- Aada Jones
- Bei Jing
- China
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Help me understand how we can have a universally owned corporation, where everyone receives dividends, and everyone can manage.
Corporations are with us. They are the great movers in politics, in wealth-creation, environmental issues, product delivery, research... in almost everything larger than a neighborhood.
Corp'ns are often villainized and rightly so. The main objection is that they have a pure greed motivation writ in law, and that they create wealth for the wealthy.
How could we create a corporation (or many) that grants non-transferable shares to every person on the planet, distributing dividends and voting rights equally?
I think an institution of that nature might be very positive, and move us in the right direction, because we do need to work together on a large scale, but we should all share the decisions and the benefits. When someone buys an SUV today, most of the world receives no compensation for the harm it causes them and their children/parents, and has little input into the decision process to make or price the product.
Anyway: TWO PRIMARY QUESTIONS:
1. What is your general response to this concept?
2. How could it be governed? I think we need to use something other than a representative democracy, but I don't know enough about decision making in groups (some TED lectures relate to this, but not specifically).
(Please don't focus too much on the legal issues.)
Gail . 50+
As to ethical standards, there is one that is being taken up by more and more these days. It's based on the idea that we do, in fact, create our own realities. Those that do this already know this to be true - having seen so much proof. Within that purview, we know that as we treat others, we are treated. Preferring to live full, abundant, and satisfying lives, we avoid those thoughts and emotions that are not satisfying. Fear - with its parts that we call anger, hate, greed, etc., are painful things to endure. You won't find those who are deliberate manifestos lingering there.
Science is now providing evidence for how this can possibly be. The same discoveries that suggest that if there is a God, it is no more than deist in nature (having no power over the individual) - because it is an energy field. (being as opposed to "a" being). We who deliberately manifest our realities take advantage of this energy field. We know that we can provide for ourselves - including our safety.
My idea for transitioning away from the current corrupt economic model that is causing so many problems - not just plundering the earth, but it actually requires poverty, hunger, illness, war, crime & violence, diseducation, and other social ills just to survive: If all start learning how to manifest their realities - and it is free to learn - then we can provide for ourselves when the economy fails - as it is mathematically guaranteed to do - sooner rather than later. What American call an economic model (often falsely called capitalism) is a huge Ponzi scheme held in place by corruption in politics and banking that has bought governments.
Aada Jones
Gail . 50+
Corporations exist to create profits for the shareholders, while paying big salaries for the executives. BY LAW, public corporations are mandated to do this. (Private corps and businesses are not) Public Corps are not mandated to protect the environment. In fact, because of government subsidies and favored legislation, they are mandated to plunder the environment - the human nest. Because of government subsidies in the form of dishonest and inadequate educations falsely identified as education - public corporations are motivated to plunder human potential.
If everyone is receiving a small share of profits but there is still a wealth-class sytem that leads - in a hierarchical system, what is bad will only get worse.
Self-education by all is the only avenue of escape. When we are adequately educated, the answer that you really want to see will be obvious - and I do not say that lightly.
Aada Jones
I agree it won't fix the problem, but I do not believe that such a universally-owned corp would make our situation worse.
I agree that Education is the most important investment and responsibility we have... including moral and emotional education. The only moral obligations taught to us by schools or the gov't seem to be the obligation to vote and to support the military. There MUST be some other ethical standards that our society could hold in common.
Walt Thiessen
Investment means giving up your money in hopes of a future return on investment. When you force everyone to make such an investment, you insure that the money will be used foolishly, not wisely. After all, if the money is guaranteed to be there, what incentive do the managers have to use it wisely? The answer, of course, is none.
Aada Jones
I actually don't think we could ask for investment from everyone... it wouldn't even be possible, economically, for a huge percentage of the population to do that.
I think that incentives could be designed which motivated sound profit-oriented decisions, or that executives might be unnecessary, if an effective communal decision-making process could be designed.
I also agree that most corporations are wrong more often than right - and yet they manage to grow. Maybe it could be done better.
I appreciate your comment!
Walt Thiessen
Also, the corporations that grow are the ones that we see at the top of the heap. They are the exception, not the rule. More corporations do not grow than grow if you factor out inflation.
One of the most damaging aspects of elastic money supplies is that they make corporations look more successful than they actually are. Elastic money funds corporations and creates overall increases in nominal earnings, but the value of the currency declines as a result of the monetary expansion. So the earnings growth is an illusion.
That's what we have today economy-wide. Leading economists argue that the massive monetary expansion by the Federal Reserve since 2008 has saved the U.S. economy, but it isn't true. What it really has done is to save the banks at everyone else's expense. Factor out inflation from GDP numbers, and the U.S. economy has been in recession, not just since 2008 but since late 2004. That's 12 years of unreported recession!
Similarly, most of Europe has also been in recession with inflation factored out, even at the artificially low inflation rates governments report these days. Even China's huge growth numbers are likely exaggerated by monetary policy, although it's harder to tell because of the way the Chinese government hides most such information.
