Poll: Why we need economic regulation.

[H0ncho]

You fundamentally misunderstand the concept of "wealth"[...]Wealth isn't just the ability to accumulate material goods, it's also the ability to attract labour. Wealth hires, and also fires... which provides a significant amount of leverage on those being hired/fired. So long as the distribution of wealth is fairly wide there are countervailing forces and no individual employer can get too rambunctious (ie: labour leaves the pointy-haired tyrants for better bosses elsewhere).

It is correct that your employer has a certain amount of power over you; so far, so good. However, note that even the largest employer in the world won't even employ 1% of the workforce so the power of a single employer is really small, and if the employer tried to use this to order their employees around, they would have a massive PR-problem.

But if wealth concentrates into a few potential sources of employment there are fewer potential exit vectors for dissatisfied labour and thus fewer reasons for employers to "play nice". Wages go down, working conditions get worse, wealth concentrates even further into fewer hands.

The reason some people are paid high wages while other are paid low wages has absolutely nothing to do with the niceness of their employer. It has to do with supply, demand and productivity. The fact of the matter is that if an employer pays 20$/hour for someone who produces wealth at a rate of 50$/hour, his competitor will eventually pay the man 21$/hour to come work at his place. Then the original employer will offer 22$ etc. etc. That's why a free market doesn't have permanently underpaid jobs.

The end result is a collapse of a market economy because there's not enough competition... and because the concentration of wealth is high enough, there's no incentive for those with wealth to capitalise possible future competitors.

Yeah, that is the left-wing theory, and since Marx predicted it it has never actually happened anywhere except with the help of the state. One of the reasons for this is that there is an optimal size for every company; when it becomes larger than that size, the costs of administration grows faster than the advantages of mass production. Another is that people make mistakes. And when a company gets larger, the mistakes becomes costlier.

This can be proven by the fact that every sector of the economy has plenty of competitors. While monopolists have existed they have only ever occured with the help of the state and/or in very young markets.

All of that, without once invoking force of arms. That happened in Rome, and the Republic eventually turned into an Empire to cope. That happened in Weimar Germany in the 1930s, and we all know what happened to them.

I know what happened to the Weimar republic. But the causes of it has nothing to do with what you just described. (And btw, the reason why the German economy was cartelized was regulation; it was a willed policy by the state prior to WWI(and possibly after).)

Regarding Rome you really have to fill me in; what did the fall of the republic have to do with the alleged monopolistic tendencies of capitalism?

 

[ReepNeep]

Perhaps "failed" was too strong of a term. You get the the idea though and I don't believe we need to rally around the semantics.

Socialism has succeeded and failed at different times and places, like capitalism.

Your point is untrue.

Since when was a socialist or communist country ever the #1 world power? As for capitalism failing, it only fails when government intervenes or when corporations stifle the free market.

Check again in 20 years when China is the world's most powerful nation.
And corporations stifle the free market when government does not intervene. See the problem?

The Soviet Union was never an economic superpower. The West thought the USSR was an economic superpower because it produced so much military equipment and had so many people, but analysis after the USSR died revealed that the West had greatly over-estimated the USSR's productivity by basing it on extrapolations from Western societies. The USSR survived as long as it did simply by devoting huge amounts of its workforce and resources to military production, leaving a population desperately poor by Western standards. Bluntly speaking, when the USSR ceased to grow it began to die.

Given this fact, the United States' choice of path post-Cold War is hilariously ironic.

 

[werepossum]

This claim seems to be one of the main accusations against capitalism:

But the problem remains that if you leave the economy completely unregulated, the strongest (Richest) individuals will rise to the top and control everything, and everyone else will be destroyed.

It is also utterly false. Why? Because owning wealth in itself will not allow you to have any power over other persons. For example, a couple of houses down my street there lives a guy who used to be rich (about 15 million dollars net worth). Yet he had no power over me, he could not tell me to do a thing; his wealth could not in any way translate into power over me. The reason for that is that we have a state monopoly on the exercise on force in civilized nations, meaning that no one, rich or otherwise, can legally control anyone else other than through the law. If for example Bill Gates told me to wear purple I could say "no" and he would have no legal means of forcing me to do so. Of course, he *could* pay a torpedo to threaten me, but at that point he would make himself an outlaw and he would be thrown into jail and probably lose most of his wealth in the process.

