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”.
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”.