In software I can imagine a worker-owned consultancy, but not a product company. It would imply staying in one place working on one product for your whole life, which doesn't sound inspiring

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dragonwriter 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

A company need not be a single product, and working in a worker-owned cooperative need not be a lifetime commitment to a single firm (though cooperatives ideally will have less turnover than firms owned by capital separated from labor.)

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shimman 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

No, it implies that you give workers the means to dictate the direction of the company. That is what workplace democracy does:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workplace_democracy

Acting like centrally planned dictatorships is a good form of collaboration is just so off base. There's no reason to think that introducing democracy into the work place wouldn't immediately benefit both workers + customers.

If this sounds crazy the C suite + board already vote on who gets hired into the executive team, vote for the direction of the company, and vote for their compensation packages (hint, they never decrease them).

Why shouldn't workers be legally enabled to do the same? What is the justification to this? I'm curious to hear it because the only way people can justify the current system is declaring that some people are actually more deserving of prestige, money, and benefits while others deserve to suffer.

With income inequality increasing, healthcare outcomes worsening, and children literally becoming stupider isn't it time to question the current system and ask ourselves if this is the society we truly want?

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jimbokun 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Where’s your real world evidence of all these benefits of coops?

Because I would love for it to be true.

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shimman 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Well workplace democracy has only been tried in a few corporations. If you want an interesting business case look into Semco Partners in Brazil:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardo_Semler#Semco_1990%E2%8...

There is academic research on this too if you're curious but it's mostly in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

But yes, there isn't much "evidence" because this system hasn't been tried en masse; however if you look at our current neoliberal hellscape, it's pretty hard to imagine it doing worse. Also neoliberalism wasn't really "tried" either, it was thrusted upon us by a group of individuals that wanted it.

One thing to keep in mind is that society can change quite quickly if you want it to. I'm sure the children that died working in factories during the 1800s never imagined such a society where children are valued, cared for, educated, and protected but it did happen.

It has happen before and it can happen again. It only happened because people were willing to fight for it.

The rules are allowed to be changed at anytime if we deem so, a better world is possible.

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jimbokun 4 hours ago | parent [-]

“We are sure it will work because it’s never been tried!”

I believe the Germans have had success with including labor representatives on corporate boards. Maybe we can start there.

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mplanchard 3 hours ago | parent [-]

This is a shallow dismissal of GP’s point. The point is more, “we aren’t sure it won’t work because it has never been tried,” which is much less of a straw man to argue with.

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jimbokun 3 hours ago | parent [-]

No.

There was an unequivocal claim that it will work better than our current system.

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sarchertech 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

They said

“Acting like centrally planned dictatorships is a good form of collaboration is just so off base. There's no reason to think that introducing democracy into the work place wouldn't immediately benefit both workers + customers.”

That sounds more like there’s no evidence that it won’t work than an unequivocal claim that it will.

	▲	AnimalMuppet 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Well... there is historical evidence that centrally planned dictatorships are not a very responsive form of government. Now, corporations usually have the problem of competition, so if they aren't responsive (or at least responsive enough), they get out-competed by those that are. Is that enough to make them different from governments? Perhaps, but I don't know.

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mplanchard 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Could you quote that? I don’t see it.