- cross-posted to:
- general@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- general@lemmy.world
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I work in an esop. It’s pretty cool in that we own the company in shares based on tenure, it’s not like a union though.
We don’t vote on the CEO or the board, we have third party trustees that manage the esop account.
We aren’t beholden to external shareholders, which is the absolute best part. Line doesn’t go up, it really just affects our retirement accounts, but even then our valuation takes into account stuff like cash on hand and contract stability. So… We have pretty fiscally conservative management, which is a great thing for us.
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I work in consultancy and have a dream of forming a small elite company of consultants, employee owned, just 10 or so people who are shit hot at their jobs.
I would plan for it to always be 10 people, deliberately no growth. Do the job well, take a good wage, have some parties.
It’s when companies look for massive growth and shareholder value that everything starts to go to shit.
just 10 or so people who are shit hot at their jobs.
Why would you want ten competent people when Deloite and McKinsey prove you can make way more money with a thousand incompetent people?
Its definitely the dream!
10 is a lot of cats to herd though. Do you already have your fantasy football team ready? Do you think that they share your (lack of) ambition?
At the same time 10 is a small number if a couple go on parental/sick leave at the same time. Are you ready to ‘hold the baby’ and get no extra credit? Who will do the admin/HR/sales/marketing/taking-the-bins-out/whatever you don’t like doing?
10 people is enough that it would be very hard to run in a truly egalitarian way - its your idea, so would you be the ‘primus inter pares’? ;-)
Honestly, It could be great - so please see me poking holes as a way to make your plan stronger.
Not the person you responded to but I have a similar plan for a company. The one hole I have a solution for I believe should be adopted by all companies: if it’s a job that isn’t your core focus, outsource. Everything from bookkeeping to janitorial staff should be an outside company (with your same ethics). I dream of a world where everyone is self-employed or part of small co-ops, and not one single company expands vertically or horizontally. Pick one thing you’re good at and do that one thing well. Everything else, give that labor to someone else. I’m looking at you, Amazon.
I’m looking at you, Amazon.
You mean that you want to copy Amazon? Since this is exactly what they have done, outsourced delivery drivers; driven to pissing in bottles, outsourced sellers; selling items at a loss to imaginary bots to get positive reviews (amazon making its cut all the same).
I shouldn’t respond… but let me guess:
The one thing that you are good at isn’t unblocking toilets, is it? No, I’ll bet you are really good at something rewarding like solving difficult math problems, or ‘consulting’ or some other rewarding job. I’m sure that you were top of your class at school, but in the real world, if you didn’t turn up, the world would keep turning just fine.
I am saying this from no moral high ground at all (I am well rewarded for what is termed a ‘bullshit job’), just pointing out that what you are saying kind of assumes that the proles want to live in your utopia, do you still expect to have a better living than the person who shovels your shit when you block the toilet? Thought so.
[edit: sorry for being such a curmudgeon - I must be having a bad day. If I’ve offended - check your idealism. Please start your ideal business - the world needs idealists… as well as people with shovels]
Luke Skywalker every word you just said is wrong.gif
Amazon’s delivery service is part of Amazon. The reason Amazon employees have to piss in bottles is because they are owned by Amazon. The reason their tax returns list them as contractors is so Amazon can dodge the laws and the taxes that come with them.
And where did you get the impression that an outsourced job would be lesser? The exact reason I would want all companies to focus on only the one thing they’re good at is to be forced, for lack of a better word, to pay what those jobs are worth. I would hope the person unblocking my toilet is self-employed so they can charge what they feel is a price equal to the effort of their job.
But on the other hand, I’m sure we’ll all be treated well and paid well when there are only four companies to work for and they all collude with each other.
Why are you down voting the guy?? They have ethics, a vision, and totally reasonable way of building a 10 people community that care for each other.
You know, capitalism may outlive all of us but it’s not forever. This wasn’t the way to do things before shareholder supremacy in the 80s.
