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.
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.