This is welcome departure from the one-sentence attack responses that occur all too often here. No argument here that our institutions don't teach this concept, but there are a whole range of concepts our institutions don't teach, and far too many of the ones they do teach are chock full of distortions and agenda driven nonsense, but that is a discussion for another day.
Just because the concept isn't taught doesn't mean people can't arrive at the idea themselves. Entrepreneurs do this all the time. If this concept was successful as a business model people would notice and imitate these companies. So far, this has not occurred. I'm not saying ii can't work, but it has EVERYTHING to do with the people involved. This is true for traditional businesses as well, short-sightedness, poor leadership, and poor decision making are common and would occur in employee owned businesses as well.
Anyone who as ever attended a meeting in the corporate world can attest to the amount of time wasted on minutia. squabbling, and turf wars. This has more to do with human nature than business models. I'm certainly glad these were not democratic meetings because nothing would have been accomplished, and strongest personality would most likely win. Odds are good that this would be the bully in the room.
And by the way, who is forcing who to convert to employee owned and run businesses. This usually happens when current dictatorial management decides to close shop and put everyone out of work. Also, every person has ideas, some better, some worse. But the average person is not trained in how to implement their ideas. It's all a matter of education. If we were all trained on how to bring ideas to fruition, employee owned and run companies would be a lot more common.
This is the canard that education fixes everything. All men are created equal in rights, but all men are not equal. Some simply do not have the skill set to do this. Some people have no interest in learning, or improving themselves. Others have little interest in being productive, proactive, or a team player. To deny this is silly. You encounter people like this all of the time, whether they be family, co-workers, employees, or someone on the street.
During the manufacturing process, workers do observe problems with the processes and become aware how the process can be improved. And although an improvement in process would produce a better product, often the idea is rejected by upper management because it would reduce profits. So, the public gets sold an inferior product, sometimes dangerously so as we have seen in recent auto recalls. Employee run companies would not do this, and would likely give the worker with the idea a bonus.
Yes they do, I've seen it first hand. This is about good management and leadership. If you have it, these ideas are implemented, if not, they won't, regardless of the business model. Being a good manager is LESS about being in charge and more about being a facilitator. If you don't give a crap about about your employees or their ideas you will have some very unhappy folks and you will fail. Education *may* have helped prevent me from falling flat on my face the first 3 times I was in a management position, but I doubt it. I learned form the practical experience of making the mistakes and thinking about them. In a corporate democracy you are more likely to have a cabal of forceful personalities that rule the day to detriment of everyone else. Again, I'm not saying it can't work, but the examples are few and far between.
Although productivity has soared, real wages have been stagnate since about 1980 – the first time this has happened in our history.
No doubt, but this has very little to do with business models and far more to do with monetary policy.Real Median Household Income has been heading south since the nation’s credit market debt to national income ratio came off its historical average of 150% in the late 1970’s and steadily climbed until it reached the 350% zone.
