One could argue that every public company is socialist—ownership is open to anyone who can spend a few hours wages on shares of stock. I suspect that wouldn’t make the cut for this post. What DOES identify a socialist ownership or management of a corporation or other changing- and voluntary-membership organization?
I think an important part is that the interests of all employees are (hypothetically) aligned. So even if you only own 1/1000 of the company, the remaining 999 shareholders also vote for the things you want. As opposed to your example when someone buys 1/1000 of the company, but has no impact on the outcomes, because the remaining 999/1000 votes are incompatible.
Wow. I have to admit I hadn’t heard that dimension before, and I’m not sure I get it. Humans are generally not aligned, especially on the level of who gets what jobs and how much they get paid. Does that mean it’s impossible in the real world? Or do I completely miss your point?
Workers at a business are generally more aligned with each other than they are with the shareholders of the business. For example, if the company is debating a policy that has a 51% chance of doubling profit and a 49% chance of bankrupting the company, I would expect most shareholders to be in favor (since it’s positive EV for them). But for worker-owners, that’s a 49% chance of losing their job and a 51% chance of increasing salary but not doubling (since it’s profit that is doubling, not revenue, and their salaries are part of the expenses), so I would expect them to be against the policy.
The same goes for things like policies around worker treatment—if a proposed policy would increase profit by 10% but make workers have a much more unpleasant environment, shareholders would probably vote in favor while worker-owners would vote against.
Obviously there are some shareholders who would go against their profit motive for improving the lives of stakeholders (see ESG funds), and workers who would choose a chance for more money over better working conditions or a lower chance of lowing their job. But I would generally expect the two groups to disagree with each other but be aligned internally.
I always like it when I can upvote and disagree :)
I think you have to be in VERY far mode, and still squint a bit, to think of that as “alignment” to the degree that distinguishes socialist from conventional organizations. Sure, employees as a group will prefer higher median wages over more profits (though maybe not if they’re actual owners to a great degree), but I have yet to see a large organization where workers care all that much about other workers (distant ones, with different roles, who compete for prestige and compensation even while cooperating for delivery).
Conventional org owners/leaders care a lot about worker retention and productivity, which is often summarized as “satisfaction”. I have seen no evidence in my <mumble> years at companies big and small, including both tech and non-tech workers that office workers care more about warehouse workers than senior management does. There is probably slightly more for warehouse workers caring about workers in other warehouses, but even then, there’s cut-throat hatred for closing “my” warehouse rather than someone else’s.
Without the qualifier “different roles” I had in mind that you can privately not like peeing into to a bottle to be pretty well correlated with your coworker also not liking it without you considering each other.
And then when I apply the same about office workers thinking about warehouse workers peeing in bottles it seems they would not be ambivalent but slightly against.
While it is quite easy to see a manager wanting a policy that has 10% number increase and no numeric effect on any other number to be default in favour.
In reverse this can be seen that a worker is unnaturally insulated about the meangingfulness of their task. Moving boxes day in day out probably feels very samey, while a manager can see that now we are serving this nationality people and now that. Or indeed that with no increase customers per worker might be 10 and with 10% increase we have 11 customers per worker. And offcourse customers have a difficult time telling whether their packages were done pee-bottle-free.
While workers are not especially knowledgeable they are uniquely situated for certain kinds of information. So even if they are not especially homogenous the dimensions on which they base opinions on are probably the same. Also if you know you are powerless it is easy to not care. If you are an office worker and know you do or could have a say, “pee bottles in my company” activates accountability differently. If you are not so situated you will probably frame is as “their company”, “company I work at”, “Big dude that breaths into my neck is equally asshole to those guys too”.
If workers own the company, they might agree on more vacation, no unpaid overtime, better working conditions, etc. These would be the shared preferences.
If someone else owns the company, they will typically want a CEO who squeezes out of the company as much profit as possible. Everything else is purely instrumental. Yeah, it might happen that giving people more vacation is good for attracting talent that generates more profit, in which case the company might also decide to provide more vacation. Or maybe the CEO decides that vacation is irrelevant, or should only be given to people working at certain selected positions. Basically, from the perspective of a worker it is mostly random, but more often bad news.
If you are one of 1000 workers, and you own 1/1000 of the company… but other workers did not buy shares, so 999/1000 of the company is owned by someone who doesn’t work there, do not expect the company to be any nicer to you than is strictly necessary.
EDIT: After reading your other comment...
I think that people are more likely to empathize with people in a similar role than with people in a different role. As an “individual contributor” myself, I find it natural to empathize with people who have to do overtime and hate it. But who knows, maybe in a parallel world where I am a manager, I empathize with managers who get frustrated with the lazy bastards who prioritize their family and hobbies over getting their boss a well-deserved bonus.
