• Chriskmee@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Employees are allowed to buy company stock and vote using it just like anyone else. Many companies even have employee stock purchase programs. What’s the problem ?

    • silent_water [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago
      1. those shares don’t give you voting rights

      2. those shares amount to a tiny fraction of the total value of the company

      3. without the employees there would be no company

      you try to square those three facts

      • Chriskmee@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago
        1. So all those times I’ve gotten mail about using my shares to vote, what was that about exactly?

        2. Of course they do, I don’t expect a given employee who isn’t the owner or high level exec to have a larger fraction of ownership.

        3. So what? What’s your point?

          1. Mostly it was about fooling you into thinking that, as a worker, you have even an iota of power within that company.

          2. You: “The owners deserve all the value that results from owning the company and not the workers because the owners own the company, duh.” Reread what you said and note the ridiculous circular logic.

          3. The company would continue to function perfectly fine without the owner(s), yet would immediately cease to function or even exist without the workers. The only role the owner plays in the company (that the workers operate), is to siphon the value away from the workers who made it and unto themselves.

          • Chriskmee@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago
            1. The workers get paid, they get value out of it, they aren’t slaves.

            2. The company wouldn’t exist without owners, someone created it, someone started it, someone owns it. The owners are also the ones usually making the big decisions, they have a lot of skin in the game when it comes to the future of the company.

            Look at a company like Blockbuster. With a better owner they could have changed their position to stay around as a company, but the owner made bad choices. If there was no owner what would have happened? It probably would have failed even quicker because there is nobody making decisions and most employees probably didn’t see the wiring on the wall until it was too late.

            A good owner would have seen the direction the market was going and changed the company to prepare. Netflix has been fighting this fight for a while now, switching from streaming other’s content to making their own content. Without an owner they would have died a long time ago.

            • very_poggers_gay [they/them]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              The company wouldn’t exist without owners, someone created it, someone started it, someone owns it. The owners are also the ones usually making the big decisions, they have a lot of skin in the game when it comes to the future of the company.

              The kingdom wouldn’t exist without monarchs, someone created it, someone started it, someone rules it. The monarchs are also the ones usually making the big decisions, they have a lot of skin in the game when it comes to the future of the kingdom.

              Americans are so pro-democracy, but they’ll bust out the most self-defeating, thoughtless, begging-the-question-ass logic to argue against having democracy in the workplace. Sad.

                • very_poggers_gay [they/them]@hexbear.net
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                  1 year ago

                  I hope you can realize this is a false equivalency, but maybe you can’t?

                  If you believe so little in democracy in the workplace, why do you bother with democracy at all? Should other institutions that govern our lives also function as oligarchies, dictatorships, autocracies?

                  • Chriskmee@lemm.ee
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                    1 year ago

                    Maybe a workplace and a government are different and shouldn’t be run the same way? Just a thought.

    • very_poggers_gay [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      Employees are allowed to buy company stock and vote using it just like anyone else.

      And vote with what money? Income inequality is arguably as worse as it has ever been. More and more workers are forced to live on wages that can’t even cover their basic needs, let alone buying power, while the capitalist/owning class is hoarding unbelievable wealth.

      How can workers vote with their money to overturn a system designed by wealthy employers to make themselves as wealthy as possible (a system that involves keeping employee wages as low as possible, btw)? That’s the fucking problem, lmao.

      Consider this: Wealth inequality in America today is worse than it was in ancient Egypt. Your “solution” is like asking asking what’s the problem with the slaves of ancient Egypt not buying their way into power.