Employee ownership is en vogue right now and your insight - on sharing the risks - is a dimension that isn't discussed. Ever. There are, of course, plenty of examples where an employee ownership model "just makes sense". For instance, a newer, small startup that is attracting unique talent and the owner wants to share potential reward AND risk as the company grows - building in employee ownership from the start. Or for succession planning, where the owner simply doesn't want his business to ever sell out to another owner - and is intent on not passing ownership to his heirs, for any number of perfectly legitimate reasons, including that he may have no heirs apparent.
But it's not for "us" - the Royal Us - to decide. It's not our property.
Even in the startup cases you mention, the employee-owners share in the risk, as you note.
The en-vogue "democratic socialism" that underlies so many memes and pronouncements and the like is always "give me stuff without me giving up anything in return." It's the mindset of children.
“People are very good at turning a blind eye to truths that don't satisfy their lizard brains, especially in affluent societies where the risk of that blind eye is rarely personally catastrophic. This is why stupid ideas like minimum wages persist and why the lessons of history are so widely ignored.”
As an evil rich owner for 44 years, the envy class has ZERO idea what we go through. I joke that I haven’t had a real vacation in 44 yrs, it’s actually a true statement. No matter where I went if it was a work day I checked email (phone messages and letters in the olden days) checked payables, receivables, new orders etc the business was always on my mind. When an employee makes a mistake the company eats it. Example: we had an email hack and a person posing as our new CEO asked accounting manager to send two $35,000 checks FedEx to two locations for lawyers . It was fraud, she didn’t verify and the company is our $70,000! Maybe our cyber security insurance will cover part of this but the point is our employees will not feel the repercussions of this loss. Years ago if cash flow was bad I didn’t cash my check…we had two very bad years in our 44 years and almost went out of business except none of our employees or customers knew…I just didn’t take a salary, sold most of the assets I had and we rolled forward and got through it. Very few have the tenacity required to live this life. My employees have always been compensated above our industry average in pay and benefits most make six figure incomes that’s because to be competitive we want good people to stay….it all makes sense but sadly few understand how any of this works.
PS sold the stock in the business last October the State and Federal government took almost 40% of my payday….44 years of creating high paying jobs and paying taxes wasn’t enough.
It's why Congress continues to send billions of our dollars overseas, and to hand billions more to schools, businesses, and other entities here at home (anyone but your average Joe) - there are *no* repercussions for them. This isn't just a socialists-on-the-street issue - it's a socialists-in-our-government issue.
Employee ownership is en vogue right now and your insight - on sharing the risks - is a dimension that isn't discussed. Ever. There are, of course, plenty of examples where an employee ownership model "just makes sense". For instance, a newer, small startup that is attracting unique talent and the owner wants to share potential reward AND risk as the company grows - building in employee ownership from the start. Or for succession planning, where the owner simply doesn't want his business to ever sell out to another owner - and is intent on not passing ownership to his heirs, for any number of perfectly legitimate reasons, including that he may have no heirs apparent.
But it's not for "us" - the Royal Us - to decide. It's not our property.
Even in the startup cases you mention, the employee-owners share in the risk, as you note.
The en-vogue "democratic socialism" that underlies so many memes and pronouncements and the like is always "give me stuff without me giving up anything in return." It's the mindset of children.
“People are very good at turning a blind eye to truths that don't satisfy their lizard brains, especially in affluent societies where the risk of that blind eye is rarely personally catastrophic. This is why stupid ideas like minimum wages persist and why the lessons of history are so widely ignored.”
As an evil rich owner for 44 years, the envy class has ZERO idea what we go through. I joke that I haven’t had a real vacation in 44 yrs, it’s actually a true statement. No matter where I went if it was a work day I checked email (phone messages and letters in the olden days) checked payables, receivables, new orders etc the business was always on my mind. When an employee makes a mistake the company eats it. Example: we had an email hack and a person posing as our new CEO asked accounting manager to send two $35,000 checks FedEx to two locations for lawyers . It was fraud, she didn’t verify and the company is our $70,000! Maybe our cyber security insurance will cover part of this but the point is our employees will not feel the repercussions of this loss. Years ago if cash flow was bad I didn’t cash my check…we had two very bad years in our 44 years and almost went out of business except none of our employees or customers knew…I just didn’t take a salary, sold most of the assets I had and we rolled forward and got through it. Very few have the tenacity required to live this life. My employees have always been compensated above our industry average in pay and benefits most make six figure incomes that’s because to be competitive we want good people to stay….it all makes sense but sadly few understand how any of this works.
PS sold the stock in the business last October the State and Federal government took almost 40% of my payday….44 years of creating high paying jobs and paying taxes wasn’t enough.
Very good piece, Peter.
It's why Congress continues to send billions of our dollars overseas, and to hand billions more to schools, businesses, and other entities here at home (anyone but your average Joe) - there are *no* repercussions for them. This isn't just a socialists-on-the-street issue - it's a socialists-in-our-government issue.