this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2026
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I'm so sick of this patronizing head-pat "everything else is just as bad, we tried" response.
The fact of the matter is that the easiest way to do this under our system is making companies employee owned.
I worked for one for several years, and yes it was subject to many of the same administrative issues as every other company, but every single employee earned stock every month that kept increasing in value. A guy who had worked there for about 30 years as a worker -not a manager- was retiring with a stock portfolio worth millions. They also had the normal crappy 401k and social security they could have earned anywhere else, but because it was employee owned, they had all that company stock too.
So we have shown it can work to have the workers own the means of production. Is convenient to present government ownership as the same thing so it can be easily criticized, but it isn't really.
How does that work for the next generation of employees, the ones that weren't there from the beginning? Doesn't it mean privatisation as people retire and sell off their shares? And doesn't it mean dilution of value for new employees as their shares represent an ever smaller portion of the company?
How do they approach those issues?
You don't get to take the stock when you go, you get cash value in a retirement account and the company reclaims the stock for future accrual by employees.
What determines cash value in that case?
Hey employee owned companies I agree with. I agree with trying something new for sure, my main point isn’t to patronize it’s to highlight that we need a system that keeps everyone engaged and educated.
Elites will always try to tell people not to worry, to sell their shares to them, the trust them. This needs to be prevented and discouraged structurally and culturally.
Let’s try, it’s worth trying always, I’m not saying to give up, I’m saying the cycle will cause another revolution, what we do with that new chance is important to understand what is turning the wheel.