Also I cannot for the life of me understand why the richest individuals would want to destroy everyone else. This might come as a surprise to you, but mr Burns is actually not based on real capitalists; he is a parody. Most capitalists have no wish for anyone else to be destroyed. And even if they had, civilized nations are ruled by laws who protects the common man from being destroyed except by the lawful judgement of his peers.

Second I want to write something about western Europe being socialist. Namely that it is not. In western Europe the means of production are predominantly owned by private enterprise, making it non-socialist. There are some very few sectors, such as telecommunications, that have been owned by the state in some countries, but since the 1980s those sectors have been privatized in many nations. In my country, Norway, telecommunications and air transport was deregulated and privatized a few years ago, with the immediate effect that prices were cut in half or fell even more.

And the third thing I wanted to say is that the definition of socialism is the public ownership over the means of production. If you don't believe me go check dictionary.com. Giving money to the poor is not socialism. Taxing the rich is not socialism. The public ownership over the means of production is.

Regading the free market it is true that there has never been a completely free market. However, all the components of a free market has at some point been tested. Private enterprise has been tested and is indeed dominant in todays world and has proven to be a huge success. Private money was tested in the 19th century and early 20th (WWI destroyed the gold standard sadly), and proved itself to be superior to todays command-economy central banking. Likewise most fetures of command economy has been tested, if not all of them at one place, and they have all proven themselves to be very bad for the economy in the long run.

Excellent points all. Too often we forget that today's socialism is actually a pseudo-socialism - rather than owning the means of production, government merely imitates socialism's idealized results by redistributing the wealth generated by production. It's a subtle but important distinction that separates today's Western socialism from true socialism such as Marxism. Its one great redeeming factor is that society can set for itself the degree to which property is confiscated and re-distributed, thus avoiding the negative affects on incentive which are without exception found in true socialism. I've been calling it "Western socialism" to distinguish it from true socialism, but we really need a more definitive name since properly speaking it's not really socialism at all. Perhaps pseudo-socialism?

Regarding distributionism, that happens today within capitalism. There is nothing that prevents workers from pooling their resources and starting (or buying out) a company, which is usually called a cooperative. I deal with a number of such cooperatives in my line of work; they seem to be fairly prevalent among utility companies, and some work pretty well. Though in general I agree with Dave Ramsey: "Anything with more than one head is a monster." Many capitalistic corporations also reward their employees partially in stock bonuses and options, for the very sound reason that people work harder if they see a tangible connection between their employer's prosperity and their own. The stronger the perceived connection, the harder people are willing to work.

I do agree with Steve about the dangers of concentrating wealth and its power in too few hands, but I agree with H0ncho that this is highly unlikely to happen except through the power of government, whether through excessive regulation or the granting of monopolies. Still, I would like to keep businesses from growing so large that we feel we HAVE to bail them out if they are about to go under. If you remove the risk of failure, the free market doesn't work any better than in true Marxist socialism, where you remove the chance of success.

 

[werepossum]

Since when was a socialist or communist country ever the #1 world power? As for capitalism failing, it only fails when government intervenes or when corporations stifle the free market.

Check again in 20 years when China is the world's most powerful nation.
And corporations stifle the free market when government does not intervene. See the problem?

The Soviet Union was never an economic superpower. The West thought the USSR was an economic superpower because it produced so much military equipment and had so many people, but analysis after the USSR died revealed that the West had greatly over-estimated the USSR's productivity by basing it on extrapolations from Western societies. The USSR survived as long as it did simply by devoting huge amounts of its workforce and resources to military production, leaving a population desperately poor by Western standards. Bluntly speaking, when the USSR ceased to grow it began to die.

Given this fact, the United States' choice of path post-Cold War is hilariously ironic.

Again, Red China is becoming an economic superpower by adopting the power of capitalism; it remains communist in its political system. When it was also economically communist it was dirt poor.

How is the United States' choice of path post-Cold War is hilariously ironic?

 

[John Galt]

Capitalism's nice and all, but I find myself drifting more and more towards socialism, or at least, a heavily regulated capitalism. My main problem with good old Ayn Rand is that the free-market seldom remains free and to impose rules that work only when the market is free is pretty damn shortsighted. We've got to have some sort of outside body (in most cases, the State) regulating what goes on in its economy to make sure foreign or global corporations don't run amok. I'm starting to think that nationalizing industries related to infrastructure might actually be good for our economy. Just imagine what the United States government could do if we were able to effectively exploit our own resources in the same way that we allow multi-national companies to do. While I'm far from a talented or even knowledgeable economist, I feel that we could do more good than harm to our economy if we were able to put things like loans and other hot-button economic issues under government control.

