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Would it be an improvement on the US economy to have most businesses worker-owned?

Debate Information

Edit: This post has been edited merely for indicating that some things are no longer true I said. That which is crossed out is no longer true. For sake of integrity, as I do not like to dirty-edit things, I'm not deleting anything I originally said.

For the purpose of this debate, "worker-owned" would be defined as at least majority-owned by all the employees of the company in terms of stock and them getting some sort of voice in the decisions the business makes. (i.e they may directly vote on major business decisions, or else elect the people who do so)

I'll likely be posting my opening arguments near the end of the first debate period, as I collect my evidence for my position(perhaps sooner though, since I am fairly aware on where to find the evidence for my position). My position is that it would improve the economy in a number of ways, including, but not limited to:
1) An increase in GDP per capita
2) An increase in consumption
3) Decreasing the over-abundance of investment we have in this nation(my evidence that we invest too much and not consume enough to match it will be presented as an argument in the first round, so don't argue this is unsubstantiated yet, of course, as my arguments are coming soon)
4) Improvement of working conditions
5) Reducing the immediate harm that automating and shipping jobs overseas have on the individual who loses their job. 

I do not mind sharing you some of the points I plan on bringing up, as I believe I have an idea on how to counter any point you may bring up showing the contrary. Plus, since I may be one of the last to post, I suppose it's fair you get a heads up. Let's begin. 
qwerrty
"Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal."
-Albert Camus, Notebook IV



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Voting Format: Formal Voting

Rounds: 3

Time Per Round: 48 Hours Per Round


Voting Period: 24 Hours


Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Voting



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    Arguments


  • Round 1 | Position: For
    GeoLibCogScientistGeoLibCogScientist 128 Pts   -  
    I will try to somewhat organize my arguments according to the topics I mentioned above I would discuss, each as their own contention. If I present any new points, they will be contention 6, 7 and so forth.


    C1: Worker ownership of businesses would likely be followed with an increase of the GDP per capita of our nation.
    As my primary and most convincing forms of evidence, I am presenting two meta-analyses(studies which compiled numerous studies on the topic, analyzed them for bias, and determined what the net trend these studies are indicating). The first meta-analysis here found "a small, but positive and statistically significant relation to firm performance (r= 0.04)" and employee ownership. In particular, it found the difference more significant in "different sampling designs (samples assessing change in performance pre-employee–post-employee ownership adoption or samples on firms with employee ownership)". In other words, when a business transfers from private ownership by people at the top of the business hierarchy, to more-or-less equal ownership among those at the top and the lowest employees, the difference was greater in terms of how well the business performs. It should be self-evidence that increasing firm performance ought to increase the GDP per capita but to address any concerns that this isn't quite a variable indicative of productivity, this second meta-analysis looks at productivity more specifically.  This meta-analysis found that for three separate concepts related to employee ownership, namely, profit sharing, worker ownership, and worker participation, are all positively correlated with an increase in productivity. The one concept that is associated with employee ownership which found a negative correlation with productivity were codetermination laws, such as those proposed by Senator and 2020 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, as reported by the Washington Post here. If anyone is unfamiliar what a codetermination law is, it is defined as a law requiring some level of employee representation in the Board of Directors, either they get to vote for a director or are on the board of directors themselves.  It's important to note the subtle difference this study makes, however. It is basically saying that when the state mandates employee representation on a board of directors, it results in less productivity. This is where I would concede to right-wingers that the state being involved often makes things less efficient. However, the other three variables it looked at include voluntarily having the employees represented, which is found to be positively correlated with productivity. Since I'm not necessarily arguing the state ought to mandate employee representation, but rather the mere presence of it in general, this would be an irrelevant point to bring up. Indeed, as someone who is a libertarian, albeit left-wing libertarian, I'm as opposed to state involvement in this matter just as many right-wingers are.

