Worker-owned businesses, where the employees share in the profits of the company and participate in collective decision-making, exist all around the world – even in the United States. There are hundreds of worker-owned enterprises in Latin America, particularly in Argentina and Venezuela, where many times workers literally occupied factories and took them over when they were faced with layoffs. They defied court orders and stood against the police, and forced a change in the laws, enabling them to take charge of the facilities after the owners decided to close them down.
There are many different models for worker-owned enterprises, but the basic idea is that they are democratically managed, and surplus revenue is equitably distributed. They exist in every industrial sector. They are competitive, and financially profitable. When workers have a direct stake in the success of the company, obviously, they are more motivated. At the same time, they are more compassionate to the needs of their fellow workers, and they maintain a positive relationship with the community, as well as increasing the circulation of money in the local market, because every worker is transformed from a low-wage earning laborer to a partner in a successful company. The worker-owners decide collectively what to produce and where, they determine pricing, and if costs have to be reduced, they decide together the best way to do it.
No, worker-owned enterprises do not grow as fast as the conventional corporate model, because, quite simply, they are not as concerned with growth as they are with providing decent, sustainable jobs and benefiting their communities. They do not subscribe to the mercenary logic of corporations, and they do not adhere to the top-down hierarchical management structure which prioritizes the inflating of shareholder dividends and executive salaries above the rights of workers and the public interest.
Worker-owned enterprises are not Communist, nor Socialist, they are not any less Capitalist than a corporation. Ownership is still private, but instead of ownership being in the collective hands of shareholders who have do not even work for the company, ownership is in the collective hands of the workers. Profit distribution is equitable, instead of disproportional. This model is, quite frankly, one of the most important ingredients to a solution for poverty and a healthy economy. The political reverberations should be obvious. A democratic workplace, with democratic distribution of profit, creates a democratic economy, and this inevitably democratizes the society, and the state.
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