Comment by tsimionescu
1 day ago
Not really, it's possible with any market economy, even a hypothetical socialist one (that is, one where all market actors are worker-owned co-ops).
And, since there is no global super-state, the world economy is a market economy, so even if every state were a state-owned planned economy, North Korea style, still there would exist this type of competition between states.
Worker owned coops are not socialist unless the government forces it.
That is true, but if all business are worker owned Co-ops then it has to be forced
Worker-owned co-ops is the basic idea of socialism (that is what "workers owning the means of productions" means in modern language).
I mean, if you wanna get technical, many companies in Silicon Valley are worker-owned (equity compensation)
They are not worker owned, they have some small amount of worker ownership. But the majority of stock is never owned by workers, other than the CEO.
Consider also that VC funds often have pension funds as their limited partners. Workers have a claim to their pension, and thus a claim to the startup returns that the VC invests in.
So yeah it basically comes down to your definition of "worker-owned". What fraction of worker ownership is necessary? Do C-level execs count as workers? Can it be "worker-owned" if the "workers" are people working elsewhere?
Beyond the "worker-owned" terminology, why is this distinction supposed to matter exactly? Supposing there was an SV startup that was relatively generous with equity compensation, so over 50% of equity is owned by non-C-level employees. What would you expect to change, if anything, if that threshold was passed?
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