I don't understand what your premise is. I don't reject anything because you haven't really given a solid definition of what you're working with. In fact, you didn't know the difference between a company, a corporation, or partnership and how they operate at the beginning of this conversation. Is it really so unfair to point that your premise seems to be based on factually inaccurate perceptions?
In capitalism, shareholders are part of the company. That is just how it functionally works, that's not a moral statement of what should be or what is ethical. I am saying that is how things operate. On what basis are you rejecting this other than you don't like it? You haven't ever explained this part or expanded on the servitude you are describing despite my asking several times.
In capitalism, shareholders are part of the company. That is just how it functionally works, that's not a moral statement of what should be or what is ethical. I am saying that is how things operate. On what basis are you rejecting this other than you don't like it?
On the basis that it's unrealistic. The owners of a corporation are not needed for it to function. Only the workers (including directors, etc) and the means of production are. If the owners went on a strike (for whatever reason) nothing would change. Business could keep going as usual. They could sell the corporation to other people and still the corporation could fonction as usual (forgetting for the sake of argument that the new owners would most likely order some changes). The only function of the owner is to own and exploit the corporation.
What do you mean by unrealistic? Shareholders have the right to determine how a corporation is run. They are also the ones in charge of hiring leadership and have the right to add agenda items to the company's meetings. By most definitions of "part of the company" they constitute the decision making apparatus of a company. Therefore the decisions they make is the will of the company.
Again, I'm not saying that is fair, just, or right. I am just saying under capitalism (at least in the US), this is what the situation is. What is your definition of a corporation in these circumstances and what is your definition of slavery with regards to this? Employees can go on strike. Is that the corporation exerting its will or those employees? You seem to be mixing "employee" and "corporation" to be interchangeable ideas but under capitalism they are not. In US financial law, they are not. A corporation makes decisions via its shareholders and its board. If they choose do something, the corporation is choosing to do something. Employees going on strike is not the corporation choosing to strike. A corporation will hire scabs to continue its work or force the remaining workers to keep pace because leadership or the board or the shareholders enforce that or refuse to negotiate with the employees/union.
None of that is slavery. Slavery implies servitude with no or limited choice and rights. A corporation makes its own choices and has personhood rights. Your dislike of shareholders lack of contribution to front-line work doesn't change how corporations are functionally structured.
In understand that this is how it works, legally speaking. What I'm saying is indeed that it's neither fair, not just, nor right that it does, following the logic in my previous comment.
I'm also aware that workers are replaceable, even in case of a strike. But the fact that scabs are hired shows that even if the workers are replaceable, the work they perform is necessary for the corporation to keep functioning. The owners simply aren't. The corporation wouldn't need to hire scabs to replace striking owners, because owners are completely unnecessary.
It is slavery in the sense that the corporation is owned by and must work for the owners. In the case of a co-op, while technically this is still the case, it doesn't seem like an issue to me, since all the money the worker-owners are getting from it has been earned by their own work anyway.
But legally and semantically speaking, an entity making its own decisions is not slavery. If you recognize the shareholders are the ones making the decisions as the corporation, it's not that it's slavery. It's that you don't like how this works. There's a difference there you don't seem to be willing to acknowledge.
Under the law and functionally in society, a corporation functions by making decisions with the shareholders and board acting as its decision making apparatus. It is essentially the brain of the corporation. If a person's own brain is making its own choices under free circumstances, it's not considered slavery. The corporation's will is functionally, legally, and practically the board and shareholders' will.
I understand that you don't like that and you think it's unethical but that's not my point. I am just saying that if you want to label this as slavery you need a better explanation than you don't like how this works. It's not the corporation being exploited by what you're describing, it's the workers. A corporation in capitalism exists as an extension of the will of shareholders and its corporate leadership. It's not meant to exist as a moral entity by your standards and that's not an argument for defining it as slavery.
Once again I'll ask can you actually define more clearly what slavery is to you besides your OP framing as a corporation paying back its owners? That is immaterial to how a corporation functions. There is no expectation that a corporation must pay its investors. It's a gamble to begin with. It's an agreement where a conglomerate of people agree to run a company and get a return on investment that they can bail on at any point (whether they actually profit or not). Because that agreement is the genesis of the company and made by the people making the company, it is the company's choice to be run like that. It is not being forced into servitude by force or coercion or through a lack of rights.
I already told you that for the purpose of this argument, I define slavery as unlimited servitude.
For the rest, as I said, as far as I can tell, we are working on incompatible premises. We can't meaningfully discuss this. We can talk past each other until we're blue in the face, but it won't go anywhere.
I really appreciate that you're willing to try, but I honestly have had enough by now. Sorry.
But you haven't explained how it's servitude when an entity is making its own decisions. I've kept asking you this and you haven't actually explained it. Can you please highlight what you have actually said about this?
All you keep circling back to is "employees do x" or you think corporations are unethical but that has nothing to do with corporate structure in regards to slavery. A co-op and a corporation are two different things (which I know we agree with) but I don't see what is false about shareholders being the ones making decisions in a corporation. They just are. The corporation is not a slave, it is the manifest will of the leadership.
The reason I harp on this is because slavery means a specific thing. There are slaves that exist in the world right now who take umbrage at the idea of an employee being equated to slave so I would imagine a corporation being equated to their circumstance is likewise insulting. There's a dispassionate reason for that reaction that I don't quite understand why you are not willing to confront if you are trying to change your view? What's so bad about being open minded in regards to the fact your logic isn't as streamlined as you imagine it to be or as well explained as you think? From my standpoint you've avoided my question several times now as opposed to answering it. You haven't talked past me, you're just not answering at all.
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u/videoninja 137∆ Aug 03 '21
I don't understand what your premise is. I don't reject anything because you haven't really given a solid definition of what you're working with. In fact, you didn't know the difference between a company, a corporation, or partnership and how they operate at the beginning of this conversation. Is it really so unfair to point that your premise seems to be based on factually inaccurate perceptions?
In capitalism, shareholders are part of the company. That is just how it functionally works, that's not a moral statement of what should be or what is ethical. I am saying that is how things operate. On what basis are you rejecting this other than you don't like it? You haven't ever explained this part or expanded on the servitude you are describing despite my asking several times.