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.
This is because co-ops these days still have to compete in a capitalist market, and need to be ruthless to remain competitive. I’m not saying this is good. Just that it’s not a problem inherent to worker management - it’s a problem with the system they have to work under.
If this worker management extended to the whole economy - i.e. socialism - then these incentives would no longer exist. The economy would no longer be a competition requiring ruthless tactics.
The Mondragon Corporation is an interesting example of a cooperative scaling up https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
I don’t think it would be. What happens when someone leaves the company or is pushed out? Automatically lose their shares? Who determines what proportion of shares or pay you get for which roles or level of seniority? What about nepotism? Ownership implies control, control gets used to advance your own interests.
This is far enough down the line with enough positive progress to be had in the meantime (e.g. German-style employee representation in boards, greater share grants to employees, etc.) that I’m comfortable figuring that one out later.
My gut feel would be that you share profits while you work for the company and lose the shares when you leave. There would be a fairly equitable allocation of shares irrespective of roles with employees to vote for greater allocations if needs dictate. Nepotism would be dramatically reduced compared to today with a more democratic workplace. Much like I like my countries democratic, I like my workplaces democratic - the interests of the workers are the interests of the nation.
