Sooo… the working class should own the means of production?
Yes, but let’s try to achieve that without state ownership of the means.
How can the working class own something if the state owns it?
It’s very simple.
Nationalists nationalize.
Socialists socialize.
If one is doing the other it means somebody is lying to you.
That’s just nonsense there’s plenty of reasons certain resources should be nationalized. Why do I care if the company that owns all the clean water is owned by one asshole or a group of them? Certain things in a nation belong to the people of the nation as a whole. Namely the national resources. No one company deserves to own that.
That’s just nonsense
No. It isn’t. If nationalism is your game, fine… but just be honest about it. Don’t confuse it with socialism (unknowingly or otherwise) - the two aren’t compatible in any way whatsoever.
If you’re a nationalist, you believe that all resources should be controlled for the benefit of the people living inside the territory demarcated by imaginary lines drawn on a map - that is a very distinct thing from capitalism, which holds that resources must be privately owned and fuck the people living inside (or outside) said territory.
You have completely and utterly misused the term nationalized and nationalist here and are applying a meaning that they do not have. Nationalists don’t nationalize resources and Industry. You can say it as much as you want but it’s just complete fiction what you’re talking about. The historic link between nationalism and capitalism is so incredibly ingrained and strong that you saying otherwise is simply put unbelievable. This is simply nonsense and drivel that you have created from nothing.
I’m honestly not sure if this is the most intellectually dishonest comment I’ve ever seen or if you’re having some kind of fever dream where the meaning of words are different to you and you’re going to wake up in 2 days and be like oh shit what did I say?
You have completely and utterly misused
Lol! No Clyde - I haven’t. Nationalism is a very simple thing - it’s not my fault you associate nationalism with fascism (which is always just false nationalism) or capitalism (which is perfectly incompatible with the beliefs of anyone who actually fetishizes a given nation state - even fascists like Francisco Franco understood that). The US has spent more resources combating nationalism in the middle-east than socialism - do you think they did that because nationalism is so “compatible” with capitalism?
I hate to be the one to break it to you - but Fidel Castro was far more of a nationalist than Adolf Hitler was. In fact, the majority of the anti-imperialist campaigns waged against colonial power during the (so-called) “Cold War” was nationalist in nature - not socialist.
The historic link between nationalism and capitalism
There are those who will pretend that there are “historic links” between liberalism and democracy, too - even though they are violently incompatible concepts. “Historic links” doesn’t mean anything.
You can call the US “democratic” and the USSR “socialist” all you want - but that does not make any of it reality.
Fidel Castro and Adolf Hitler were both nationalists, Hitler was also fascist. I think you might have a inaccurate definition of nationalism.
Nationalism is more about elevating a certain ethnic group and creating a nation in the process if needed. WW2 Germany was all about elevating Germans at the cost of everyone else. It rose to prominence in 18th century Europe when nations in Europe declared themselves as independent.
Nationalizing is about taking a resource or a company and putting it into the hands of the state for the people.
These are two completely different concepts with a small overlap.
Nationalism is more about elevating a certain ethnic group
No it isn’t - that is so distinct from garden-variety nationalism that we call it ethno-nationalism. There are plenty of nationalist projects that doesn’t have an ethno-nationalist aspect to them - there are plenty of them outside the imperial core in the (so-called) “third-world.” You wanna be the one to tell them they are doing nationalism wrong?
WW2 Germany was all about elevating Germans at the cost of everyone else.
Violently building an alt-fantasy empire has nothing to do with “elevating” a people - that’s imperialism, not nationalism. You can argue that the two concepts may be related - but you can’t argue that nationalism inherently requires genocidal imperialism.
Nationalizing is about taking a resource or a company and putting it into the hands of the state for the people.
In other words… the only possible benefit that nationalism has ever presented as a justification for it’s own existence?
Fancy that.
Here’s a link that with a definition. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalism
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation, especially with the aim of gaining and maintaining its sovereignty (self-governance) over its perceived homeland to create a nation-state. It holds that each nation should govern itself, free from outside interference (self-determination), that a nation is a natural and ideal basis for a polity, and that the nation is the only rightful source of political power. It further aims to build and maintain a single national identity, based on a combination of shared social characteristics such as culture, ethnicity, geographic location, language, politics (or the government), religion, traditions and belief in a shared singular history, and to promote national unity or solidarity. There are various definitions of a “nation”, which leads to different types of nationalism. The two main divergent forms are ethnic nationalism and civic nationalism.