    C2: Worker ownership of businesses would probably be followed by an increase in consumption
    This next contention I do not have as solidly backed-up by meta-analyses like the previous one(mainly because I don't think this topic is nearly as well-researched as the previous). However, I would say it is backed up in logic. If workers are more involved in the company's business decisions, they would also be more aware of what products are out there in the market. It should be self-evident that increasing awareness of products would increase the likelihood of them being bought. Additionally, one study found that employee ownership not only decreased the failure rate of businesses, but likely increases job and income security, the likelihood a person is to keep and maintain their job and decrease unemployment all around. These indicators would mean people would be less likely to go through a period of unemployment and thus a reduction of their yearly income. More income means more consumption or more saving in which case that's more lending from banks.

    C3: Decreasing the level of investment and increasing the consumption as talked about in C2, would be helpful as well
    So, I'm going to refer back to that previous study and present a couple of others, this one and this one. The study presented in C2 and the first one presented here, both seem to indicate that failure among newly-created businesses is rather high, and the one in C2, indicates that employee-ownership seems to decrease that. The second study, a meta-analysis looks at what things tend to make new technology ventures succeed. One must wonder why anyone is researching that if it's not true that the failure rate is high. One must ask, why is it so high? Given the number of businesses that get started, it seems start-up capital may not be an issue. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to suggest that investment is too high in that investors are investing so much that they invest in businesses bound to fail. I think we are all aware of the wealth distribution of the United States. Investors have far more wealth than anyone, and the primary thing they do is invest, while poor people primarily consume. A possible theory I suggest is that these businesses fail after some time because they can't find enough customers(aka, consumers), but so many businesses get started because they can easily find investors. While investment encourages more businesses to be created, I think it's self-evident it does little for whether that business will thrive and succeed. Obviously whether or not it has consumers is the primary factor on whether it does. So, why are so many businesses unable to find enough consumers? Why are the same ones easily able to get investment and can get started? The answer should be clear that consumers simply do not have enough money to consume as much that our level of investment demands. We need to have each reach equilibrium for a healthier economy, and as I've demonstrated, employee ownership would increase the income of consumers, and yes, likely decrease the income of investors, which is exactly what we need.

    C4: Worker ownership should improve working conditions
    I'm not sure I should have included this as a contention since it seems self-evident that if the people who are the ones in those working conditions get to decide what those conditions are, for the sake of their own health they'd choose to improve them more likely over someone higher up who doesn't have to be in those conditions. Since I said I would talk about it, I decided to include it, but probably was unnecessary. If need be, I could include studies on this specific topic should anyone challenge this contention.

    C5: Worker ownership would reduce the harm automation and shipping jobs overseas have on employees.
    A rather interesting Forbes Article pointed out in 2014, that the employee-owned grocery store known as WinCo, has the average employee there being a millionaire. Many of these are simply grocery clerks. That should be rather impressive since I'm sure none of us think of grocery clerks when thinking about millionaires. Each of these employees owns stock in the company nearly automatically by simply being an employee, to the point 2/3 of the company minimum is owned by the employees themselves. Should Winco start automating, which like many grocery stores it does have self-checkouts now, it won't impact those employees since they still own a lot of money in savings from their stock-ownership plans. Should they be let-go, it could be said it's no skin off their nose, as they have a cushion in their savings to live off of for quite some time. That article is, of course, 5 years old and WinCo has only gotten bigger since then, and so would what the employees own. Furthermore, it should be self-evident that the morality of shipping jobs overseas or automating jobs becomes a lot more moral when the ones losing their jobs are the ones deciding to do that since they get to vote or at least be represented in the decision for that to happen. They're essentially consenting to it, unlike many businesses where some guy at the top is mostly concerned for their own profits and not so much that they are making another human being unemployed against their consent merely just to get richer off of automation or cheap labor overseas.

    I rest my opening arguments. And yes, it seems I lied about waiting till the end of this round to present my arguments lol.
    Plaffelvohfenqwerrty
    "Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal."
    -Albert Camus, Notebook IV
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