Hacker News Reader

Comment by sharts | Hacker News Reader

Worker-owned anything can work. It's democracy in the workplace.

Democracy only works when just about everyone wants the same thing. And even then leaders generally abuse power. The lower the stakes, the worse it gets.

Democracy works when most involved disagree actually, that's its primary function over other formats. Otherwise just go with a king since everyone wants the same thing.

I think I agree with the point but people don’t need to want all the same things so I think I’d rather phrase it this way:

“Democracy fails when the people and their leaders fail to realise that the thing they want above all is peace and general prosperity, and that neither of those is a naturally occurring phenomenon.”

Because the peaceful transfer of power as well as respect for the truth, and equality before the law is the absolute foundation that any prosperous democracy needs.

Doesn't that just kick the problem down the road to the definition of peace and general prosperity? If people have irreconcilable differences over what those mean, they still may not be able to find the common ground needed for running a business or country. With something more nimble like a business it's easy to imagine vastly different views on how the business can prosper, which makes the benevolent dictator (business owner) model all the more attractive.

Well, I don't think people around the world have vastly different definitions of peace and prosperity. For example, Ukraine is definitely not experiencing that at this stage in time. Neither is Sudan, Ecuador, etc.

Oligarchy only works because only what the 10%, 1% (or whatever the cutoff) wants matters so what everyone else wants is per definition irrelevant.

It's amazing how many people have been brainwashed into supporting dictatorship in the workplace, isn't it? So-called free men, who find the idea of no gods and no masters to be unthinkable. You have nothing to lose but your chains!

Not really. Democracy requires an incredible amount of work. Most people don't want that work. Even in governments which are technically democracies, the vast majority of the population never participate and accept a dictatorial rule. Not because of brainwashing, but because they don't want to get involved. They just want to live out their life and let someone else make the decisions.

The big democratic govts are also usually not direct democracies.

That lightens the load somewhat, allowing you to do your work at the constituency office instead of having to travel long distances to the central meeting place. But the vast majority will never even make it to the constituency office.

And fair enough. It’s still a lot of work to even participate without lengthy travel. It is completely understandable why most are content to be under dictatorial control. They don’t need brainwashing to get there.

It’s a hellish concept. The workers relationship to the company becomes less transactional, and they get all the stress of owning a business but without the outsized profits.

Most restaurant workers would gladly take the stress of owning a business over the stress of being paid 40 hours worth of near-minimum wage for 80 hours worth of actual work.

> stress of being paid 40 hours worth of near-minimum wage for 80 hours worth of actual work.

which restaurant workers is this true of? tipped FOH workers make a little to a lot more than minimum wage depending on the shift. BOH workers are indeed getting minimum wage or a little more, but wage theft to the tune of 50% of a paycheck is incredibly rare.

Have you worked at a worker-owned company? I think, largely, a goal of worker-owned restaurants is to make the work experience less transactional. Is there anything besides stress (which is not mentioned in the article) that would make transactionality and outsized profit a necessary thing?

I like not being tied to a single job forever.

They don’t get all the stress of owning a business per-se because they most likely vote on a CEO/a council to handle that. Just like the Walmart heirs aren’t stressed about owning a business because they vote on a CEO to do that part, or how you as a voting citizen don’t get all the stress of running a country.

It is true though that an employee will be much more personally invested in that kind of voting than a typical investor given that’s they essentially can’t diversify like an investor can, without being so rich that they make more from investments than working anyway. And that they may choose to give themselves the option of direct democracy to varying degrees instead of representative democracy. In a standard white collar corporate environment that could kick up workplace politics to insane levels.

No, they also get the profits.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com