And here is another one https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalization
Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state.[1] Nationalization contrasts with privatization and with demutualization. When previously nationalized assets are privatized and subsequently returned to public ownership at a later stage, they are said to have undergone renationalization. Industries often subject to nationalization include telecommunications, electric power, fossil fuels, railways, airlines, iron ore, media, postal services, banks, and water (sometimes called the commanding heights of the economy), and in many jurisdictions such entities have no history of private ownership.
Nationalization may occur with or without financial compensation to the former owners. Nationalization is distinguished from property redistribution in that the government retains control of nationalized property. Some nationalizations take place when a government seizes property acquired illegally. For example, in 1945 the French government seized the car-maker Renault because its owners had collaborated with the 1940–1944 Nazi occupiers of France.[2] In September 2021, Berliners voted to expropriate over 240,000 housing units, many of which were being held unoccupied as investment property.[3][4]
I like the idea of having just a cool government we trust and who do the right thing. Imagine that. Making parks and stuff. But also cool citizens who also sometimes disagree with the government. Like at their core. Without having a big ass conniption every time like the sky is about to fall.
Governance, government and states are all different and nebulous within themselves. You can achieve governance models that better resist the consolidation of power while still operating towards the goal of the collective good. That alone does not denote nationalization, which is a particular form of statehood (often referred to as a sovereign state). Watershed governance is managed across existing levels of international, regional and local governing bodies, often with a high level of success to best ensure sufficient water is available for the communities within.
That seems like an awfully swell nice ideal there, the reality though is where I live and people like me live where local governments just sells your water to private corporations and now you don’t have enough water.
Definitely not saying it works pervasively, lots of jurisdictions work as plutocracies and have vacated any sense of public good. That some jurisdictions suck doesn’t nullify the possibilities of cooperation and public good being the foundations of good governance.
I’d say it does. Because it’s not an aberration. That’s how capitalism works. If a corporation can Corner the market on a natural resource and screw the people over it will. That’s by Design. That’s why I don’t trust any situation in which private ownership can own a natural resource that people rely upon. It will happen every single time.
Simple if you understand the theory and history. The main difference between Communists and anarchists is the involvement of the state.
Main difference between anarchism and everything else is a state
…what? Have you just assumed that words are the same because they sound similar?
Nationalisation of industries and resources refers to public ownership vs private ownership
Nationalism is an ideology that became widespread in the late 19th Century, that emphasises the codification of States on ethnic grounds
Nachos are a type of corn or potato chip, often combined with cheese and guacomole
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The problem isn’t usually nationalization but the utter lack of democratic control of what is owned by the state
I’d say that before that your problem is that if a state has the power to nationalize something it also has the power to privatize it again… all it takes is one Reagan or Thatcher. Or hell, an Obama - who essentially nationalized General Motors after the 2008 crash and then handed it all straight back to the capitalists again.
Yes, but let’s try to achieve that without state
ownership of the meansAs a programmer, I think it’ll be pretty tough to achieve this entirely with pure functions, at some point we’re going to have to store state.
Seize the means of production, but first, seize the means of test and staging
Oh god, they’ll just test in production then!
Fuck it we’ll do it live!
Bro just invented Anarcho syndicalism
No, that would be socialism!!1!!! No socialism in 'Murica!!1!!!1!
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.
I work at an ESOP as well. Honestly I’m glad I fell into this. I have a feeling that I may actually be able to retire. If not early. Probably one of my best moves in my career.
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This sounds like a worker cooperative which is a classic socialist concept that could be applied to modern social democrat capitalism.
Since I straddle the line in my political views between Marxism and social democracy I’d like to share an approach.
Mandatory profit sharing and workers always have a certain proportion of the board elected democratically. Simple as that. CEO bonuses should be made illegal and all of those profits should be funneled to the workers. People will be a lot more involved in the corporate governance and it will align the will of the workers with that of the shareholders.
Economists say that in the long run productivity is everything and worker’s having a for-profit voice that will make arguments like “we’re losing our best workers because of low pay” to increase salaries is important. This will make each person higher paid and more productive.
You guys know about Walmart, that one rose to success by profit sharing but capitalism got the better of it and now so many workers both time and money poor because they work there.
