Everybody can be a shareholder in a publicly traded company. It's pretty easy.

If you want to spin up some conspiracy theory about elites snatching up productivity gains, you should focus on top managers.

(Though honestly, it's mostly just land. The share of GDP going to capital has been roughly steady over the decade. The share going to land has increased slightly at the cost of the labour share.

The labour share itself has seen some shake up in its distribution. But that doesn't involve shareholders.)

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rswail 2 days ago | parent [-]

Everyone with excess disposable income can be a shareholder in a publicly traded company.

The oligarchy of the CxOs and boards and cross-pollination has led to concentration of the rewards of companies into the their hands, compared to 40 years ago.

All the productivity gains have not gone to labor, its predominately gone to equity and then extracted via options and buy backs to avoid tax which means public service and investment has gone down.

The craziness of the USG borrowing to fund tax cuts is the ultimate example.

	▲	eru 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		> All the productivity gains have not gone to labor, its predominately gone to equity [...] What your evidence for that? See https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/2015a_r... for a good account. > [...] and then extracted via options and buy backs to avoid tax which means public service and investment has gone down. You seem very confused about how capital markets work. Are you also suggesting buy backs are morally different from dividends? In any case, the whole point of investing (at least to the investor) is to eventually get more money back than you put in. Returning money to investor is not a bug, it's the point. > The craziness of the USG borrowing to fund tax cuts is the ultimate example. Blame voters.