What is your view on liberal anti-capitalism?
This perspective’s representatives are David Ellerman, and E. Glen Weyl. They that capitalism is incompatible with liberalism for various reasons such as violating liberal principles of justice, being inefficient or over-emphasizing diversification/exit-oriented risk reduction strategies to the detriment of commitment-based ones.
David Ellerman’s case for capitalism being illiberal is discussed in:
https://www.ellerman.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Article-from-ReclaimingLiberalismEbook.pdf
This sort of company structure could work, but I think it would need to be tested to see if it were actually viable or competitive in a broad sense.
But I get the sense that this sort of company structure might only be viable for industries that don’t require much risk or have a reliable cash flow; they would probably already need to be very established companies or very small. If too many decisions are subject to decisions-by-committee then I get the sense they would avoid risk at all if they could.
I just think all this would need to be tested.
There are plenty of examples today of companies with similar structures that seem to work:
https://www.nceo.org/articles/employee-ownership-100
It is important to note the argument is that the employer-employee contract is invalid not that the people will benefit from this change (although they probably will)
It is important to consider the political implications of a move in this direction. Having a more powerful democratic firm sector would result in more lobbyists that have an eye on workers’ interests
@neoliberal
I think this is really the part where I am not convinced.
If all parties have a mutual meeting-of-the-minds, the capacity to do the work, are compensated as agreed upon (and as legally permissible), have all of their duties and responsibilities legally permissible, are not coerced into signing the contract, and have the freedom to leave the contract on their own will, then where is the issue? If an employee agrees that the product of their services belongs to that company in exchange for an agreed upon sum, then can it not be argued the employer bought it?
I also think the article draws a line connecting slavery and the employer-employee contract, equating the two in a way I find very unconvincing.
I do agree parts of some employer-employee contracts should be invalidated (such as non-compete agreements).
As for lobbying, I would advocate for it be eliminated altogether.
It would be unconvincing if the article was really arguing against slavery and then ruling out employment contract by equating it with slavery. That would be a false equivalence fallacy. The employment contract is a voluntary self-rental while slavery involves coercive ownership of people. However, that isn’t what the paper is doing. The reference to self-sale contracts is to recover the underlying principles of inalienable rights, and demonstrate that they apply to employment
@neoliberal
Consent isn’t sufficient to transfer de facto responsibility from employees to employer. Employees (and a working employer) are jointly de facto responsible for using up inputs to produce outputs regardless of contract. Since there is no transfer, there is an inherent mismatch here
Employment isn’t a contract to sell the product of labor because to sell something you must first own it, and workers never own it.
(The workers jointly own the product of their labor) → democratic firm
@neoliberal