Hey, me too! Except I want growth. I want an army of consultants, all of whom own equal parts of the company. We could charge 3/4 of our competition and still make a ton of income while undercutting the larger, shareholder controlled firms. Someday…
That’s the premise of citizen Kane’s main character, Kane. It didn’t go as he expected.
That movie is like 100 years old.
Balance your workload with care. Once you have “enough” work, hopefully you have other firms you can refer unwanted work to. My small business is run by a guy who A) isn’t growing the business and B) says yes to every assignment. He’s burning out, I’m burning out, and one of our best people burned out and quit last month. It’s a nightmare.
I was thinking a kind of get-in-line attitude. We can get to you but not for 6 months, that’s just how it is.
This way you just end up with the shit clients that no one else wants.
If you find a client who’s a better fit than 80% of your clients that 80% get’s pushed down the line.
Might work, depends on how loyal your clients are.
How does an Employee Stock Ownership Plan work? How do partners/employees make money with it? When you hold stock, don’t you need to sell it/liquidate it in order to make money?
And how do you hire somebody? Do you sell your shares to the person at no cost or something?
I’m confused.
Think of it like a founder selling their company to their current employees.
Current employees have no money but will if/when their future company does well.
A third party pays the owner now and manages this account.
Once employees retire, they sell their shares to the company, and the company uses that for new employees!
How do partners/employees make money with it?
Sell their stock for money, or stocks owned may pay dividends, or both.
When you hold stock, don’t you need to sell it/liquidate it in order to make money?
Yes. But only a small percentage of the employees are retiring and selling their stock at any given time. There are usually limits on how and when employee stock awards can be sold before retirement.
And how do you hire somebody?
The usual way. After hiring, hires receive stock as a part of their compensation.
Do you sell your shares to the person at no cost or something?
It’s just part of their compensation. Longer tenure employees end up with more stock earned over time, and may also receive more stock per pay period to reward loyalty.
Implied question: If employees can sell stock won’t the company eventually be publicly traded?
There lots of ways the rules for holding the stock can be structured to prevent that, while still having real monetary value to retirees.
It’s a bit much for a post here, though. And it varies by country, I think.
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There is a city in Spain called Mondrago. I first heard about it years ago.
The way it was brought up to me was that the people there are happy. And we should also be happy. But why are they happier on average then others.
My favorite part too is that this is capitalism. Its not communism. It isn’t socialism. You can bring this to the right wing whoevers and argue that this is a better way.
I mean collective employee ownership can’t really be considered capitalism. Who are the capitalists in this economy? Everyone? It works very differently.
Generally most proponents of worker-coops are considered market socialists or anarchists, depending on their attitudes toward the state.
That said it can exist within capitalism, though it’s not clear whether capitalism will allow this ownership structure to expand significantly.
Who are the capitalists in this economy? Everyone?
That’s how capitalism should work, in its best and purest form. Everyone starts with an equal playing field and competes for profits. The competition promotes advancements in science and efficiency that make life better for everyone.
Obviously this is an unattainable ideal, but it’s something to strive for.
That would be a significant departure from its original meaning. Capitalism was about economic ownership by capitalists—the class of people at the top of the economic hierarchy, who are wealthy enough to start their own businesses or buy shares from others and earn money without working. On the other hand, socialism is ownership or control of the economy by workers. Worker coops definitely could be considered a form of socialism, albeit it is probably the one that is most similar to capitalism since it still involves markets. So if you want to call worker coops capitalist then it would be both capitalist and socialist at the same time which is rather confusing to me.
But I mean words change, I think it’s a bit confusing to call this capitalism but maybe it would be more politically viable if we called it that. Lots of people are afraid of socialism because of the USSR and their atrocities.
Capitalism was about economic ownership by capitalists—the class of people at the top of the economic hierarchy, who are wealthy enough to start their own businesses or buy shares from others and earn money without working
I think that’s only true because in early capitalism, only the existing wealthy were able to participate in the system. That’s still the case to a large degree, but it’s not an intrinsic feature of capitalism. It was just an incidental aspect of capitalism in the world as it existed.
