Suppose I have studied for years to become a pastry chef. I set up my own bakery, investing my time, energy, and labour into procuring equipment and building up a reputation as a delicious place to eat. I run the entire operation myself as the sole worker. Eventually, after years of turmoil, word of my exceptional pastries spreads and my bakery becomes the number one spot in town. Soon there’s a line up around the block, long enough that I have to turn away customers on the regular.
Not wanting to have to send people home hungry, I decide that having someone to wash my dishes and somebody to tend to the counter would buy me enough time to focus on the main reason people come to my shop: my delicious pastries.
I do, however, have an issue. I worked really hard to build my bakery up to where it is today, and don’t want to have to give up ownership to the two people I want to bring onboard. They didn’t put in any effort into building up my bakery, so why should they have an equal democratic say over how it’s run?
Is there a way I can bring on help without having to give away control of my buisness?
Furthermore, what’s to stop the two new workers from democratically voting me out of the operation, keeping the store, name, brand, and equipment for themselves?
The question becomes who determines the size of the stake. Without equal ownership in the business isn’t the relationship between me and the other workers more akin to an owner -> employee relationship as opposed to a co-ownership? If I’m the only one who can make execuitive decisions, determine the rates of profit sharing, choose who gets hired and who gets let go, it doesn’t seem that much different than how things might look in America today, for instance.
Suppose the contract I draft up is for $5 an hour and 1% of the excess profits, split evenly among all non-owners, I see no difference than hire things look like in Starbucks.