Of course, then you've got to contend with the fact that the United States government is woefully inept. So much for my little authoritarian dream...

 

[watchman 2353]

Change your user name. No one should ever side towards socialism with the user name john galt. You are a insult to all of us objectivists, even Ayn Rand herself.

 

[nmmoore13]

Change your user name. No one should ever side towards socialism with the user name john galt. You are a insult to all of us objectivists, even Ayn Rand herself.

High fives! I agree. Then I can take your username rather than the crappy one I have now.

 

[ReepNeep]

How is the United States' choice of path post-Cold War is hilariously ironic?

You haven't noticed? The Soviet Union, Colonial England and Rome all fell because because the spoils of their colonial ventures didn't cover their costs. They were crushed by the weight of their own armor.

When its not out killing something, a military contributes nothing useful to a nation other than deterring it's enemies from attacking it directly and ours is far to big to be efficient in that role. When your economic base cannot support, on it's own, the costs of your armed forces, you must look for resources elsewhere. Ours hasn't been for at least a decade, and it's finally becoming apparent.

The US is also a colonial power in a sense, though our hand is far lighter than those of the nations mentioned above. Instead of outright subjugating a nation, we either just invade or cause coups to install leaders friendly to the US and then let the countries govern themselves, as long as they don't directly oppose us. The friendly foreign leaders then give US companies first dibs on developing the local resources and rebuilding the infrastructure from the 'regime change' which in theory sends all this money and resource wealth back to the US. What exactly do you think happened to cause the first Gulf War, after all? Haven't you noticed that the US itself doesn't produce anything useful except information and agricultural products (that no one seems to want) anymore?

The vastly increased size of the US military was necessary during WW2, and debatable during the Cold War (I tend to think that MAD was all that was strictly required. Reagan dumping MiracleGrow on it was gratituous and totally unnecessary). In this new age with no likely challenges to the conventional might of even a country like the UK, the military has been pressed into service exclusively as an agent of colonialism, which, to be fair was a major part of what it did during the Cold War to begin with.

In short, we are venturing down the same path: that of the Fallen Empire.

 

[stompy]

A closer analogy would be a bonus, not a wage. Since this is true, there's no reason to give more shares to the CEO than to the lowly worker, and thank goodness for that. Otherwise there's almost no point in distributism anyway: "shares" have replaced "wages" and everyone has the same proportion of money and power.

But, the amount of shares you own in a company determines your saying in the company. The more shares you buy, the more power and sway one has in the company, generally. There are limits, like the need for elections to become a board director, and being held accountable by the stack-holders. Still, giving equal shares in the company means that both have equal say in the running of the business, defeating the whole purpose of CEOs and the like. If you are going to give your head decision-maker the same shares in the company as someone who works on the factory floor, you might as well scrap the former.

Also, what about smaller businesses? If a sole proprietor decides they need to some extra help, then why should they have to hand over equal share of the company as the temp/casual that comes 3 days a week?

Also, won't this kill the stock market? If you make every company hand over all its stock to employees, what about outsiders who wish to invest and buy a share in the company? Handing everyone shares devalues the shares, and withholding shares from one party either means we're back the capitalism or the stock market dies.

 

[John Galt]

Change your user name. No one should ever side towards socialism with the user name john galt. You are a insult to all of us objectivists, even Ayn Rand herself.

High fives! I agree. Then I can take your username rather than the crappy one I have now.

Finders keepers!

Anyways, you've got to admit, a fully capitalist society wouldn't remain the Objectivist utopia Ayn Rand envisioned. Before you could read through Galt's speech, you'd have those with ambition building up massive systems in an effort to maintain their power. The free market, when left to its own devices, simply will not remain free for long. I think that it is much better, to have some control exerted by the State, which is answerable to the people, than have a company pursue its own dreams with no regard to the social impact of their actions. It is in mankind's best interests to work cooperatively.

Now then, I must assert that I am fully opposed to social welfare as it would be used in a socialist or communist society. I don't think that individuals should have to foot the bill for their fellow man. If you're able to work, but the private sector has nothing to offer you, then I think the State should be able to use you in a government run industry. Government-sponsored programs got the unemployed back to producing in the Great Depression, I think we should still offer that same kind of option to those who are unable to get work in the private sector.