True capitalists believe that the more competition, the better. Giving ordinary workers a higher stake in their company promotes a much broader level of competition. I think it’s totally fair to describe worker co-ops in terms of capitalism, and as you said it would really help the branding.
I disagree. The concentration of wealth has always been a core feature of capitalism from the beginning, and the original definition was all about that feature of it. It’s what separates it from earlier merchant economies.
The only times we’ve seen this trend reverse is during major calamities, or by highly organized political action, usually by socialists or anarchists.
Capitalists claim to love competition and the system works much better in its presence. But the reality is that capitalism always trends towards monopoly without or fixed efforts to resist corporate power.
Coops will need organized support as well if they are to grow at the expense of traditionally owned businesses. For one thing, there needs to be a legal structure that outlines how they can operate, grow, etc. There also needs to be a source of capital for them to get off the ground. I personally think expecting workers to front this capital is unrealistic since most have little in the way of savings. Community banks and credit unions would be a great option for this credit source. Locally minted currencies could also help, though that’s a whole separate and quite complicated topic.
But yeah if you want to rebrand this as a new and improved form of capitalism I guess I won’t stop you, even if it’s technically incorrect.
I highly recommend this video if you’re interested in worker coops, how they work, and how they can be expanded in the modern economy: https://youtu.be/yZHYiz60R5Q?si=QZbmpUqgjpuz9IHp
That’s what I like most about this. Is it’s such a mix of both that maybe it is possible to have more people come around to the idea. Why have these Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos who become insanely wealthy at a scale that is practically more powerful than some countries all because they run a business. And not like they did it without going public. They amassed the wealth by becoming a publicly traded company. We should have better regulations.
Yea meritocratic society would be cool. But also getting there would be a shit show. I think we should hold it as an ideal to achieve but also accept that things don’t need to be always be fair.
Shore up public education federally and give good evidence how private education is against meritocratic society and therefore against what capitalism should be. Every kid should have access to resources and standard education up until they are old enough to compete based on their own merit. And then it’s a rat race.
If they made me king of America, that would be my number one policy objective.
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Free masters degrees for anyone going into teaching. Eventually free college for all will be a goal, but first, teachers.
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Massive investments into schools. I want a single class to have a maximum size of 7 students. This will require a lot more teachers but also a lot more physical space. In the 6 years it takes to train up new teachers, also build new buildings.
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Hire all those teachers with masters degrees for very high salaries. Comparable with private industry. Be very strict with teaching credential requirements and require ongoing testing and studying to maintain a teacher’s license. Hire 2-3 teachers aides per teacher.
How do we fund this? Nationalize all state education departments. School funding is no longer tied to how much the property in that neighborhood is worth. Base it purely on enrollment, with no incentives for helping kids graduate. Minimal restrictions on funding except strong oversight against administration hoovering up all the money for themselves.
I think if you get highly educated, well-paid teachers in small class settings with adequate funding and an assistant, the teachers will go above and beyond for students. You don’t need so much top-down control. Hire very good teachers, and then give them the freedom and the ability to teach well.
One generation of this, and so many problems will fix themselves. The Republican party will collapse. Climate change will become the #1 priority (though hopefully by that point we’ve stabilized our GHG output and are in the sequestration phase). We’ll be inoculated against misinfo. We’ll have an explosion of new products and businesses.
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The capitalists are the workers. They collectively want to increase their profits and grow their company and invest in the markets. This isn’t socialism, anarchy or anything else. It’s capitalist. Socialism, communism are not good systems. Cooperatives sit in a neat place that bridges ideas between both major political groups.
Socialism means the workers control the means of production which is an antiquated term but can definitely mean direct ownership of businesses. So worker coops are certainly socialist. It doesn’t really make sense to speak of socialism as a single system since it’s more of a collection of ideas, most of which having never been tried. I assume you are talking about the USSR and those who followed its economic system. While I agree that that system was bad, they also didn’t grant workers real control over the economy and weren’t really socialist by the original definition. Even Lenin referred to their system as state capitalism, which they advocated for because marxists believe that capitalism has to advance to a certain stage before socialism can take root. The stated plan was to eventually move towards socialism but of course they never did because when do dictators ever want to give up power?
