Who doesn’t want to join a co-op and receive shares of the company for free. Almost no one wants to start a co-op, financing it, taking risks and responsibilities only to give shares away for free and gain nothing in exchange.
You don’t finance it, you take a loan from a bank on the company. If the company folds, it goes bankrupt, not you.
You don’t take anymore risk than the other workers.
If the company is dead, you’re still a human and now just another worker on the job market. You don’t go to jail for going bankrupt.
You still take all the risk because the bank is going to say they won’t give a loan to a new company without a track record, unless someone is willing to be a guarantor.
Now you share the profits, but all the risk is yours.
Unless you have a bunch of people lined up to start the co-op and they’re all willing to pitch in or become guarantors with you, in which case it might just work - but again, the initial people are going to have more skin in the game than the rest.
Eh, banks give out loans for people to start restaurants all the time, and restaurants are notoriously risky businesses. There’s hundreds of worker-owned co-ops in the States, so it’s not impossible to find a bank that will fund them.
And if you want a reward for founding a business but want it to be a co-op there are methods thst are reasonable and fair like selling it bit by bit to the employee union at a reasonable price or willing your company to your workers.
You don’t receive shares for free. You receive shares in return for your labour. You don’t become an equal member of a partnership as soon as you join.
I don’t own much capital, but I live in a post communist country and I sure as hell don’t want to experience the shit our country already went through once.
Yeah, blame the Russians. As if the Russian revolutionaries were not fighting for the same ideals you believe in. Just by not realizing that eliminating capitalists concentrated all the power in the government and handed power to Stalin on a silver platter.
Once you come up with an economic model that both works economically and does not hand power to elected officials or some other such group, you have my support. Until then, I will keep the safe assumption that socialists have zero idea what they are talking about and would lead us to doom if we gave them the chance.
Except shares don’t represent the amount of ownership of a company. Everyone gets one vote regardless of how many shares they have, thus equal ownership.
They do however represent the ability to profit from it. Which is what the whole “paid enough to care” thing is all about.
I don’t much care if I have equal voting rights to everyone else in a co-op of which my share is worth ten bucks a year in dividends if the founder is making a million a year or something (which I’d say is realistic for a medium sized company). At the same time, the founder is not going to just give away his ownership, maybe in small chunks, but not the majority of it.
As the other commenter put it, it depends on how it’s structured. There are so many ways to set up a coop I won’t get into how shares affect dividends. Instead I’ll use your example to show why your voting right is worth more than how the profits gets distributed.
If you’re making ten bucks from your share and the founder is making a million, then the cooperative has to be okay with that arrangement. If you’re collectively not okay with it then you have the power to change that. The founder can have all the shares in the world, they still have one vote. Since you collectively have the majority of votes you can simply vote to change how profits get distributed and the founder has to accept it because they don’t own the cooperative, you all do.
I also want to receive stuff for free.
Who doesn’t want to join a co-op and receive shares of the company for free. Almost no one wants to start a co-op, financing it, taking risks and responsibilities only to give shares away for free and gain nothing in exchange.
You don’t finance it, you take a loan from a bank on the company. If the company folds, it goes bankrupt, not you. You don’t take anymore risk than the other workers.
If the company is dead, you’re still a human and now just another worker on the job market. You don’t go to jail for going bankrupt.
You still take all the risk because the bank is going to say they won’t give a loan to a new company without a track record, unless someone is willing to be a guarantor.
Now you share the profits, but all the risk is yours.
Unless you have a bunch of people lined up to start the co-op and they’re all willing to pitch in or become guarantors with you, in which case it might just work - but again, the initial people are going to have more skin in the game than the rest.
Then go ahead and start one :D Good luck finding a bank that gives you an unsecured loan to start a business.
Eh, banks give out loans for people to start restaurants all the time, and restaurants are notoriously risky businesses. There’s hundreds of worker-owned co-ops in the States, so it’s not impossible to find a bank that will fund them.
And if you want a reward for founding a business but want it to be a co-op there are methods thst are reasonable and fair like selling it bit by bit to the employee union at a reasonable price or willing your company to your workers.
** Citation needed.
Looks outside
This unironically
You don’t receive shares for free. You receive shares in return for your labour. You don’t become an equal member of a partnership as soon as you join.
Y’all are getting shares as part of your compensation?
Then it is not equally owned as the title says.
You’re struggling so hard in the comments, just to be wrong.
Why are you so invested in capitalism? Do you own lots of capital or something?
I don’t own much capital, but I live in a post communist country and I sure as hell don’t want to experience the shit our country already went through once.
Let me guess. Post-Russian? Don’t blame communism for Russia’s glaring flaws.
Yeah, blame the Russians. As if the Russian revolutionaries were not fighting for the same ideals you believe in. Just by not realizing that eliminating capitalists concentrated all the power in the government and handed power to Stalin on a silver platter.
Once you come up with an economic model that both works economically and does not hand power to elected officials or some other such group, you have my support. Until then, I will keep the safe assumption that socialists have zero idea what they are talking about and would lead us to doom if we gave them the chance.
Except shares don’t represent the amount of ownership of a company. Everyone gets one vote regardless of how many shares they have, thus equal ownership.
They do however represent the ability to profit from it. Which is what the whole “paid enough to care” thing is all about.
I don’t much care if I have equal voting rights to everyone else in a co-op of which my share is worth ten bucks a year in dividends if the founder is making a million a year or something (which I’d say is realistic for a medium sized company). At the same time, the founder is not going to just give away his ownership, maybe in small chunks, but not the majority of it.
As the other commenter put it, it depends on how it’s structured. There are so many ways to set up a coop I won’t get into how shares affect dividends. Instead I’ll use your example to show why your voting right is worth more than how the profits gets distributed.
If you’re making ten bucks from your share and the founder is making a million, then the cooperative has to be okay with that arrangement. If you’re collectively not okay with it then you have the power to change that. The founder can have all the shares in the world, they still have one vote. Since you collectively have the majority of votes you can simply vote to change how profits get distributed and the founder has to accept it because they don’t own the cooperative, you all do.
It depends on how it’s structured.
Well yeah, but cooperatives generally avoid the possibility of buying voting power because that kinda contradicts the purpose of a coop.
Fair cop.