But even if I had zero empathy towards people in a similar role, arguing for the benefits of everyone is a Schelling point. I can get more support for “more vacation for everyone” than for “more vacation for Viliam”.
I think an important part is that the interests of all employees are (hypothetically) aligned. So even if you only own 1/1000 of the company, the remaining 999 shareholders also vote for the things you want. As opposed to your example when someone buys 1/1000 of the company, but has no impact on the outcomes, because the remaining 999/1000 votes are incompatible.
Wow. I have to admit I hadn’t heard that dimension before, and I’m not sure I get it. Humans are generally not aligned, especially on the level of who gets what jobs and how much they get paid. Does that mean it’s impossible in the real world? Or do I completely miss your point?
Workers at a business are generally more aligned with each other than they are with the shareholders of the business. For example, if the company is debating a policy that has a 51% chance of doubling profit and a 49% chance of bankrupting the company, I would expect most shareholders to be in favor (since it’s positive EV for them). But for worker-owners, that’s a 49% chance of losing their job and a 51% chance of increasing salary but not doubling (since it’s profit that is doubling, not revenue, and their salaries are part of the expenses), so I would expect them to be against the policy.
The same goes for things like policies around worker treatment—if a proposed policy would increase profit by 10% but make workers have a much more unpleasant environment, shareholders would probably vote in favor while worker-owners would vote against.
Obviously there are some shareholders who would go against their profit motive for improving the lives of stakeholders (see ESG funds), and workers who would choose a chance for more money over better working conditions or a lower chance of lowing their job. But I would generally expect the two groups to disagree with each other but be aligned internally.
I always like it when I can upvote and disagree :)
I think you have to be in VERY far mode, and still squint a bit, to think of that as “alignment” to the degree that distinguishes socialist from conventional organizations. Sure, employees as a group will prefer higher median wages over more profits (though maybe not if they’re actual owners to a great degree), but I have yet to see a large organization where workers care all that much about other workers (distant ones, with different roles, who compete for prestige and compensation even while cooperating for delivery).
Conventional org owners/leaders care a lot about worker retention and productivity, which is often summarized as “satisfaction”. I have seen no evidence in my <mumble> years at companies big and small, including both tech and non-tech workers that office workers care more about warehouse workers than senior management does. There is probably slightly more for warehouse workers caring about workers in other warehouses, but even then, there’s cut-throat hatred for closing “my” warehouse rather than someone else’s.
Without the qualifier “different roles” I had in mind that you can privately not like peeing into to a bottle to be pretty well correlated with your coworker also not liking it without you considering each other.
And then when I apply the same about office workers thinking about warehouse workers peeing in bottles it seems they would not be ambivalent but slightly against.
While it is quite easy to see a manager wanting a policy that has 10% number increase and no numeric effect on any other number to be default in favour.
In reverse this can be seen that a worker is unnaturally insulated about the meangingfulness of their task. Moving boxes day in day out probably feels very samey, while a manager can see that now we are serving this nationality people and now that. Or indeed that with no increase customers per worker might be 10 and with 10% increase we have 11 customers per worker. And offcourse customers have a difficult time telling whether their packages were done pee-bottle-free.
While workers are not especially knowledgeable they are uniquely situated for certain kinds of information. So even if they are not especially homogenous the dimensions on which they base opinions on are probably the same. Also if you know you are powerless it is easy to not care. If you are an office worker and know you do or could have a say, “pee bottles in my company” activates accountability differently. If you are not so situated you will probably frame is as “their company”, “company I work at”, “Big dude that breaths into my neck is equally asshole to those guys too”.
If workers own the company, they might agree on more vacation, no unpaid overtime, better working conditions, etc. These would be the shared preferences.
If someone else owns the company, they will typically want a CEO who squeezes out of the company as much profit as possible. Everything else is purely instrumental. Yeah, it might happen that giving people more vacation is good for attracting talent that generates more profit, in which case the company might also decide to provide more vacation. Or maybe the CEO decides that vacation is irrelevant, or should only be given to people working at certain selected positions. Basically, from the perspective of a worker it is mostly random, but more often bad news.
If you are one of 1000 workers, and you own 1/1000 of the company… but other workers did not buy shares, so 999/1000 of the company is owned by someone who doesn’t work there, do not expect the company to be any nicer to you than is strictly necessary.
EDIT: After reading your other comment...
I think that people are more likely to empathize with people in a similar role than with people in a different role. As an “individual contributor” myself, I find it natural to empathize with people who have to do overtime and hate it. But who knows, maybe in a parallel world where I am a manager, I empathize with managers who get frustrated with the lazy bastards who prioritize their family and hobbies over getting their boss a well-deserved bonus.
But even if I had zero empathy towards people in a similar role, arguing for the benefits of everyone is a Schelling point. I can get more support for “more vacation for everyone” than for “more vacation for Viliam”.