But, I still support my earlier points. When an industry is able to greatly affect public welfare, like the banks in our society have, they should be responsible to the government (since there's no real way to force them to be directly responsible to the people). I'm not advocating some sort of communist oligarchy here, just that we have our economy function in society's best interest. We need standards for loan qualifications. If we are not prepared to weather the inevitable shit-storm that forms whenever a big business takes too big a risk and fails, then we must be prepared to have the government step in with a larger role to play.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Who capitalises on the capitalists? Who socialises the socalists? Who communes with the communists?

Governments fall because of those that support them. The Watchmen. Civil Servants.

 

[nmmoore13]

Change your user name. No one should ever side towards socialism with the user name john galt. You are a insult to all of us objectivists, even Ayn Rand herself.

High fives! I agree. Then I can take your username rather than the crappy one I have now.

Finders keepers!

Anyways, you've got to admit, a fully capitalist society wouldn't remain the Objectivist utopia Ayn Rand envisioned. Before you could read through Galt's speech, you'd have those with ambition building up massive systems in an effort to maintain their power. The free market, when left to its own devices, simply will not remain free for long. I think that it is much better, to have some control exerted by the State, which is answerable to the people, than have a company pursue its own dreams with no regard to the social impact of their actions. It is in mankind's best interests to work cooperatively.

Now then, I must assert that I am fully opposed to social welfare as it would be used in a socialist or communist society. I don't think that individuals should have to foot the bill for their fellow man. If you're able to work, but the private sector has nothing to offer you, then I think the State should be able to use you in a government run industry. Government-sponsored programs got the unemployed back to producing in the Great Depression, I think we should still offer that same kind of option to those who are unable to get work in the private sector.

But, I still support my earlier points. When an industry is able to greatly affect public welfare, like the banks in our society have, they should be responsible to the government (since there's no real way to force them to be directly responsible to the people). I'm not advocating some sort of communist oligarchy here, just that we have our economy function in society's best interest. We need standards for loan qualifications. If we are not prepared to weather the inevitable shit-storm that forms whenever a big business takes too big a risk and fails, then we must be prepared to have the government step in with a larger role to play.

A fully capitalist society would only work in a Galt's Gulch sort of environment, a fully rational society. This is an eventual goal we should move towards, starting with a major philosphical change. If we were to snap our fingers and change the system to a fully capitalized one, there would be chaos. No one is ready for it yet, we are too accustomed to a mixed economy. It would only survive if the society than remained a rational one, which is quite conceivable. Once you have reality and morality proved to be a certain way to you, its pretty difficult to change, so I doubt a commie is going to end up in the Gulch.

 

[werepossum]

How is the United States' choice of path post-Cold War is hilariously ironic?

You haven't noticed? The Soviet Union, Colonial England and Rome all fell because because the spoils of their colonial ventures didn't cover their costs. They were crushed by the weight of their own armor.

When its not out killing something, a military contributes nothing useful to a nation other than deterring it's enemies from attacking it directly and ours is far to big to be efficient in that role. When your economic base cannot support, on it's own, the costs of your armed forces, you must look for resources elsewhere. Ours hasn't been for at least a decade, and it's finally becoming apparent.

The US is also a colonial power in a sense, though our hand is far lighter than those of the nations mentioned above. Instead of outright subjugating a nation, we either just invade or cause coups to install leaders friendly to the US and then let the countries govern themselves, as long as they don't directly oppose us. The friendly foreign leaders then give US companies first dibs on developing the local resources and rebuilding the infrastructure from the 'regime change' which in theory sends all this money and resource wealth back to the US. What exactly do you think happened to cause the first Gulf War, after all? Haven't you noticed that the US itself doesn't produce anything useful except information and agricultural products (that no one seems to want) anymore?

The vastly increased size of the US military was necessary during WW2, and debatable during the Cold War (I tend to think that MAD was all that was strictly required. Reagan dumping MiracleGrow on it was gratituous and totally unnecessary). In this new age with no likely challenges to the conventional might of even a country like the UK, the military has been pressed into service exclusively as an agent of colonialism, which, to be fair was a major part of what it did during the Cold War to begin with.