Most people think socialism is about free markets vs state planning but this is just Soviet and US propaganda. While some socialists did advocate for state planned economies, you can also have state planned capitalist economies such as the nazi war economy.
Anyway, that’s all esoteric political theory and not super relevant to worker coops which almost everyone agrees are pretty cool.
Problem I have here is that the government doesn’t need to change. Markets would exist how they do. Hell even businesses would run as they do with private owners and capitalist investing freely. What I would suggest changing is any company who wants to go public to become something larger they should have to restructure as a cooperative or something similar where the employees have a majority stake in the shares while the rest can be sold publicly. so for me I feel like it’s a bit of a mix but ultimately it’s still all exists in a capitalist market with all the intention of being acting and behaving like capitalist.
Don’t take this the wrong way, but this made me bust out laughing…
When you hold stock, don’t you need to sell it/liquidate it in order to make money?
Boy, if that isn’t just a perfect example of the perversion of our economic system. “You can’t make ACTUAL money with it, you can only make money by participating the meta gambling game.”
No, stock entitles you to dividends, which is just a fancy way of saying “a share of the profits”. Like, a company brings in A amount of money (gross income) in a year, spends B of that on payroll and whatnot (expenses), maybe puts away C of that into a savings or spending account, and everything that’s left, D, gets given to the owners. If you have stock in the company, that’s you.
Of course, dividends are generally very small (like, think savings interest) compared to what you can make trading and speculating, so it’s never good enough for the rich.
It’s also rather common for companies to pay no dividends, because they just put all the leftover money into C. Which isn’t even necessarily bad, it’s generally built on the idea that keeping the money in the company will give the company more room for growth, I.E. raising the stock price, with the assumption that that will be worth more than the dividends may have been. But for so many companies, that just never ends. Sooner or later, the growth won’t be sustainable, and many companies just collapse under their own weight, leaving the stock worthless.
No need to be so condescending. I’m very financially literate and I had a similar question - because dividends are so small and rare nowadays that they just didn’t cross my mind.
I guess but it doesn’t really solve many problems. Much more importantly, every company should be held to strict standards by a democratic institution of laws.
For examples:
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Both workers rights and pay rates need to be regulated to a bare minimum, because there will always be cases of some people (or groups of people) who try to abuse others and work around the rules. Example: Uber skirts employee benefits by not having “employees”, large companies have “subsidiary companies”, etc.
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Even if a company of 500 people always look out for themselves and each other, they might still become a detriment to the larger society or hostile towards similar companies.
Having both tight regulatory bodies and strong union/cooperatives are fine, but regulation comes first imo.
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If the original owner can do it better on their own they should go into business for themselves rather than create an LLC, once LLC it should be mutually beneficial, not just there to protect the owners private assets
I mean, I’m a single-member LLC (electrician). I’m not sure what you mean.
This was my opinion. Any company that wants to go public should be required to restructure as a cooperative. Stay private means you get to be the man running the show. But the benefits the market gives business also means those business usually impact people at a scale that no individual or handful of individuals should be making decisions especially when those decisions are " increase profits at all costs". Cooperatives bring locals to the decision making and helps regulate some choices that are made at the executive level
this is the least someone should get for devoting their whole life to a company
Combine an ESOP with a Public Benefit or B-corp and you get a pretty spicy variation on how a business can be organized.
i want to own a conglomerate that only owns companies that are owned by their employees
Wouldn’t you spend like half your day commuting between jobs?
Great idea. My preference is for a return to the family economy. I want to see family owned businesses where all the workers are family members or their friends.
Nepotism run amok
A public sin, but private virtue.
