[hgyjnbdet]

I suppose a side effect might be employee loyality, which might be a good thing. And the wealth disparity we have now is obscene. But all this is predicated on the company doing well, where's the story about the companies set up like this that struggle or fail? Are the employees worse off than those in a traditional company?

[eru]

Wealth disparity is a function of overall worker comp, but it doesn't matter whether you force companies to pay part of that comp in shares instead of cash.

[chii]

what the proposal for employee ownership _actually_ want to achieve is for the existing owners to have part of their ownership reliquished (without much, if any, compensation), and given to the workers.

AKA, the workers do not take on the prior capital risk that the owners have, but reap the rewards of success. Obviously, a failed company means no such shares given to the workers (by definition). Therefore, under this imagined scenario, the workers only gain.

of course, reality cannot work like this.

[eru]

Yes, that sounds closer to what the proposal seem to amount to.

But it doesn't make much sense: just because I work at Google (which is worth a lot per employee) I don't deserve more re-distribution than someone manning the cashier at eg WalMart.

If you want to re-distribute, I would suggest to tax the owners and hand money to the people, regardless of where they work.