In short, we are venturing down the same path: that of the Fallen Empire.

The USA has roughly 1.5 million in our armed forces, from a population of roughly 300 million - one in two hundred is in the military in some function. Russia has roughly 1 million in the military from a population of roughly 140 million - one person in 140 is in the military. In addition, the USA provides the bulk of armed might to defend NATO - Russia must defend only Russia, as most of her neighbors don't want another Russian army on their soil. And yet you think the USA is the one that's overly militarized?

As of 2007, Kuwait - the only country to experience a change in leadership or governance as a result of the First Gulf War - was the USA's 10th largest oil supplier at 1.8% whilst remaining OPEC's fourth largest exporter overall. Kuwait has also continued funding Syria, one of our biggest enemies. Kuwait has hardly any human rights and is in no way a democracy, the USA's preferred type of government. So explain to me how the USA made Kuwait a colony?

Also, the USA is the world's largest manufacturer, admittedly projected to be passed late this year or early next by China. So whilst you may not find anything made in the USA to be useful, presumably others do, or the USA would not have exported over a trillion dollars of goods last year.

You need other points, the ones you have are defective.

http://import-export.suite101.com/article.cfm/usa_oil_imports_by_country_2007
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPEC

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

As of 2007, Kuwait - the only country to experience a change in leadership or governance as a result of the First Gulf War - was the USA's 10th largest oil supplier at 1.8% whilst remaining OPEC's fourth largest exporter overall. Kuwait has also continued funding Syria, one of our biggest enemies. Kuwait has hardly any human rights and is in no way a democracy, the USA's preferred type of government. So explain to me how the USA made Kuwait a colony?

Ahem, having been there, I would seriously suggest re-checking all of that information. I'd start with 1961.

 

[werepossum]

As of 2007, Kuwait - the only country to experience a change in leadership or governance as a result of the First Gulf War - was the USA's 10th largest oil supplier at 1.8% whilst remaining OPEC's fourth largest exporter overall. Kuwait has also continued funding Syria, one of our biggest enemies. Kuwait has hardly any human rights and is in no way a democracy, the USA's preferred type of government. So explain to me how the USA made Kuwait a colony?

Ahem, having been there, I would seriously suggest re-checking all of that information. I'd start with 1961.

Well, until 1961 Kuwait was a British colony; after '61 it was an independent nation, but Britain still agreed to provide aid, Kuwait appealed to Britain when Iraq laid claim to it, Kuwait continued selling its oil to British companies, it's a constitutional hereditary monarchy - I'm not seeing anything that indicates any USA-Kuwait ties, let alone colonial status, before '87. Even after '87 cooperation was quite limited. After the First Gulf War Kuwait became very favorable to the USA, of course - without the USA there wouldn't BE a Kuwait today, after all, and American companies spent loads of money on and in Kuwait - and became a large importer of US goods - but so are Canada, Australia, and the UK, none of which can be remotely considered as US colonies. Kuwait's oil is still primarily tied to the UK, not the USA. What am I missing?

http://web.mit.edu/cascon/cases/case_kui.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuwait
http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/printer_203.shtml
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/fall_winter_2001/article03.html
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/35876.htm

 

[ReepNeep]

The USA has roughly 1.5 million in our armed forces, from a population of roughly 300 million - one in two hundred is in the military in some function. Russia has roughly 1 million in the military from a population of roughly 140 million - one person in 140 is in the military. In addition, the USA provides the bulk of armed might to defend NATO - Russia must defend only Russia, as most of her neighbors don't want another Russian army on their soil. And yet you think the USA is the one that's overly militarized?

As of 2007, Kuwait - the only country to experience a change in leadership or governance as a result of the First Gulf War - was the USA's 10th largest oil supplier at 1.8% whilst remaining OPEC's fourth largest exporter overall. Kuwait has also continued funding Syria, one of our biggest enemies. Kuwait has hardly any human rights and is in no way a democracy, the USA's preferred type of government. So explain to me how the USA made Kuwait a colony?

Also, the USA is the world's largest manufacturer, admittedly projected to be passed late this year or early next by China. So whilst you may not find anything made in the USA to be useful, presumably others do, or the USA would not have exported over a trillion dollars of goods last year.

You're confusing manpower with spending. US military spending dwarfs that of any other nation on earth. Manpower is a very misleading indicator of military strength that hawks like to use to alarm people who don't know the difference.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures
We spend nearly twice as much as the EU as a whole, more than ten times what Russia does, and just under ten times what China does assuming their published numbers are accurate.

