Question about collective ownership
Question about collective ownership
Suppose I have studied for years to become a pastry chef. I set up my own bakery, investing my time, energy, and labour into procuring equipment and building up a reputation as a delicious place to eat. I run the entire operation myself as the sole worker. Eventually, after years of turmoil, word of my exceptional pastries spreads and my bakery becomes the number one spot in town. Soon there's a line up around the block, long enough that I have to turn away customers on the regular.
Not wanting to have to send people home hungry, I decide that having someone to wash my dishes and somebody to tend to the counter would buy me enough time to focus on the main reason people come to my shop: my delicious pastries.
I do, however, have an issue. I worked really hard to build my bakery up to where it is today, and don't want to have to give up ownership to the two people I want to bring onboard. They didn't put in any effort into building up my bakery, so why should they have an equal democratic say over how it's run?
Is there a way I can bring on help without having to give away control of my buisness?
Furthermore, what's to stop the two new workers from democratically voting me out of the operation, keeping the store, name, brand, and equipment for themselves?
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Furthermore, what’s to stop the two new workers from democratically voting me out of the operation, keeping the store, name, brand, and equipment for themselves?
This implies private property still exists in this scenario, only that instead of a capitalist, the business itself (as a legal person) owns its land, equipment, etc and it's managed democratically by the workers like a mini-state. That is not socialism, it's a workers co-op operating in a capitalist world.
In a true socialist society everything would collectively owned; the bakery would be there because you convinced your local community to give you a space for it, and the new workers couldn't unilaterally go against the community and kick you out like that.
Also, my understanding is that not everyone has to have an equal vote in a workers co-op.