Cooperatives aren't the only form of employee/worker ownership available. In the United States most employee-owned companies are ESOPs (Employee Stock Ownership Plans), in which the owner of the firm is a trust.
Cooperatives aren't the only form of employee/worker ownership available. In the United States most employee-owned companies are ESOPs (Employee Stock Ownership Plans), in which the owner of the firm is a trust.
The trust is a fiduciary of the employees and votes for the benefit of the employees. There are currently 6,533 ESOPS with $2.1 trillion in assets. That is, there are 6,533 employee-owned firms, with 10.7 million current employees, called members, and about 4.7 million retired persons who are still being paid out the value of their shares or persons who have left the firm and are being paid the value of their shares over time.
This form of employee ownership has a problem because successful ESOP firms become targets of acquisition by larger firms. This means the ESOP trust as a fiduciary MUST entertain any offer that would benefit the employees. In the short term it's good for the employees who are bought out with a significant gain in the value of their shares, but in the long term it reduces the number of employee-owned firms. New Belgium Brewing is a recent example of that. There are still other big consumer product brands that are in niche markets and probably not targets, for now. (King Arthur Baking, Bob's Red Mill, Equal Exchange [coffee, tea, and chocolate], Clif Bar is partly-owned by an ESOP,
A better model is an Employee Ownership Trust whose purpose is broader than an ESOP (which in US law is regulated as a retirement plan under ERISA).
A firmed owned by an EOT is less likely to be sold to another firm. EOTs are relatively rare in the U.S.
There is no reason besides lack of imagination we couldn't incentivize broader employee ownership through the tax code or other laws.
As Nolan says above, once upon a time a national pension system (Social Security) was unimaginable and outside the bounds of acceptability. But now we all take it for granted (unless you're a Republican officeholder, neoliberal Democrat officeholder, or Wall Street vampire).
This doesn't kill the profit motive because even employee-owned firms are capitalist firms that must make some profit to survive. But imagine a United States were, let's be crazy here, 33% of all workers were either worker-cooperative members or ESOP members. Is that a 33% socialist economy? After all, those workers would be owners of means of production.
Even if it weren't public ownership, the political economy—and the culture—of that United States would be so different from ours that it's hard to imagine.
But I agree with Nolan that public ownership of stuff everyone needs is the best solution.
I'll definitely do some deeper reading to learn more about ESOPs, but my initial reaction is skepticism. I'm not sure how ESOPs as a form of public ownership square with the fact that 93% of stocks are owned by the top 10% wealthiest individuals (https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/stock-market-ownership-wealthiest-americans-one-percent-record-high-economy-2024-1). My overall view is that the stock market is not the best way to encourage cooperative ownership as the value of stocks is often determined by stock buybacks and other market manipulations by the wealthy to benefit themselves. Why not have workers share in the profit directly, rather than in a way that allows them to be bought out, or forced to sell their shares in times of need?
We latched onto "co-ops" just because Sean happened to mention them en passant. Thank you for your further insight here.
My own views accord very much with yours and the author's. I could be honest and say it's because the neoliberal experiment succeeded and I failed, because my soul wouldn't follow the money. Or I could be ideological and proclaim Marx right, even if his implementation was wrong. Or I could be practical and default to the position that nothing is ever broke enough to need to fix it.
I have recently been involved in a project on the Republic of Haiti, which of all the nations in the world, aside from the continent of Antarctica, presents the cleanest of slates on which to inscribe new history. A country that has failed in every form of government known to mankind, except that which is to be found 52 miles away on the next island over. Haiti is broken enough to want to fix it. When will the US be that broken?
Cooperatives aren't the only form of employee/worker ownership available. In the United States most employee-owned companies are ESOPs (Employee Stock Ownership Plans), in which the owner of the firm is a trust.
https://www.nceo.org/articles/employee-ownership-by-the-numbers#1
The trust is a fiduciary of the employees and votes for the benefit of the employees. There are currently 6,533 ESOPS with $2.1 trillion in assets. That is, there are 6,533 employee-owned firms, with 10.7 million current employees, called members, and about 4.7 million retired persons who are still being paid out the value of their shares or persons who have left the firm and are being paid the value of their shares over time.
This form of employee ownership has a problem because successful ESOP firms become targets of acquisition by larger firms. This means the ESOP trust as a fiduciary MUST entertain any offer that would benefit the employees. In the short term it's good for the employees who are bought out with a significant gain in the value of their shares, but in the long term it reduces the number of employee-owned firms. New Belgium Brewing is a recent example of that. There are still other big consumer product brands that are in niche markets and probably not targets, for now. (King Arthur Baking, Bob's Red Mill, Equal Exchange [coffee, tea, and chocolate], Clif Bar is partly-owned by an ESOP,
A better model is an Employee Ownership Trust whose purpose is broader than an ESOP (which in US law is regulated as a retirement plan under ERISA).
A firmed owned by an EOT is less likely to be sold to another firm. EOTs are relatively rare in the U.S.
https://www.nceo.org/article/introduction-employee-ownership-trusts
There is no reason besides lack of imagination we couldn't incentivize broader employee ownership through the tax code or other laws.
As Nolan says above, once upon a time a national pension system (Social Security) was unimaginable and outside the bounds of acceptability. But now we all take it for granted (unless you're a Republican officeholder, neoliberal Democrat officeholder, or Wall Street vampire).
This doesn't kill the profit motive because even employee-owned firms are capitalist firms that must make some profit to survive. But imagine a United States were, let's be crazy here, 33% of all workers were either worker-cooperative members or ESOP members. Is that a 33% socialist economy? After all, those workers would be owners of means of production.
Even if it weren't public ownership, the political economy—and the culture—of that United States would be so different from ours that it's hard to imagine.
But I agree with Nolan that public ownership of stuff everyone needs is the best solution.
I'll definitely do some deeper reading to learn more about ESOPs, but my initial reaction is skepticism. I'm not sure how ESOPs as a form of public ownership square with the fact that 93% of stocks are owned by the top 10% wealthiest individuals (https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/stock-market-ownership-wealthiest-americans-one-percent-record-high-economy-2024-1). My overall view is that the stock market is not the best way to encourage cooperative ownership as the value of stocks is often determined by stock buybacks and other market manipulations by the wealthy to benefit themselves. Why not have workers share in the profit directly, rather than in a way that allows them to be bought out, or forced to sell their shares in times of need?
We latched onto "co-ops" just because Sean happened to mention them en passant. Thank you for your further insight here.
My own views accord very much with yours and the author's. I could be honest and say it's because the neoliberal experiment succeeded and I failed, because my soul wouldn't follow the money. Or I could be ideological and proclaim Marx right, even if his implementation was wrong. Or I could be practical and default to the position that nothing is ever broke enough to need to fix it.
I have recently been involved in a project on the Republic of Haiti, which of all the nations in the world, aside from the continent of Antarctica, presents the cleanest of slates on which to inscribe new history. A country that has failed in every form of government known to mankind, except that which is to be found 52 miles away on the next island over. Haiti is broken enough to want to fix it. When will the US be that broken?