this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2025
96 points (92.9% liked)

Ask Lemmy

33039 readers
3113 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Ive often seen individuals on the left talking about how billionares shouldnt exist etc., but when probed on how that could be accomplished the answer is usually just taxes or guillotines. I dont think either is great.

What if instead, corporations were made to be unable to be sold or owned. Initially theyre made to default to popular election for their board, and after that they can set up a charter or adopt a standard one, ratified by majority vote of their employees.

Bank collapse would probably follow, how could that be remedied? Maybe match the banks invalidated stocks with bonds?

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] anachrohack@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Maybe just give rid of the 2ndary market. You can only buy stock directly from the company, and you're entitled to a % of profit share as a result of that. When you're done, you can sell the stock back to the company

[–] Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

A return to pure value investing would be incredible harm reduction about, I dunno, sixty years ago. Nowadays the derivatives market is so much larger than the actual market that any attempt to unwind it might literally collapse the entire global economy

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 4 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

At least some of that is tax rates. A few tweaks to unrealized income and losses, capital gains and losses, treatment of dividends, and we can step back from the brink of “financial engineering” and get back to using the profit motive for actual engineering. Basically repeal most of the tax changes since Reagan

[–] Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world 3 points 21 hours ago

Whisper of a dream

[–] heatofignition@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Why don't you think taxing the super rich is great?

[–] collapse_already@lemmy.ml 1 points 15 hours ago

I would be happy of your stocks got a new basis every year. The delta between the old basis an the new basis is ordinary income and you owe taxes based on that income.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

The "make every company a cooperative" concept has been proposed before. For certain companies it could make sense, but it gets a little tricky when it's anything that needs significant funds to get off the ground.

Corporations were invented for a reason: it creates a mechanism whereby investors can put money in up front in exchange for a share of possible profits once the venture gets going. For example, that makes it possible to build a billion dollar nuclear reactor with 100 staff people who couldn't each pay 10 million dollars.

The mechanism that creates billionaires is only sort of related. Elon Musk, for example, built up his wealth through tangential involvement with a series of really successful companies.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 3 points 21 hours ago

I still think capitalism is a useful tool. But by are we letting it use us rather than the other way around?

Government was arguably created to establish a market, needed for any economic system to work. You need consistent legal structure, money, a way to do business.

But our failure is government getting owned by the market rather than shaping it for the good of their constituents. Let capitalism be our tool in a market that factors in externalities, fairness and that rewards work.combine that with a progressive tax system like what we claim, and things are looking up, with what seems like minor changes.

  • why does the market fail to account for environmental destruction in the cost of doing business?
  • why is the market based on a legal structure that exploit individuals?
  • why do the richest people have the lowest effective tax rate?
[–] Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

You just reinvented a Co-Op.

However, at what level does this get enacted?

Does little Tommy's summer lawn cutting "business" with his 3 neighbors as customers need an elected board in order to operate?

If I run a business and need a secretary to take care of some mundane things while I do the actual money making part of the business, doors that secretary suddenly get 50% vote over all decisions?

[–] Lv_InSaNe_vL@lemmy.world 1 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

So to answer your questions

  1. Depends on how they have their business registered. I once worked at a company that had 7 people total working there, but because it was legally a corporation it had a "board", which was just the 3 guys who owned the company.
  2. Not necessarily, going back to my previous answer, but there is no legal requirement to sell your stocks when you hire someone. And if you decide to sell stocks you can do a private sale of any amount of the company that you want.

Just because a company is a registered corporation doesn't mean their stocks are sold publicly. But because they are a registered corporation, they have to have a board.

[–] Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip 1 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

The op did not mention only companies that would be publicly sold. It said ALL OWNERSHIP of companies would be banned. So yeah, people can currently register their companies in whatever way they wish, but the op removes all the options that make the most sense for small companies. And I bet your example was just a partnership, and they wanted to feel fancy by calling it a board.

[–] Lv_InSaNe_vL@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago

Oh, I didn't see the no ownership thing. Yeah that's dumb haha

[–] bonus_crab@lemmy.world 1 points 21 hours ago

Your questions at the end are what distinguish this from a co op.

Im not saying i have an answer for every case, but a co op has strictly one vote per employee.