As to Kuwait, you misunderstood my point entirely. Saddam Hussein was a US ally from when the CIA helped him seize power in 1968 to the moment he entered Kuwait in 1989. Kuwait is friendly to US business interests so we've left them alone. The US considered Kuwait's leadership to be more stable and cooperative than Hussein's government, so guess who we sided with? Also note that we went back and replaced the hostile but totally impotent and non-threatening (to the US proper, not our financial interests in the region) Iraqi government with a pro-US one in 2003.

As to your manufacturing, I'll admit to exaggerating for dramatic effect. The fact remains that the vast majority of that manufacturing is done overseas, despite much of it being done by US companies. Add to that the fact that the US trade deficit is more than 60 Billion a month. As of July this year we import 1.37 times what we export in goods.
See:http://www.census.gov/indicator/www/ustrade.html

This is fun. Your turn.

 

[BaronAsh]

Just put me in charge. I have yet to see a single politician with a brain or common sense, I have both. I will rule the nation with an iron fist, all in the name of a better life for the common joe.

Also, I'll outlaw Rap.

ALL HAIL Khell_Sennet KING OF THE UNIVERSE AND LEADER OF OUR GLORIOUS RELIGION

 

[Saskwach]

A closer analogy would be a bonus, not a wage. Since this is true, there's no reason to give more shares to the CEO than to the lowly worker, and thank goodness for that. Otherwise there's almost no point in distributism anyway: "shares" have replaced "wages" and everyone has the same proportion of money and power.

But, the amount of shares you own in a company determines your saying in the company. The more shares you buy, the more power and sway one has in the company, generally. There are limits, like the need for elections to become a board director, and being held accountable by the stack-holders. Still, giving equal shares in the company means that both have equal say in the running of the business, defeating the whole purpose of CEOs and the like. If you are going to give your head decision-maker the same shares in the company as someone who works on the factory floor, you might as well scrap the former.

Also, what about smaller businesses? If a sole proprietor decides they need to some extra help, then why should they have to hand over equal share of the company as the temp/casual that comes 3 days a week?

Also, won't this kill the stock market? If you make every company hand over all its stock to employees, what about outsiders who wish to invest and buy a share in the company? Handing everyone shares devalues the shares, and withholding shares from one party either means we're back the capitalism or the stock market dies.

That's a bit like saying that just because we have elections there's no reason to have presidents, and just because Switzerland allows voters to have referenda on any issue they shouldn't have a leader or government at all. It's just easier to hand power over to one man or small group for the day-to-day running. Distibutism simply allows workers to make the final call on an issue they decide is too important.
For smaller businesses, well who knows, temp/casual workers may be exempt. Workers may also be told, "You'll be given X number of shares at Y value, but you'll have to work towards them, which will take Z amount of time." This would weed out temp/casual workers.
Re: stock market. This could work in many ways. Yes, you could hand over all shares to these workers or you could just hand over a controlling interest. Hell, you wouldn't even need to do that - you could simply give them a fair chunk and call it a day. Still, this system was created as a legitimate "third way" - an alternative to both capitalism and communism. I'd say, then, that if you really put distributist theory into practice you'd find the stock market disappear - which is why I'm reserving full judgement until later research. There's nothing wrong with allowing competition between the two different styles of company.
I can't believe I've gotten this far on the back of a post that was just a tad facetious. I'm actually treading into waters I'm not all that comfortable defending...

Regarding distributionism, that happens today within capitalism. There is nothing that prevents workers from pooling their resources and starting (or buying out) a company, which is usually called a cooperative. I deal with a number of such cooperatives in my line of work; they seem to be fairly prevalent among utility companies, and some work pretty well. Though in general I agree with Dave Ramsey: "Anything with more than one head is a monster." Many capitalistic corporations also reward their employees partially in stock bonuses and options, for the very sound reason that people work harder if they see a tangible connection between their employer's prosperity and their own. The stronger the perceived connection, the harder people are willing to work.

That's true; for example, fisheries are currently moving into a system that is basically the same idea, and finding it rewards all involved - fish and fishermen - and halves the chance of the fishery's population collapsing. It's nice to think that these worker cooperatives don't necessarily have to throw the baby out with the bath water.