While many socialists supported worker coops in the interim, an economy of exclusively worker coops comes more so from the classical laborists such as Proudhon.
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.
In 2024, a crack team of management consultants was assembled to solve the toughest business challenges. These consultants promptly escaped from traditional firms to form their own elite unit. Today, still wanted by companies worldwide, they survive as consultants of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire… The C-Team.
[Cue dramatic music]
That’s brilliant
Also, my colleagues always tell me I’m c-team standard, this must be what they mean!
I’m up for the C++ team!
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?
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.
Might work, depends on how loyal your clients are.
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.
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.
In the UK we have the designation of Sole Trader for that. Is there not something similar where you are?
Individual Proprietor / Single Member LLC
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
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.
Every year I get shares from my company. The vesting period is typically longer. For me it took 7 years to be fully vested. But I was accumulating every year. When I leave the company, the company will pay out my shares and I can tell them where to put the funds. But the higher base salary I have, the more shares I get. Also the people retiring or leaving the company, the shares get bought back by the company and redistribute to the employees. At least that’s how it works at the ESOP I work at. Kinda a simplistic view of it.
When someone is hired, they don’t get shares. They are enrolled into the ESOP program. Then after some time, they will eventually start accruing shares on a regular basis.
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.
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.
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.
Intellectually honest people that for whatever reason started out on the center-right can be convinced to support worker coops. The arguments in favor of them are personal responsibility arguments that center-right people tend to favor. I actually posted one such moral argument for worker coops in this community. Here is a link to that post:
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.
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.
I agree that it is not capitalism as it abolishes the employer-employee contract, but it isn’t quite socialism either because it is technically compatible with private property.
In terms of expanding the worker coop sector, I actually have some ideas for getting startup funding for worker coops, and creating economic entities that would buy up capitalist firms and convert them into worker coops
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So I get the idea that companies shouldn’t be slaves to shareholders or the whims of a few people, but would the employees owning the company mean they are shouldering financial risk? Like if my company goes bankrupt I just lose my job, I am not responsible for covering their losses.
I think the liability would still be limited. If a company goes bankrupt it’s not like they’re going after shareholders’ personal assets to pay creditors.
Are you under the impression that private business owners have to cover losses…? Like that’s what a LLC is, a limited liability company. If it goes bankrupt the private owners are only liable for a part of it.
If a private business owners goes bankrupt, he just has to, gasp, find a job.
If a worker loses their job they might go fucking homeless.
What about not reaching bankruptcy level, but just funding losses for a bit, or funding expansion into new locations, equipment, etc
That doesn’t come out of your personal bank account tho… that all comes out of the company’s account.
And if not, we’re talking about smaaall time businesses owners. They are not relevant to this.
There would still be limited liability. Furthermore, they can share risks with investors, and self-insure against risk as well @general
Insurance FTW; investors defeat the whole purpose.
Why do investors defeat the whole purpose? @general
Do investors not own part of the company? They can hold the company hostage in exchange for their capital, even if they can’t vote.
btw you seem to be outputting
[@general](https://lemmy.world/c/general)
at the bottom of your posts.Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn’t work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !general@lemmy.world
Can you give an example in the case where investors hold non-voting preferred shares?
I’m not sure how cross posting works from Mastodon to Lemmy. I thought I had to do that to get boosted by the group
Employees with stock face the same risk as any other stock owners: that the value of the stock will become zero, or just grow poorly.
But they can diversify to reduce their total risk.
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:
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.
this is the least someone should get for devoting their whole life to a company
Or… What if we just stopped working? https://youtu.be/2i0RrGx_GrE
This is the Centerpoint strategy for maintaining the Houston electric grid
Combine an ESOP with a Public Benefit or B-corp and you get a pretty spicy variation on how a business can be organized.
So you now need to buy shares first before you can get any job?
RTFA
Every year, those employees get a percentage of their salaries in company stock. During Central States’ worst year, employees earned the equivalent of 6 percent of their pay in stock, during their best they earned 26 percent. Last year, an employee earning $100,000 a year received $26,000 worth of stock in their account. As the company has grown, the value of that stock has averaged 20 percent returns annually, outperforming the stock market.
Ah, so this example is not transferring equity all the way at once.
no, you just tie share ownership to employment
Usually, in co-operative businesses, the members have to agree to hire someone.
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?
WinCo is employee owned and still pays minimum wage lol
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