I've been thinking if we could just make all companies employee owned by law. You'd still get the benefits of capitalism but instead of vampiric investors getting all the benefits it would be the employees that reap the rewards of their own hard work. There are already employee owned businesses that compete just fine against investor owned businesses so I feel like it's already proven out.

[–] mimichuu_@lemm.ee 11 points 1 year ago

That's called market socialism if you're interested in reading about it.

[–] chomskysfave5@lemmy.film 1 points 1 year ago

But that's textbook authoritarianism. Nobody will willingly give away their life's work to what will, in practice, be the state.

[–] Gxost@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Investors are not bad. They cover early-stage expanses, and of course, they want to return that money and get profit. Having investors is better than having nothing. As an alternative, workers can work for free until the company becomes profitable, or even invest some money in it. But I don't think most workers will agree with such a scheme.

[–] fidodo@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There are other ways of securing early capital that don't require you to give a percent of your company to investors. I don't think anything needs to be black and white, but the situation where the only people profiting off the success of a company is outside share holders creates a very anti worker incentive.

[–] Gxost@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

What are those ways? I'm really interested, 'cause as I know startups usually search for investors.