In the U.S., if we still measured inflation the way it was measured in 1979-1980, the last time we experienced high inflation in this country, we'd see inflation rates in the 6-12% range, not the 1-3% range being reported. This is very likely also true in other countries, although the information available to check this is usually much harder to get.
Monetary expansion is what funds a huge portion of corporations. Take it away, and corporations would look a whole lot less attractive to you
John Wagner
Organizing the specific structure will be challenging. Sometimes the hardest part of any endeavor is taking the first step.
We are here at the threshold of a new and exciting paradigm. Contribution based reward, and the encouragement of collaboration could really help bring people and ideas together. Im in!
Envision a system of material organization that would operate as a publicly owned and governed library of conceptual ideas. Wherein peoples contributory adaptations and intellectual properties would be protected and shared in such a manner that security is in disclosure, and participation.
Aada Jones
I agree. We are at the threshold. "The times, they are a changing..." I am excited to be here to see the economic system already changing in many ways. So much talk is of collaboration and sharing, and it has already established a foothold. What comes now?
Barry Palmer 50+
I am not sure it would have a very positive effect. It would be just one more profit seeking corporation, and the dividends would be spread so thinly that it would have to make huge profits to justify the cost of sending out dividends. How much do you think it would cost to send a check to every person in the world?
Aada Jones
What if we didn't send a check? We could partner with national banks to hold funds until withdrawn by the recipient (any unique person would qualify, I guess).
Also, it might not just be another profit seeking corporation - if we could find a means of diffused yet wise communal decision making. Also, there would be no stock-price, which I think is a major distraction to good practice for executives.
Thank you, Barry!
Barry Palmer 50+
Developing a "diffused yet wise communal decision making" process could be revolutionary.
I suggest that would be a good starting point. All the other challenges are relatively minor.
Scale might be a problem. Starting with small groups and working upward might not work.
Good Luck with this.
Aada Jones
Do you know of any sources for exploring group decision-theory or practical examples?
A quick note would suffice, I can find any references that you might suggest.
Thank you for your kind reply.
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Craig Weinberg
In practice, ugh. It will all probably end up with all of the money being sopped up by attorneys and endless political infighting for control of the overall organization. People are so conditioned now to reject all forms of idealism, that it's hard to imagine any graceful solution that has to be voluntarily supported gaining traction. Unfortunately it seems like the only thing that might help is some technology that will make it possible for people to comfortably live independently of civilization.
Aada Jones
I do think we have to work within the system, that we can make something better... I'm not sure I'd like to live the "short and brutish" life outside civilization, I just hope we can improve it!
Thank you, Craig!
Craig Weinberg
Yes, especially when it is being made all the more brutish by global privatization. Here is another idea I was thinking of - start a corporation that goes around to banks and threatens to either
1) buy off a bunch of their mortgages at once (thereby dropping future revenues and potentially spooking investors) and/or
2) have an entire neighborhood default at once on their underwater mortgages, and/or
3) move in hundreds of homeless people
This gives the bank an incentive to either negotiate a special low rate for the entire neighborhood (and pay a fee to the company), or panic and try to aggressively sell whatever they can, sending the property values down. In that case, you buy up everything you can at the lowest point, giving the original tenants the change to get back in at a much lower rate, and then organize a campaign to improve and clean up the neighborhood to raise the property value back up at which point the company can sell a couple of houses to make a profit on the whole thing if they need to.
Once you establish a history of success with the banks and with homeborrowers, it would become even easier to put together larger deals in more expensive neighborhoods - closer to where the CEOs of the banks themselves might live.
Philip Crume
With closed patents, one person or corporation owns the intellectual property rights until they expire. With open patents, the inventor holds onto the monopoly only to prevent other people from creating a patent on what he/she just invented, but otherwise he/she allows everyone to use the invention for free. It is a little more complex than that but it gives you the basic concept. You may be familiar with Wikipedia, Linux Ubuntu, or Open Source Ecology, which are both open source technologies.
The same is also true for land. Most land here is owned by individuals or corporations. But there is also land that is held in trust (banking definition) on behalf of the people. We call those lands our public parks and forests. In small communities, a group of houses may come together and share a farm.
Unlike communism or socialism, knowledge and technology that exists in the public commons isn't centrally managed by any group. It is owned and controlled by everyone. It's even more egalitarian than communism.
Aada Jones
I think there are a couple differences between a universal-egalitarian corporation and the shared resources you have mentioned.
First, the items you have mentioned, like the technology provided by the non-profit Wikipedia, do not distribute profits or even compete in a traditional sense, being primarily supported by altruism. Noble, but not likely to take on Microsoft or B.P. for some time.
Second, shared resources like the Public Commons are just shared resources, not agents of action - we can't build a Pyramid or a new telecom network using the Public Commons.
Thank you so much for taking an interest and providing food for thought. I have to consider this from some different angles.
pat gilbert 50+
Why would anyone invest in an operation that nets them nothing, no one is that altruistic.
Aada Jones
pat gilbert 50+
Aada Jones