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OT-If Apple Were A Worker Cooperative, Each Employee Would Earn At Least $403K

A lot of those profits were earned from marking up outsourced 3rd world country labor an insane amount, so I consider the article misleading as none of those people are included in the employee count.
 
Surprise, surprise. Another nonsensical article misusing facts to paint corporations as evil, greedy bloodsuckers. I hope there are still enough free thinkers in the country to see through this noise.
 
I have been self employed since 1968 and am not selling socialism. I deliberately didn't comment to see what the reaction would be. I agree that the article is oversimplified, but note that it says they would get that payment in addition to their normal wages, a profit sharing bonus. Obviously a company is going to hold back a sizable amount of cash for future uses and not give every bit to the stockholders and top management.

For much of my career I have been in a position like the old English Navy warrant officers, working alongside a machinist or electronics technician, then going to lunch with the company owner and also having employees of my own, being responsible for paychecks, so I have had an unusual view of the problem. I also had the very doubtful privilege of spending two weeks in East Germany in August 1968, watching the tanks go by on their way to subdue Czechoslovakia. Communist style socialism sucks and I want no part of it.

However, I thing the entire approach is going to need a major overhaul as automation increases, the productivity of individual workers increases and the number needed decreases. I don't know what the replacement will look like, but I am sure that it must contain a personal incentive where workers are rewarded for their efforts. No iron rice bowls.

Here is one effort that has its problems, too, but has had considerable success.

Mondragon Corporation - Wikipedia

Bill
 
Okay, if Apple was a coop the workers would get a 400K bonus.

Apple has a market cap of 825 Billion, so every worker would have had to invest 8.4 million to get their 400K share of the earnings.
 
Bullshit, nothing ever would have gotten done. Apple would not exist. If the designer/engineer got paid the same as a paper pusher or the janitor there would be no incentive to do anything more than a paper pusher or a janitor. Socialism has been tried over and over and is a failure every time.

A like is not enough, for this....i'd buy you lunch if want to stop by :D
 
The guy at Forbes who wrote this is full of it- because he has no idea how a real worker cooperative works.
Mondragon, the largest worker cooperative in the world, grosses around $15 to $20 Billion a year. But they dont just divide the net income among all the workers. A real workers cooperative pays its workers salaries, and keeps funds for investment, R&D, expansion, and all the regular expenses of any other company.

So, the headline is complete bullshit.
If Apple was a workers cooperative, its employees might make a bit more than they do now, but some workers cooperatives pay everyone the same, and most do not. Mondragon has a wide range of salaries- just being an employee there doesnt make you get an equal percentage of after tax profit.

I have actually worked for a coop- and got paid market wages. I owned a share of another company I worked for, after they did an ESOP- another way of shifting ownership to employees, and, again, just got paid market wages.

the idea that if workers own a company, it will immediately crash, is absurd. There are worker owned companies around the world, including some in the USA, that have been around for decades. The workers are, essentially, the shareholders. And, just like any other shareholders, they want the company to make a profit, and continue in business.

here is an interesting list of the 100 largest employee owned companies in the USA- some are "worker cooperatives", some are not. Many are companies you may have done business with. I have been a subcontractor for several large construction projects run by Parsons, for example, and it was far from "socialism". But it was a worker owned company. And it is no failure.
The Employee Ownership 100: America's Largest Majority Employee-Owned Companies
 
Bullshit, nothing ever would have gotten done. Apple would not exist. If the designer/engineer got paid the same as a paper pusher or the janitor there would be no incentive to do anything more than a paper pusher or a janitor. Socialism has been tried over and over and is a failure every time.

Actually, a certain amount of socialism has worked very well. In my view, a big part of the problem is that people try to make socialism, capitalism, free market, etc. ideologies when they should be viewed as mechanisms, using the right tool for the job, not blindly having faith in a particular mechanism. You don't put mill work on a lathe. All have limitations and all need regulation. I get really weary of people who keep saying things like "We need to get government out of business." We need the correct degree of regulation, such as not allowing companies to dump toxic waste in our rivers and not allowing banks to play the commodities market with depositor's money.

Having said that, I basically agree with Moonlight, as I usually do. What these utopian fantasies of worker equality leave out is the visionary who pushes something through against all advice and the designers who have the pivotal insight to produce a new product. They also leave out the long, long nights and weekends, usually with a spouse complaining the whole time, that a small business owner knows too well.

Bill
 
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This is an interesting way to keep a worker owned company honest- give em all guns. Janus is a worker owned ("socialist" to some of you) company that specializes in global security. Including bodyguards, port security, even guard dogs! Although I dont think the dogs get an ownership position.

7000 "owners", and I think a fair amount of em could potentially be pretty scary if they needed to. They even have a division that clears minefields and does IED detection training.
Security and Risk Management – Janus Global Operations
 
Socialism has been tried over and over and is a failure every time.
China's kickin yer butt, buddy, and it's as socialist as the day is long. Gubmint controls everything in China.

When was the last time you managed to find a Made in USA anything ? Gotta look hard, don't you ? Even automobiles, car-crazy Amurrica in second place.

