[solatic]

The public should own more than half. Via the stock market. Where public shareholders can vote in elections to control the Board of Directors, and elect Directors that act in the fiduciary interests of shareholders, and return excess capital to shareholders by issuing dividends. Where any member of the public can decide to buy or sell shares, being the most important development in the democratization of wealth development in all of human history, second only to the index fund that let members of the public put wealth development on autopilot?

When did public ownership mean that the government needed to be the owner? And when did we start to allow companies to float so few shares that public shareholder voting rights became largely meaningless?

[jdgoesmarching]

This comment really drives home the effective propaganda of “publicly owned” as a term.

Concentrated ownership of the wealthy is not synonymous with “the public.” You are very literally arguing for plutocracy over democracy.

[solatic]

> Concentrated ownership of the wealthy is not synonymous with “the public.”

I 100% agree. It's terrible that large private companies like Cargill and any others large enough to make this list: https://www.forbes.com/lists/top-private-companies/ are allowed to continue operating without being forced to list on stock markets and being subject to public reporting requirements. There's a very big difference between concentrated ownership by the wealthy and public ownership.

> You are very literally arguing for plutocracy over democracy

You can only assume that public markets results in plutocracy if individual investors hold outsize amounts of outstanding shares. The elections for Boards of Directors are not competitive when an individual shareholder holds majority voting power. There is a separate argument for a wealth tax that I agree with, and there are arguments to be made for maximum share prices (reaching the maximum triggers an automatic stock split) to guarantee financial accessibility (cough, BRK.A, cough).

[triceratops]

The public doesn't have that much money.

[solatic]

Then perhaps the big AI companies aren't actually worth that much.

[BrenBarn]

The government could distribute its ownership stake to individuals.

[triceratops]

That won't lead to corruption at all.