Money. The answer is always money.

I'm proud of the work I do. I get immense satisfaction for a job well done and appreciate being appreciated.

If someone offers me millions of dollars to take over my job only to do a worse job, I will absolutely take the money and retire early. No hesitation. No regrets. I won't even take the time to pack up my desk.

If it's a publicly traded company they don't have a choice. Fall in line or hostile takeover and get replaced.

I think most would gladly retire if they were offered millions or billions.

The latter every time. It's made much worse as it's almost always achieved via a leveraged buy out, saddling the business with huge debt and absolving the vulture from most of the risk. It's used as a one way ticket to stripping the company of any value.

because workers don't collectively own the means of production.

not to be like that, but once some new hotness graduates from 2 people in a garage, the controlling interest is never the workers who have a vested interest in products, daily work (and a brand) they can be proud of, but investors with only short term profit on their mind. innovators- and inventors-turned-C suite executives jump ship when bought out, leaving the real meat and potatoes, the real work behind the brand, to be offshored, profit prioritized and picked clean.

buy from worker-owned co-ops. buy from local crafters and people deserving of the label 'artisan'. flat out refuse to buy from brands that are a sad, hollowed out husk of their former selves. more importantly - most importantly - do what you can to keep your retirement investments away from quartly-profit mills who couldnt care less about workers or customers beyond raw sales numbers. and definitely, definitely never agree to work for them.

Let's say you own a company you work at and made. When do you quit and realize all your wealth? Maybe you keep it forever but your children don't want it but want access to the money.

At the end of the day people are sell outs eventually

Tool brands were exactly my first thought as well.