On: Companies Shouldn’t Be Accountable Only to Shareholders

[lucretian]

supremely disappointing to see such a poorly substantiated comment upvoted this highly.

  What value does workers electing their directors add for anybody?

the value is articulated in the original op-ed. among other things, reducing income inequality which is important from a societal perspective.

  the idea that director appointments should be political is patently absurd

they are already political, just in a very one-sided fashion.

  a directorship is a job with well defined requirements and expectations

defined by the owner / capitalist class. the job can be redefined.

  the majority of workers are often completely unqualified to judge

very arrogant to assume that workers do not understand their own priorities or that those things shouldn't matter.

the rest of the comment is composed of regurgitated talking points.

edit: disclosure - ex-vc and current business owner

[chatmasta → lucretian]

I wasn’t implying that workers are incapable of judging who the best candidate for a director level job is. Rather, I was suggesting that they do not have the information necessary to make a defensible decision. Therefore, like all elections, the process is reduced to popularity contest where employees could just as easily vote for a candidate who is detrimental to their interests without even realizing it.

[dragonwriter → chatmasta]

I dont see how that is any less true of the mass of public stockholders. (Or, he citizens of a democratic state.)

Yes, people with voting power can make mistaken decisions that are contrary to their interests. Giving all of the voting power to people whose interests are systematically and fundamentally in conflict with the group at issue on many points does not, however, reduce the likelihood of adverse decisions being imposed on them.

[chatmasta → dragonwriter]

One difference is that you can always quit the company you work for (which you voluntarily joined in the first place); it’s not so easy to leave your country, nor did you have any choice in where you were born.

[kerbalspacepro → chatmasta]

Quitting a company that pays for your insurance, and likely deeply embedded itself in your social life, isn't "easy".

Acting like the corporate-employee relationship is the same as between, say, a uber-driver and an uber-passenger is ridiculous but it seems to me your model of employment.

[vonmoltke → kerbalspacepro]

> and likely deeply embedded itself in your social life

No company has ever had anything to do with my social life, and no company ever will.

[kerbalspacepro → vonmoltke]

I mean, that's great for you, but kind of sad, too. A good company that wants its employees to stick around should be integrating the social lives of its employees.

[dragonwriter → chatmasta]

I fail to see how those are differences in regard to the feature raised in the post I was responding to. (Also, I'm not sure “what you must do to eat” is voluntary in any meaningful sense.)

[lucretian → chatmasta]

  I was suggesting that they do not have the information necessary to make a defensible decision.

only in the narrow, status quo definition of the job, structured as such in the interests of the owner class. i encourage you to expand your political imagination.

others have already covered the remaining aspects of your comment i object to.