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.
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
In that case there’s an issue with long term decision making and hiring; if you are planning to leave soon and will have no stake in the future of the company, there isn’t much incentive to take it into account when voting on decisions. Likewise there is reason to be much more reluctant to hire unknown people for this reason - why let an unaccountable person have influence over crucial decisions? In the case of a worker owned company that has become very successful (say to the point where everyone is paid $150 an hour), those grandfathered-in workers are in a situation where the value of their employment contract greatly exceeds the market value of their labor itself. Even if they are prevented from selling that directly, they still have control over revenue so long as they retain their position. The natural response there I think is to want to heavily favor new hires that you are personally connected to; where you already have an interest in their enrichment, and who have external reasons to be invested in your interests and the interests of the company, which is why I mention nepotism and think it would be a bigger problem. Removing the possibility of selling something doesn’t remove the ability or incentive to use that thing to enrich yourself, the pressure is all still there.
the interests of the workers are the interests of the nation
Why would they be? My gut feel is that for this sort of thing to work without problems cannot be done with a single simple change or rule, because that one change isn’t going to be able to convince people to favor the nation above the wealth and status of themselves and their families, or remove all the conflicts of interest that exist between those. Especially not people used to the current system. I think it would be more effective to redistribute wealth independently from employment to keep things simple and let markets keep working without too much unexpected distortion. With a higher baseline and less desperation it would be more feasible to form worker collectives to begin with, without a need for state mandates enforcing them to be operated in a particular way.
