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Workers Make Smartphones. They Design Them, Assemble them and Sell them. Capitalism stole the credit and makes them worse
(lemmy.world)
this post was submitted on 23 Sep 2024
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Capitalism doesn't mean the use of currency and buyer-seller markets. Capitalism means private ownership of the means of production. If apple was owned by the workers of the company instead of the stock market shareholders, then apple would still keep making iPhones. The only difference would be that the workers get all of the company's profit, instead of that profit going to people who "own" the company.
Sounds great and all but I always wonder how that works out in practice. It's not like a miner owning his own pick. Wikipedia says Apple has assets of $352.58 billion and a workforce of 161,000. That's about $2.2M per employee.
If a worker were to leave Apple, what would happen to their share? Would they be forced to sell it back to the other employees? After all, they would then be a non-worker and no longer eligible to own any of the company. Assuming they sold their complete share at the full value would they then keep that $2.2M?
If a new worker were to join Apple, how would they acquire their share? Would they have to find $2.2M before they could start? Or would their ownership build over time, and at what rate? How long would it take for their share to build?
If a company were to have a bad year where operating expenses exceed income, would the workers be paid anything? Or would those in trouble have to sell some of their share, and to whom?
A company only sells assets after they've gone into full bankruptcy liquidation. The company itself would continue to own all the assets. It's the PROFITS that would go to the workers. So no buy-in or any of that other stuff required. Apple's profit in 2023 was 170 billion, still a huge number, and yes, all of that profit should go to the workers. There's no justifiable reason why it should go to anyone other than the people who did the work.
To your other point, there would be a buffer fund for lean years.
OK, so why the phrase "workers own the means of production"? The plain English interpretation of that phrase is substantially different from the workers not owning the means but receiving the profits.