The cult of the CEO must end.
this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2024
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Around the country, collective action is in a resurgence. I saw striking aircraft workers today. I believe it was Beech, but I’m visiting family and can’t say for sure as Wichita KS is a manufacturing hub.
Wichita is Spirit, the company that makes the plane bodies for Boeing. That's most likely part of the Boeing strike
What if we just made all the workers into CEOs?
Like the workers owned and operated the business? Their hard work would be rewarded with profit sharing? That would actually mean I'd have to care about the shareholders.
But what if those workers owned the business too? Like what if it was beholden to the same kind of person who goes to work every day like the people who worked there?
What a world that would be.
Let the age of microcorporations begin
That doesn’t work. You need a decision maker.
It’s not a terribly difficult job so they don’t need to get paid more than anyone else, but executive action by committee doesn’t work.
executive action by committee doesn’t work.
Is there actually any evidence for that? Isn't that basically what they have in Switzerland? And they are one of the absolute richest countries in the world.
Above the CEO is usually a committee called the board, which govern all stock companies, and by far the most successful big companies are stock companies.
Companies run by a CEO without responsibility towards a committe (board) have much higher risk of doing something incredibly stupid that ruin the company. And can't be removed no matter how incredibly stupid and harmful they are to the company.
For example as we see with Elon Musk and Twitter. Donald Trump and his Casinos. Pillow guy. Michael Dell.
Funny enough also Steve Jobs at first, but then taken in to rescue Apple successfully later.
You are muddling two different concepts in your Switzerland argument. You are probably referring to the fact, that Switzerland has a direct democracy for certain political decisions in addition to having a parliament. But that is not why it's a rich country. That's because of their big companies who are by no means anything else but die hard capitalistic and self serving. You might know some of them for their evil deeds, for example Nestlé.
I'd argue that a democracy is governing by committe on the biggest scale we have, namely a whole country. This is in contrast to dictatorships.
Are you arguing that dictatorship is better at governing than a democracy?
Switzerland is going by the biggest committee there is more than most, and is hugely successful.
... Please read my original comment again carefully. I said nowhere that a dictatorship is better at governing. I said that Switzerland is rich because of their companies being capitalistic assholes that would or better ARE right now fucking up the planet and the rest of humanity. You can read on Wikipedia about Nestle, the Nazi gold and tax haven, the Russian influence, etc. That is how Switzerland got really rich, not due to their direct democracy (which I find awesome).
You could argue that there is a small connection between both, since the neutrality of Switzerland was part of why so many companies and banks managed to get big.
You say Switzerland is rich because of Nestle, OK how much tax does Nestle pay in Switzerland? And how much is that of the total.
I didn't respond to your Nestle argument, because it's silly.
7 of the 10 richest companies in the world are American, so how exactly is Switzerland rich because of 1 company that is ranked 96 on fortune 500?
At very least, adopting the German model of having union reps on the board of directors would be a sensible step.
Yes that's a very good system, that actually increase stability of the company. It probably also prevents a lot of circle jerks out of contact with reality on the floor of the company.
A good example of how a group generally makes better decisions than an individual.
Executive by committee is different than a board that gets together regularly. The board usually gives the ceo direction.
It’s also why most countries have both a committee and an executive instead of just a committee.
In the case of Elon he usually makes shareholders lots of money. Sure he tanked Twitter but that was after they got paid.
I hope one day I can see labor universally organized. I sadly don’t think I will, but that’s the dream
One Big Union!
And average corporate profitability isn't much different than it was in the late '70s. So that means the CEOs are being massively overpaid, and there's a weakness in corporate governance that prevents shareholders correcting the problem.