I think itd be okay to build on top of that and let co-ops of more than 2 people set up some sort of charter or constitution that requires periodic re ratification.

3 is the minimum amt of employees that makes sense imo.

[–] Semjaza@lemmynsfw.com 8 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Just go back to needing futures to actually be fulfilled in kind.

And maybe limit/outlaw complex financial products.

These would be a solid start to fixing the issue of the unsustainable, and irrational, not to mention unconstructive economic growth of the last 60 years.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] lime@feddit.nu 81 points 2 days ago (3 children)

i think an easier way would be to limit stock trading to once per fiscal quarter.

stocks were invented as a way for people to invest in things they believe in, and get some money back as thanks. with the advent of rapid trading, the economy has become hopelessly slaved to the ticker; the business is no longer what makes value, value is what makes value.

it's all turned into speculation. eliminating that part would go a long way.

[–] d00phy@lemmy.world 13 points 2 days ago

If I’m not mistaken, the US has the beginnings of this in place already in the form of taxes on short-term investments. I’m by no means a tax expert, but this could be a starting point, maybe.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] crystalmerchant@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Our beef supply would vanish overnight

[–] bonus_crab@lemmy.world 1 points 20 hours ago

WHERE DID THE COWS GO

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 3 points 1 day ago

It becomes very hard to form a company of any reasonable size without government intervention. At that point, corporations that form need tight relations with the government.

[–] HailSeitan@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (1 children)

Why not instead have public and/or worker ownership of stocks, as the Meidner plan proposed, or in the form of a Social Wealth Fund as Matt Bruenig at the People’s Policy Project has suggested? This give people both democratic control and socializes the profits. As long as we have corporations, having them owned either by the public or by their workers (in the form of cooperatives) seems like the way to go.

[–] bonus_crab@lemmy.world 2 points 21 hours ago

I think the people that built a company are better qualified to elect their ceo than the bulk populus. Gotta be democratically elected by workers imo, though a simple majority isnt always the best way.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world -1 points 21 hours ago

I read through almost the whole thing wondering how it would connect to “socks”. Is he a shill for “big footwear”?

You need a way to invest in companies, especially for any to grow, and you need to motivate people. A central economy might budget tax revenue, typically on a multi-year plan, but it tends not to be responsive to real world messiness nor motivating. Capitalism means anyone can invest in a company, getting partial ownership and partial benefit from gains and responding quickly to the whims of the market. People are motivated by profit. Are you proposing a third way?

[–] rational_lib@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Well that would eliminate the whole point of corporations, which is to make it easy to raise money.

Let's start with an understanding of why corporations suck in the first place. The root of all good and evil in a corporation is limited lability. This allows investors to not have to worry that they're going to lose more than their investment, so they don't need to think too hard before putting their money in some company they just heard of. This is great for investors and for the corporation.

But this comes with a cost to everyone else. There's the direct cost that if the corporation ends up owing people money through excessive debt, negligence, or illegal activities, they can declare bankruptcy and the investors don't have to worry any paying for those (other than their losses on the stock). But I suspect the more pernicious effect is that the investors' lack of concern over their investment as anything but a vehicle of profit basically leads them to pick sociopathic CEOs and demand profit maximizing behavior at the cost of social good and even long term stability. And since all this sociopathic activity is really great at amassing money, it's kind of a big power boost for sociopathy overall.

However, the ease of investing can be a good thing for society too - basically it allows a lot of people to retire at some point, and allows for rapid funding of new ideas. So is there a way to get corporations back under control without throwing out the baby? I tend to think we should tax corporations higher if nothing else, as it is we do the opposite thanks to Trump's last tax cut plan.

[–] bonus_crab@lemmy.world 2 points 21 hours ago

I dont think taxing them will accomplish much. its also trivial for corporations to evade taxes, and all of the big ones do.

I think the ease of raising money is part of the problem. Loads of tech companies way over-raise, and develop into bloated cancerous messes that have no way of ever realizing the growth that would have to exist to warrant the investment theyve been given.

In the first place, the only way their investors even expect make anything back would be by reselling the stock, making it a ponzi asset.

The entire system is just propped up by peoples 401ks being funneled to institutional investors. Its inherently unstable.

