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Comment by devalgo | Hacker News Reader

>Democracy is not an efficient way of running a business

Have any data to back that up? Comparing a democratically run corporation to the US government is a non sequitur. Outside VC there is no business model that will allow you to run at a loss for decades. So it's a scenario that's not even possible hypothetically.

Somewhat anecdotal but there is a Worker Co-op in Spain, Mondragon, that's been a very competitive corporation for over 50 years. It can clearly work long term and it leads to better outcomes for employees and the communities they work in.

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Part of this is that VCs as you describe. It doesn't matter if a democratic social media company is more sustainable than Facebook when Facebook receives a half a billion dollars in VC funding to patch up its problems.

Anecdotally, I hear that Ford's biggest problem right now is the union's resistance in adopting the Toyota production system. If I were a factory worker, I wouldn't want to change the way I do things just so the shareholders get richer. That's a perfectly reasonable attitude to have, but it does place Ford at a disadvantage to car makers without unions like Tesla and Toyota.

For that business it might not be a good formula but public education seems to be the biggest thing missing. I've talked with employees who could very very easily run the show themselves if they simply got organized and made a [much smaller] bid on the contract their employer was bidding on. They also know their managers share in the huge profits, drink coffee all day and never show their face(!) If the people doing the work ask for anything there will be a huge deliberate delay or it won't be done as a reminder not to ask for things. Do it again and you will get punished. They are on a first name basis with employees working far away because of the sheer amount of improvisation. If you need widgets you will have to get them from someone.

The employees all know they could run the business but they cant picture themselves doing it. Their arguments are "It's to complicated" but struggle and fail to explain how. It might still not be a good idea but that they draw a blank is the ultimate hurdle for now.

what if all workers were shareholders and the 'union' was a subsection of the company like an autonomous entity w/in the company that still had some voice but that ultimately was ALSO about their bottom line so that their shares go up as do the shares of all other employees?

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