Re: HOMESTEAD: Ray Carey's Democratic Capitalism

[John Médaille <john@medaille.com>]

At 12:35 PM 7/27/2005 -0400, David Spitzley wrote:

>--------------------------------------------
>The only time ESOPs work is when the current owners
>voluntarily give up power and control. Now, if it could be shown that they
>would make as much or more with only, let of say, one-third of their
>current ownership (due to efficiencies from employee ownership) then they
>might be induced to do so. But that is a big if.
>--------------------------------------------
>
>Hey, don't overestimate how much of a cut they'd have to take for ESOPs to 
>be good for everybody; it's basically a question of what the elasticity of 
>profitability is relative to employee ownership share.  If the typical 
>multi-national company could, for example, see a 7% increase in profits 
>per share by giving the workers a 5% ownership stake with accompanying 
>participatory workplace reforms, that would be a pretty strong lever for 
>starting things moving.  If the lowest 90% of households in the US snagged 
>an additional 5% share of the nation's assets, I think that would be a 
>pretty damned impressive improvement.

Well, it would be a 5% improvement; whether that is either "impressive" or 
enough to significantly change things is another matter.


John C. Médaille

"A dead thing can go with the stream...
but only a living thing can go against it."
         -G. K. Chesterton
http://www.medaille.com/distributivism.htm
john@medaille.com

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