I think you best be re-appraising that little platitude. The USSR did not work well (and they are still not doing well, even as bigtime capitalists) but China has been kickin' butt and takin' names .... Socialism, with Chinese characteristics, is what they call it these days.

What's that deal about logic ? all it takes is one counter-example to prove a statement false ?

Communist style socialism sucks and I want no part of it.
Umm, beg to differ slightly here also. That's not "Communist-style socialism." That's post-Stalin Soviet totalitarianism. A!=B. Just like the US is not really a democracy and not really capitalist. If you are going to throw rocks, then aim better :D
 
From what I know about China, which isn't enough to make me an expert, there is a version of free enterprise. In Henry Kissinger's book on China, he quotes a minister who was expressing Deng Chao Peng's philosophy,

"I don't care what color a cat is, but does it catch mice?"

Apparently they use either as required.

Bill
 
From what I know about China, which isn't enough to make me an expert, there is a version of free enterprise.
I don't quite understand this ? What does "free enterprise" have to do with socialism ? Unless you want to set up a competing sewer system or something ?

Socialism takes care of the basics of society, but what you do with your life is pretty much up to you.
 
Looks to me like this belongs in the Manufacturing in America and Shitholes section...
 
I don't quite understand this ? What does "free enterprise" have to do with socialism ? Unless you want to set up a competing sewer system or something ?

Socialism takes care of the basics of society, but what you do with your life is pretty much up to you.

We are playing with semantics here. By Communist style socialism I tried to put a simple label on the system there at that time. The East German government called it socialism. There were signs all over Magdeburg saying "We love our glorious socialism". Mack Reynolds called it state capitalism. A Russian girl who came here when a teenager called it a dictatorship and what you did with your life was pretty much up to the state. There was no higher level free enterprise, only small shops.

Most of the competitors in the World Aerobatic Contest were flying Zlin 526s so there was a factory crew there. The 526 had a 150 hp inverted inline engine with a carburetor that had two float bowls, one upside down, with a gravity operated valve to decide which one to use. That was fine during a slow roll but when they pointed the plane straight up, it couldn't decide which to use and the engine shut off. Someone asked a Czech why they didn't do something about it. He replied that they had a 180 hp fuel injected engine ready to go but their quota was set by a commissar in Moscow. If they shut the line down to make the change, they wouldn't make their quota so they went on producing what they knew was an inferior product. The Americans there more or less assumed that the Czech "Prague Spring" was a free speech issue. The Czechs had rarely had free speech and that was only part of the issue. The problem was that the Russians told them what to produce and how much, then when they made a sale to another country, the Russians kept the pounds, Swiss francs, dollars, etc. and paid the Czechs in rubles, which were worthless outside of the Soviet block. Their view was that they failed to get out from under the system this time so they would try again because sooner or later they had to.

Actually, I think the present system will continue to gravitate to a form of socialism where everyone gets a basic stipend, free medical care and the freedom to try to earn additional income by holding a job or starting a business.

Bill
 
We are playing with semantics here. By Communist style socialism I tried to put a simple label on the system there at that time. The East German government called it socialism. There were signs all over Magdeburg saying "We love our glorious socialism". Mack Reynolds called it state capitalism.

Probably not the right forum for it, but its important stuff nontheless

State Capitalism, that' a lousy name for it imo, in that profits and market didn't drive activity, central planning did. The definitions of capitalism and socialism are very well understood, they are terms for an economic model (vs communism which is more a political/ideology). Socialism quite simply is an economy model where the means of production are state owned or controlled. EG is partially correct, every economy will have aspects of socialism, i.e. the road you drove on this morning, but its generally understood that you describe an economy by its predominant economic driver, i.e. Canada is capitalist, Cuba is socialist despite that fact neither is 100%.

This stuff is important to keep hammering away at, as you've more youth advocating socialism than capitalism today but imo none seems to have a foggy clue what socialism is. Compared to how much misery, torture and death socialists governments have dished out to their own citizens, this development should be about as shocking as if the majority of youth wanted a Nazi's government in power. imo its from ignorance (the don't really want an economy like the former USSR's and likely have little sense of what it was like) and the start of a solution is awareness of just what it is they're asking for
 
Workers Cooperatives have absolutely nothing to do with State Capitalism. They are companies owned by the workers. NOT the government.
And there are also member owned cooperatives- which, again, are not owned by the State, nor are they socialist.
Recreational Equipment Incorporated, or REI, is a member owned cooperative. I worked for them in the 70s, and my son worked for them a few years ago.

One of the largest, and most successful cooperatives in the USA- and, again, no relationship to Socialism.
I used to be a member, for years, of Group Health Cooperative, a patient owned co-op of clinics and hospitals. At its peak, over 1 million members.
NO State ownership or interference.
Recently its board decided to sell itself to Kaiser Permanente, which is a non-profit health care organisation, again, not socialist.

A cooperative is a 100% Capitalist business that has a different ownership model from the two most common ones- Sole proprietorship or multiple shareholders. But, aside from that difference, its much like any other Capitalist business.

not sure how, so quickly, everybody gets their panties in a wad about the evils of socialism, just because all the employees own shares, rather than a teachers union or a bunch of retireees.
 








 
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