Comment by paulddraper
14 hours ago
“The only thing missing is ownership that answers to the people — not to shareholders.”
Like, all people in the world?
Customers? Employees?
What does this mean?
EDIT: It’s shareholders, but each person has one vote regardless of share count.
IMHO this should have been written “to the customers and employees”. To me, those are the people who compose a business enterprise.
I’ve never seen that work. There is a fundamental tension between those groups. Hence, member-owned co-ops and employee-owned co-ops.
> I’ve never seen that work. There is a fundamental tension between those groups. Hence, member-owned co-ops and employee-owned co-ops.
Focusing strictly on shareholders (value) has been en vogue since the 1970s:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_doctrine
Before that the general thinking was along the lines of:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakeholder_theory
Somehow companies managed to survive and grow before the 1970s.
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But the customers and employees don’t actually put up the money for the enterprise.
If you assume there is an airplane — great, run the airline for the customers and employees. But the cost of the airplane can’t be handwaved away.