Worker ownership is found to be more productive than capitalism. Worker ownership also protects property rights and ensures that the market and individual choice goes hand in hand. Given that, what is your defence for capitalist inefficiency, capitalist monopoly and monopsony?
If there was a shred of truth to anything your contending....... ....why is the United States the most prosperous nation to ever grace the planet? Why has Capitalism and Private Property had so much success there, while Statism and Collective Ownership failed virtually every where and every time it has ever been tried? If Statism was more efficient than the Capitalist alternative.......then Free People would choose the former......but they almost always choose the latter. . . .
I have a great deal of questions, including small business creation. Say a person starts a small company in which he/she is the only "worker". After two years, the demand for the companies services increase to a point where expansion (and therefore increased employment) is possible. How does the business transition from a single worker company (and single owner) to a multi-worker/multi-owner company without creating the disincentive to do so from a marginal benefit and marginal cost standpoint?
I can defend every aspect of my post. For example, Logue and Yates (2006, Cooperatives, Worker-Owned Enterprises, Productivity and the International Labor Organization, Economic & Industrial Democracy, Vol 27, pp 686-690) note: A survey of empirical research on productivity in worker-owned enterprises and cooperatives finds a substantial literature that largely supports the proposition that worker-owned enterprises equal or exceed the productivity of conventional enterprises when employee involvement is combined with ownership. The weight of a sparser literature on cooperatives tends toward the same pattern. In addition, employee-owned firms create local employment, anchor jobs in their communities and enrich local social capital. I'm happy for you to provide any economic analysis, theoretical or empirical, to suggest I'm wrong. You confuse yourself. This isn't about GDP. Its about efficiency. Do you think mass unemployment is efficient? That is the natural result with capitalism's profit motive. Private property hasn't been a success. There hasn't been protection of property rights. That has ensured market concentration, low self-employment and a class system that apes the post-imperialist limeys. Complete red herring! I haven't referred to statism. I've referred to worker ownership and the protection of property rights.
We'd expect greater business creation in socialism, reflecting the reduction in inefficient income differentials We can expect the entrepreneur to receive compensation. They create to receive it. They don't create to exploit and harm property rights. Of course that already happens now (to a lesser extent though because of class restraints), with SMEs taken over by the large corporations (Careful though. Socialism wouldn't lead to all small firms being 'one employee' sized. We'd have the non-SMEs with rational ownership)
Is economic analysis required for this? Isnt reality sufficient? Take a look out the window and see the state of incompetence and waste that consumes everything owned or opertated by the collective......and then success and efficiency brought to you buy the individual. Profit motive yields efficiency.........remove the motive, and your left without efficiency and without profit. How would there ever be high self employment, in a society geared towards the collective? Socialism provides the exact detrements your describing. How can you have one without the other? How can you suggest protection of property rights.......when worker ownership originates with an act of Theft......made possible by the State. . . .
I wasn't saying that all would lead to small ownership (I'm not an "Austrian"). I am only curious as to how a one person company becomes a two person company. Does the new employee have to "buy in"? Or.... Does the new employee receive owner equity compensation on the basis of employee duration? We already see the benefits of opening up equity for employees, e.g. stock options, so i understand such a system is feasible for larger companies. I am just curious in regards to the framework of firm creation (albeit small firm creation).
Of course. Efficiency is an economic concept. Note that, by referring to empirical evidence, I've referred to evidence. Can you show that I'm wrong and that worker ownership is actually less efficient? We both know you can't Complete red herring again. I've referred to the efficiency of worker ownership. I haven't referred to the efficiency of, for example, a command economy. Note of course that a command economy is quite consistent with capitalism: state capitalism Erroneous again. Socialism doesn't eliminate the profit motive. The issue is the market failure created by the profit motive in capitalism. A motive that leads to greater inefficiency Wrong again. You don't seem to understand the meaning of socialism. It refers to worker ownership and control of the means of production. That doesn't mean mass nationalisation, nor some shallow reference to the 'collective'. It means the protection of property rights such that workers receive the value of their labour. What is the value of a firm without labour? Use some simple economics. Given sunk costs, it can actually be negative! Capitalism builds its profit on economic rents. This is nice vocab for 'theft' through exploitation. We both know that you can't show that workers are paid according to their productivity. Crikey, even orthodox economics doesn't assume that!
