The point is that if that money is used to pay employees properly, the wealth/power balances evaporate, and we’ll have a much fairer society society where our democracy isn’t undermined by monied interests.
if [yacht money] is used to pay employees properly, the wealth/power balances evaporate
Several issues with this. As other comments have pointed out, the specific money in question here isn’t actually very significant. But say you expand what’s considered to all company profits. A company won’t voluntarily pay more for a service of a given quality than they have to, because its existence depends on being better at profit seeking than other companies. If they do have to (maybe because of a regulation) pay more than the market rate, the priority is going to be reorganizing the business to employ fewer people, overwork the people who are still employed, or otherwise arrange themselves so that as much of the profits as possible are still going to the owners. The power dynamic between employer and employee remains the same, because their relative negotiating power is largely unchanged, and so would be the balance of wealth.
the specific money in question here isn’t actually very significant.
It’s all the revenue leeched away from workers to shareholders - that’s the majority of the entire global economy. What are you talking about?
A company won’t voluntarily pay more for a service of a given quality than they have to, because its existence depends on being better at profit seeking than other companies.
I’m not proposing we make it voluntary.
If they do have to (maybe because of a regulation) pay more than the market rate, the priority is going to be reorganizing the business to employ fewer people, overwork the people who are still employed, or otherwise arrange themselves so that as much of the profits as possible are still going to the owners.
Companies aren’t welfare schemes - they run as lean as possible today. I’m proposing the workers be the owners.
The power dynamic between employer and employee remains the same, because their relative negotiating power is largely unchanged, and so would be the balance of wealth.
Workers own the company, workers get paid fairly, workers decide how the company is run. Shareholders no longer exist, and must live off the welfare state or get a real goddamn job.
Shareholders at least the ones beating the market have a different skill set to workers. Replacing them with other workers might have issues with long term success.
I think you’d be better off changing laws that suppress workers wages and laws that unnecessary increase their expenses particularly rent
I’m proposing the workers be the owners.
What I like about this solution is that it does to some extent directly address the problem of negotiating power. I am skeptical about the practicality and sustainability though. For example there was a worker owned brewery I was aware of, which had an employment scheme in which accumulated time in the company translated into shares of ownership. The brewery became successful, and the now somewhat wealthy workers preferred to keep their wealth rather than continuing to distribute it to new employees, and so they voted to sell and accept a payout. I’m not sure this is an easily solved issue; it seems that any financial endeavor will have winners and losers, and the winners will do what they can to retain their position.