What if there was just a law to cap the compensation in that the highest compensation must be at most 10x (Or whatever a reasonable number may be). If your lowest paid salary is 50k, the max salary for CEO would be 500k. If the CEO wants more money, everyone needs to get more money.
That’s what some cooperatives have voted on. Mondragon is an example.
So as with everything I feel like the best solution is to have a system that gives people the incentive to place these restrictions on ourselves rather than force it through laws.
We don’t appreciate opinion and perspective enough. We all seem to accept how it is as the default. But if you have a corporation where all employees hold a bit of power collectively as if the business is the sum of all parts, then it would be insane for someone like Musk or Bezos to exist with their wealth. It would be considered stealing
WinCo is employee owned and still pays minimum wage lol
Uh… no. This is exactly how people with that mentality cause companies to find ways to hire less humans and depend more on technologies.
Keep it up, you’re only asking for really bad consequences.
Absolutely not and if you think about the implications, you’d come to the same conclusion.
One of the most successful breweries in America is owned by its employees. New Belgium.
They did not crumble and fall apart because of “evil socialism”. They flourished because every single worker had a vested interest in making the business grow.
Executives wonder why their employees are so unmotivated. Give them motivation. Not pizza parties
Employee ownership would save this nation from its spiral towards indentured servitude. 60% of the population currently lives month to month. You’re telling me every single one of them is lazy? Bullshit.
The American dream has been stolen from us, it will take it back one way or another.
You can keep sucking on the nuts of billionaires pretending you will be one of them, I will fight for the working class.
With all due respect, one company doesnt proof a thing. Neither do 10 or 100. If it was such a successful business model, there were a lot more.
In the end, most people want to work 9to5, get their salary and not bother with the company anymore than that. Barely anyone would want to partly “own” the company beyond a stock share maybe.
Right just how people don’t want to own houses… Consider that you might be out of touch with the average American
Are you realizing how stupid that statement is or do you need me to explain?
There’s a huge cleft between “This one specific brewery” and “every company” though. And honestly I’m neither on expert on company law nor on socioeconomics and market economics, so I’m not one to ask. Maybe it’d be better if every company was employee owned. Or maybe not. Or maybe it would change fuck all. I can’t know, not my area of expertise.
And this would not be the kind of global decision you’d want to make on a gut feeling, tbh.
I made a post in this community of a moral argument for mandating employee-owned companies. It isn’t based on a gut feeling. It is based on the theory of inalienable rights. Here is a link to that post:
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Okay so apparently a corporation bought them out in 2019. Looks like we are falling one by one corporate interest.
There used to be 100 government contractors know there are 4.
There used to be dozens of Telecom providers, now there are 3
You know how many places I’ve lived where I’ve had a choice of Internet provider? 0 Functionally a monopoly
I’m so close to giving up on this country because of the greed that is tearing it apart from the inside while everyone concerns themselves with talentless celebrities, Donald Trump included
I’m done being complacent. Something has to give
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Of course there are more than four, but an enormously disproportionate amount of our tax dollars go to four of them.
20% goes to Lockheed Martin alone.
General Dynamics swallowed up all of the companies I worked for in the first half of my career.
You probably also think that because there are thousands of small farmers that they actually have any market share.
The big fish are eating the small ones and getting bigger and bigger. This is what happens when you relax antitrust enforcement. Why do you think we keep getting involved in wars we have nothing to do with? These four have raked in billions facilitating the death of our children overseas for decades
Economics and trickle down is working so great right? Republicans would drive us into slavery we gave them the reins. And yes it is political just look at Reagan and his policies and how they have affected us today
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So you only read the one part that you wanted to read?
You’re cool with one company taking 1/5 of the defense tax dollars? That is a fact not an ideology or opinion.
The consolidation of these companies is not an opinion or an ideology it is a fact. Reality
Do you want to argue the points orrr…
Like what?
Waitrose a giant supermarket chain (and mid upper class too) in the UK also owned by employees. So no I don’t really.
Okie then temporarily embarrassed billionaire.
We found the CEO, guys.