By employing someone. The restriction (and therefore correction to the labour market) isn't to small enterprises.
You used an overloaded term in your title, socialism. It has a number of definitions, and state owned is the one commonly meant here. As far as worker ownership, that is not incompatable with capitalism at all. For one thing I think most people would agree that worker ownershi via stock options is a good idea all around. Beyond that, Cooperatives do exist within capitalist countries, and usually have specific laws supporting them. However, they appear to have difficulty with scaling up and lasting long term and certainly have not come to dominate the marketplace. Thus, from a simple Darwinian perspective, they clearly have issues and while they certainly do have niches and communities within which they may be very productive, I would not expect the practice to work well on a larger scale. Otherwise it would already be working on a larger scale.
I understand that. But does the new employee become a de facto owner just because they were hired? And if so... how does this occur, e.g. stock options, owner equity transfers, etc...?
I only bother with validity. State ownership is consistent with capitalism, with those ignorant of political economy falling foul of the 'government is socialism' bob. It is naturally deterred in capitalism because of the distinction between profitability and productivity
Within small enterprises we don't have to refer to worker ownership. The labour market is necessarily changed by worker ownership in large enterprises. In those an employee must necessarily be an owner. The nature of the compensation systems used, however, is up to the firm. Worker democracy will encourage a fruitful result
Opportunity is integral: from the investment in human capital to the risk taking opportunities engineered by our tacit knowledge. Socialism, given its worker ownership, should enhance small business opportunity. Indeed, it can't survive if it doesn't
Socialism and "worker owned" are both terms that could apply to a range of implementations. And it isn't at all clear what you're proposing. Goldenboy is trying to fish it out of you, however your obtuse response seems to indicate that maybe you haven't even thought it through yourself.
A weak attempt at dodging your refusal to meet the minimum requirements for the OP. I've already referred to the efficiency gains from socialism, from productivity gains within the enterprise to the elimination of the need for involuntary unemployment (a key means to discipline the workforce and therefore maintain economic rents). The question is then clear. Why do you support the inefficiency of capitalism? Try and provide a coherent answer (and avoid basic definition errors).
Worker ownership of farms in the Ukraine did not prove to be more efficient than the privately owned farms that previously existed. Of course, Reiver will attempt to obfuscate with some vague semantic b.s. about definitions that do not actually exist in any dictionary. But the photo illustrates exactly what "worker ownership" will get us; seven million people starved to death in this fertile country.
Empirical evidence showing greater economic efficiency from worker ownership has already been given. Try and critique it. I doubt you'll be able to
How are people doing in Venezuela? Do they enjoy prosperity under Hugo Chavez? Or just his staunch supporters? We have this little cooperative diner in town. It is in a bad neighborhood. the decor is atrocious, it's dirty and they hire hippies. I don't have any desire to eat there. I'm sure the drug using, hippie commie socialist obama supporters are loving it.
Any chance we can have some economic comment from you. How about telling us about the socialist calculation debate, just for the crack?
Onion, Don't hide. Please critique the empirical evidence presented earlier. If you can't then just say so
You mean this? That is just some guy's opinion. He talks about "substantial literature" without actually citing any of it. That doesn't mean anything. I could argue for the existence of Santa Claus by making equally vague references to "substantial literature," but I don't think I'd convince anybody at the Political Forum. Photos are empirical evidence. Argue against the empirical evidence that I have presented, if you can.
Your dodge is very low powered. Clearly you have no means to critique Logue and Yates. I of course already know that. Your "I use simplistic maths but no-one cares" approach to economics will assuredly lead to zero understanding of employer-employee relations