Make social security good enough that middle class citizens dont need to invest, and the overinflated value of stocks plummets back to earth.

[–] AmidFuror@fedia.io 14 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I read this as "socks" and thought "What the hippy shit is this?"

Then I realized my error but still wondered the same thing.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Nighed@feddit.uk 29 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Even if we ignored the immediate collapse of the world economy, if you were starting from scratch how would you get anyone to take risks and put money/time into creating a business?

Even if people did decide to do it, no banks would be able to lend to you (what banks? They need a massive amount of money to start) as they would have absolutely nothing as collateral.

[–] Not_mikey@lemmy.dbzer0.com 23 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (10 children)

How would you get anyone to take risks and start a business

People create things all the time without a profit motive. Assuming they have a good safety net behind them that allows them to start up there ideas people will create. Case in point the app were on right now, it's developed open source with no profit motive, no stocks, no company. It's built by a bunch of hardline communist who believe in an open social network.

What banks

There are credit unions that function as co-ops with no stock ownership

they would have absolutely nothing as collateral

Co-ops can have collateral just like any other business, property of a store or factory, stock ( in the product sense ) etc. Yeah we wouldn't have silicon valley with vcs betting millions on unproven tech, but do we really need that?

Also this is all assuming there's no state involvement or planning. The state has a great credit line that it can use to backstop loans for small cooperative enterprises or just create the enterprises itself, eg. City run grocery stores like zohrans been pitching.

load more comments (10 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] flamingo_pinyata@sopuli.xyz 20 points 2 days ago

This is called a cooperative

Except not just control but ownership too, there is no division between owner and employee.

And yes I agree with you, it would be a good idea. The economic system I advocate for the most is cooperatives in a free market.

[–] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 day ago

The stock market has been manipulated to the point where there is very little understanding of value anymore. We need a better way otherwise the "Pelosiism" will continue to drive down value and drive up prices. The only action available to us, in order to regain trust, is transparency. If it ain't transparent, someone is diverting too much money somewhere along the line.

[–] JustTesting@lemmy.hogru.ch 1 points 1 day ago

The solution proposed in "After Capitalism" is (with democratically worker managed companies):

A flat-rate tax on the capital assets of all productive enterprises is collected by the central government, all of which is plowed back into the economy, assisting those firms needing funds for purposes of productive investment. These funds are dispersed throughout society, first to regions and communities on a per capita basis, then to public banks in accordance with past performance, then to those firms with profitable project proposals. Profitable projects that promise increased employment and/or further other democratically decided goals are favored over those that do not. At each level—national, regional, and local—legislatures decide what portion of the investment fund coming to them is to be set aside for public capital expenditures, then send down the remainder, no strings attached, to the next lower level. Associated with most banks are entrepreneurial divisions, which promote firm expansion and new firm creation. Large enterprises that operate regionally or nationally might need access to additional capital, in which case it would be appropriate for the network of local investment banks to be supplemented by regional and national investment banks.

That's for taking care of the investment part that stocks/shares fulfill for a large part right now.

And for getting there:

Legislation giving workers the right to buy their company if they so choose. If workers so desire, a referendum is held to determine if the majority of workers want to democratize the company. If the referendum succeeds, a labor trust is formed, its directors selected democratically by the work-force, which, using funds derived from payroll deductions, purchase shares of the company on the stock market. In due time, the labor trust will come to own the majority of shares, at which time it takes full control via a leveraged buyout, that is, by borrowing the money to buy up the remaining shares.

Along with legislation that if a company is bailed out by the government, it gets nationalized and turned into a worker self managed company. If companies get sold, they can only be sold to the state (according to the value of current assets, not stock market cap or similar). And if a firm is not sold, it's turned over to the workers if the founders death. If there's multiple founders, each can sell their share to the state or workers separately.

For stocks specifically, there's the Meidner plan, where every company with more than 50 employees is required to issue new shares each year equivalent to 20% of its profits, these shares will be held in a trust owned by the government, and in an estimated 35 years, most firms would become nationalized (of course along side all newly founded firms having to be worker owned).

Not saying I fully agree with all of Schweickharts proposals, but at least the book is a relatively concrete proposal for an alternative that can be discussed, and how to possibly get there, so I thought it merits sharing.

load more comments
view more: next ›