Ask Lemmy

186 readers

64 users here now

Ask Lemmy community on sh.itjust.works. Ask us anything you feel like asking, just make sure it's respectful of others and follows the instance rules.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

BomberMan9865

csm10495

Why are many businesses in democratic nations largely undemocratic? (lemm.ee)

submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/asklemmy

59 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] sugar_in_your_tea 1 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Democracy is "owned" by stakeholders, and those stakeholders are the people. So it makes sense for them to have a say in how government works.

A company is owned by shareholders, and they take all of the risk for the company. An employee shows up and gets paid, with none of the downside risk (their paycheck won't go negative), so the employee isn't a stakeholder. Therefore, shareholders make the decisions, not employees.

In some structures, employees are the share holders and thus help make the decisions.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 52 minutes ago (1 children)

An employee shows up and gets paid, with none of the downside risk (their paycheck won't go negative), so the employee isn't a stakeholder. Therefore, shareholders make the decisions, not employees.

This depends on where the employee works, both in terms of business and nation. If they work in a nation that doesn't provide some services, they may be dependent on their employer to some degree for some of those services. In that circumstance they're no longer "just" showing up and getting paid, nor are they as mobile in their ability to switch businesses/employers.

Should those employees in that circumstance still have essentially no say?

[–] sugar_in_your_tea 1 points 6 minutes ago

Could you be a little more specific? Because that sounds extremely hypothetical.

Let's say you're working on a crab ship or something where your life is literally at risk. You should absolutely have a say because:

your income depends on your catch (could be zero, could be huge)
you can't leave
you are wholly dependent on the ship for food and lodging
will be at sea for weeks and maybe months at a time
work ends at the end of the season

So yeah, in that case, something like a coop would make a lot of sense, with the captain (i.e. owner of the ship) having a larger say because they have more at risk. If the crab company goes under, they won't get paid and they'll be really hard pressed to find another job between crab seasons.

But something like a cruise ship isn't a great fit because employees can be offered a fixed salary/wage, the risk is a lot lower, and trip times are a lot shorter. The expense of starting a cruise line is immense, so the owners have a lot more risk than the average employee. If the cruise line goes under, they can just join a competitor or even another business entirely, and they'll likely still get their paycheck.

Whether you should have a say depends a lot on what you're risking, the more you risk, the more say you should have.