There’s No Reason Workers Can’t Be Corporate Owners
Employee-controlled companies could be the antidote to the less-appealing aspects of shareholder capitalism.
Looks like any other supermarket? The workers own it.
Photographer: Angel Navarrete/BloombergWhy aren’t companies owned by the people who work for those companies? It seems like a natural way to organize a business. Americans are used to the standard setup: outside shareholders elect a board of directors that chooses executives to run the business. But there’s no legal reason companies have to be structured this way. The rules of American capitalism allow for workers to be the shareholders in their own business, and to make decisions for that business. But as of 2016, there were only 357 worker cooperatives in the entire U.S., employing just 7,000 people.
Worker-owned businesses might not act much differently from conventional companies in the market. Whether a company is owned by outside shareholders or by its own employees, the incentive to maximize profits should be similar. It seems unlikely that cooperatives would be more altruistic, honest or socially responsible than the corporations that exist now.