they also have to share the profits of success.
For that matter how would banks work? Anyone working at the bank would share in the profits of loaning the depositor’s money? That doesn’t seem to follow the spirit of “sharing in the fruits of labor”. The depositors are the ones laboring to earn the money, why should someone working at a bank get to profit from the interest earned on the fruits of their labor?
A solution to that would be the depositors earn the profit from loans, but then we’re just back where we started. The more you can deposit and loan, the more you earn and labor becomes less and less significant. Also, what of the banker’s labor then? Are they just paid a wage and have no share in the profits of the loans? That sounds very similar to a typical company today where the shareholders reap the profits from wage workers’ labor. Will bankers be the working class of this new society?
Bonds. Look into bonds. It is often how communities raise money for big infrastructure projects.
So companies shouldn’t put up ownership or assets as collateral for loans like you would with a house loan?
I mean, I guess they could? I was just trying to bring up a solution that I haven’t seen anyone else in this thread mentioning. Bonds.
Municicpal bonds are used all of the time to raise money. What is a municipal government, if not just an organized group of people in a community?
If people want to enrich their community with a business, but don’t have the means, they could relatively easily create a non-profit, and use community bonds (and other fundraising methods) to get the money they need to start the business. If/when that local business succeeds, the people who invested (i.e. the community at large) get a piece of that. success The people who own the business, all the way down to the people who work there day to day (who likely also own a piece of the business) benefit when the business does well. Those profits are re-invested into the community, rather than being siphoned off by a massive corporation like Walmart, never to be seen again. The community as a whole owns and operates the company, usually by democratic rule of some type.
This isn’t some kind of pipe dream, it’s happening right now in communities that have still managed to remain tight knit (often people of color, and other marginalized groups who have historically had the deck stacked against them).
Only would only those in the community be able to invest in bonds? Otherwise big investors would invest in promising ideas. Who is in a community? Who is the community for a global operation?
I like the idea, but I think it’d be really hard to apply to things like tech or businesses with global infrastructure.
I’m not sure what you mean… This is already a thing that happens and is happening. You could choose who the bonds are available to if you want to avoid a corporation or single entity buying them all up. Or have rules around maximum % ownership, things like that.
In terms of worker-owned co-operatives, and all that, If you want to understand how something like this might work on a larger scale, look into Germany’s laws around employee ownership/participation, in corporations, as well as the Mondragon Corporation in Spain
Edit: Here’s a link about Germany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codetermination_in_Germany
What is the benefit to those founders? Why take on a loan or invest your own money if the rewards are split evenly between people that didn’t take the risk? It seems like the smart thing to do would be a “non-founder” since you get all of the rewards for none of the risk. Since everyone’s individual incentives are to not take the risk on starting something new I don’t see how you would get new organizations.
Founders can hold non-voting preferred stock and they can charge new workers membership fees. Rewards don’t have to be split evenly between people. The workers can jointly decide on an unequal distribution. The difference being the democracy rather than an alien legal party (the employer) unilaterally deciding.
Taking the risk refers to appropriating the negative fruits of labor. The idea that the employer is entitled to the fruits of labor because they took the risk is tautological
Well the risk is shared among all members, as well as the rewards. As a founding member, you have more risk at the start, but that risk scales down as the operation scales up.
You’re more likely to have worker’s cooperatives that fulfill actual needs, either in local society or the participants’ lives, than capitalist firms. Less damage.
This is partly due to how there’s little incentive for aggressive profit extraction since the workers, who control the coop, often live nearby. Would you actively choose to make things worse for yourself and your neighbours, to get some more money in your pocket?
Far from all activity in the world needs a person who wants to get rich, spearheading them.
We have organizations in civil society too, don’t we?
I don’t understand your answer.
For simplicity let’s say I found a brand new co-op that sells ice cream. I use my personal money to buy an ice cream van, do all the legal paperwork to form the company, buy all of the initial product that I’m going to sell. The first week goes well and the business looks promising, but I need some help so I hire someone. Let’s say after 3 weeks we pay off all my initial investment, the van, the other start up costs. Now we’re purely in profit mode - do we split the profit half and half? If so, I have made a terrible decision to start a business. I placed myself at financial risk for future profits while my employee took no risk and gained the same exact reward.
On the other hand, if we split the profits unequally in any way, how would that be different from the status quo? As soon as a company can choose unequal splitting of profits wouldn’t self interest dictate the founder take the largest percentage as possible so long as it doesn’t lose employees? If they can find employees willing to take 0% profit for a steady wage we are back where we started.
The key missing piece is democratic participation. Anyone involved in the process of the generation of wealth should have a say in what to do with that wealth, so you and the “employee” (who would be a co-owner if we are talking about a worker co-op icecream business).
But then how do you determine how you get paid back for your initial investment?
There are many options, but if we accept that capital doesn’t do anything, then the idea of making a profit on your financial investment is moot. How are you paid for your idea then? Well, you have a business which you are in control of (at least in part), and are no longer alienated from your work.
One option would be to pay back everyone’s initial investment at some rate agreed upon by the workers, and then decide (democratically) what to do with the rest of the profits. This doesn’t mean every cone you sell you vote on, but perhaps once per week, month, quarter, etc., everyone involved in the process decides collectively what to do with the surplus money.
As a side note: every “employee” takes a risk when they join a company. There is no guarantee that the job is permanent, so any changes in their life (moving, giving up other opportunities, etc) are a great risk. And while those are similar for a small business owner, with the additional risk of losing some initial investment, the employee has no say over what happens to the profits or the operation of their workplace,and therefore has to hope the employer is generous and clever enough to keep them on. By running a company collectively, even without even initial investments, the risks are better distributed, and probably lower as well, as it’s easy to make a bad decision on your own, it’s much harder to do so when others are involved.
These are just some ideas about how a business may operate in this example, it is by no means prescriptive, and I am sure many others can fathom better methods.
There can be an internal capital account that keeps track of what the founder invested to buy all the initial product and ice cream van. This account would give the founder a recoupable claim on that value they invest.
The founder can charge new workers a membership fee.
There is nothing wrong with unequally dividing the profits, but that has to be a democratically accountable decision.
The moral difference in favor of the worker coop is that it is democratic
Understood. Thank you for clarifying.
So because you put in some initial effort, you’re entitled to an outsized share in perpetuity?
Also, you’re completely overlooking another key aspect of cooperatives. Democracy.
If they were so inclined, the other members could vote to give you a larger share. Or pay you back for your initial investment. But it would be different from the status quo because the workers have ownership and agency in their workplace, and can actually participate in important decisions.