[SkyMarshal]

It's not that complicated. The rich get richer because they own. Specifically, they own two things - the means of production of wealth, and the debt of the 99%.

Outsourcing wealth production to low-wage countries increased profit margins and enabled the meteoric rise in CEO and executive compensation relative to labor, whose wages were stagnant at best, or who were being outsourced and laid off at worst (eg, labor wasn't benefitting from the increased profit margins, only executives and shareholders/owners).

Cheap money and debt bubbles enabled labor to continue consuming on credit beyond their means, sustaining the increased profit margins longer than should have been possible, while simultaneously paying interest on their consumption.

Hence, the 99% (or whatever the % is) has been transferring wealth to the 1% from both ends. The solution is, stay out of debt as much as possible, and find ways to incentivize repatriation of production operations to the US (ostensibly by reducing the cost-basis of manufacturing here). Certain legal proposals, like financial transaction taxes and the like, may help as well.

[smithian]

Or you could stop all government subsidies to corporations and set up a business tax structure that is heavily favorable to worker-owned cooperatives at the expense of shareholder-owned corporations. Corporations are just machines for extracting productivity from large numbers of people and concentrating the wealth produced by that productivity in the hands of a few. Worker-owned cooperatives do not share that design flaw. They also have little to no motivation to outsource.

[rick888]

"Worker-owned cooperatives do not share that design flaw. They also have little to no motivation to outsource."

You can start a worker-owned cooperative now. Why don't you? You could even make it a non-profit and save on some taxes.

What you want to do is make it impossible for corporations as we know them to exist, taking away freedoms. Corporations aren't slave-owners and employees aren't slaves. You have the freedom to work for one or start your own company.

I suppose a worker-owned cooperative would be fine, as long as the workers also took on losses (IE: if sales are down this month, you might only get a $500 paycheck as opposed to a $3000 one).

Then you would have to deal with the day-to-day stuff and you would end up having a president, treasurer, managers, etc, etc, etc, essentially creating what thousands of years of human history have already told you. Bitcoin, which was suppose to get around those pesky banks, essentially gave you the reason why banks are necessary: Most people don't want to or don't have the ability to secure their own money.

Most people aren't willing to take a risk. They won't start a company and take no paycheck for months or possible years while barely scraping by hoping their idea actually is successful.

Why should someone that takes absolutely no risk get anything close to the owners of a company?

[smithian]

You seem to not know anything about this, so I'll cut you some slack even though your wording is slightly offensive.

Worker owned cooperatives aren't some kind of pie-in-the sky idea tat has never been tried. they make up a large portion of the employment base in Emiglia-Romagna, the Basque territory, Switzerland, and Wisconsin, along with lots of other places. Cooperatives employ 100 million people around the world according to the ILO, so it's not some kind of pipe dream that you would like to make it out to be.

I never said that I wanted to make corporations illegal, just stop using tax dollars to subsidize them, while taxing them in order to balance out the extreme wealth redistribution that they engage in. It seems eminently sensible for a country that likes to call itself a democracy to promote (or at least set up a favorable regulatory scheme for) economic democracy rather than the techno-feudalism that corporate capitalism resembles when capital becomes too concentrated.

re:bitcoin: what?

>Why should someone that takes absolutely no risk get anything close to the owners of a company?

Good question. Why should a rich investor that spends a tiny fraction of his money own the product of the founders and workers who actually create the value? Why should capital own labor, rather than the other way around?

[rick888]

"You seem to not know anything about this, so I'll cut you some slack even though your wording is slightly offensive."

If these really worked and made sense, we would have more worker owned cooperatives as opposed to corporations. I haven't heard much about them because they are in the slim minority..and there's probably a reason for this.

"I never said that I wanted to make corporations illegal, just stop using tax dollars to subsidize them, while taxing them in order to balance out the extreme wealth redistribution that they engage in."

Which translates to: taxing the hell out of them so it's no longer profitable to start one. I'm cool with worker owned cooperatives as long as they are taxed exactly the same as corporations.

"It seems eminently sensible for a country that likes to call itself a democracy to promote (or at least set up a favorable regulatory scheme for) economic democracy rather than the techno-feudalism that corporate capitalism resembles when capital becomes too concentrated."

It is a democracy: you can start your own company at any time. You want to prevent someone from having too much money, even if they've earned it honestly. I don't want anyone to limit my success. When this happens, I will either leave the country or become a criminal.

"Good question. Why should a rich investor that spends a tiny fraction of his money own the product of the founders and workers who actually create the value? Why should capital own labor, rather than the other way around?"

Because the rich investor is risking their money. The founders can bootstrap. Many companies do. I personally wouldn't give up that much control to anyone. Most workers don't understand what it takes to run a company. It's more than just collecting a larger paycheck..

"re:bitcoin: what?"

Never heard of bitcoin?

[smithian]

>If these really worked and made sense, we would have more worker owned cooperatives as opposed to corporations. I haven't heard much about them because they are in the slim minority..and there's probably a reason for this.

Wow. Circular reasoning much? Try doing some research - you might find that there are thing in the world you didn't already know.