We look at the motivations for starting businesses through a modern-day capitalist lens, but the motivations would change under a different economic system (not entirely, though, depending on the economic system).
Making money is still the goal here for most people, but this would be combined with a strong social welfare program that makes all basic human needs (housing, food, utilities, internet, etc.) available to everyone, so fear of failure is vastly reduced.
As for the motivation to create a startup, there could be a few different cases, such as only having large businesses (determined by either employee count or total annual profit or revenue) be impacted by that regulation that forces all businesses to be worker-owned.
Another reason could simply be wanting to create something new for the betterment of humanity. If all basic human needs are met, then the profit motive, while not going away entirely, is greatly reduced, as the need for survival is already met, so more experimentation with different ideas can happen with the fear of failure being greatly reduced, as it would be simple to restart from scratch with a strong safety net. There could still be a profit motive here, but it would be secondary to the actual idea.
You’re an artist, but you’re not popular and you don’t make money off your work? Cool, you can do that full time.
You’re wanting to open a (non-chain/franchised) corner store with 5 well-paid employees? Go for it.
Your business expanded to over 50 employees, or makes more than $10 million in annual profit (completely arbitrary numbers here)? Now your business gets equally split up amongst the workers. The stock market in this situation would no longer exist, where external parties can both gamble on a company and influence the direction of that company, usually in favor of short term gain. When employees own the business, they tend to favor long term sustainability and stability, as that is what most people are seeking for themselves.
There should also be a hard cap on wealth, as nobody could ever possibly need more than $50 million for their entire life (again, arbitrary number). If wealth had a hard cap, that would also reduce incentive to constantly try to seize more power in any field (wouldn’t limit it entirely, but I don’t think anything can).
This will not eliminate the profit motive, as most people aren’t going to be satisfied with just the bare minimum for survival, but the lack of profit/business failure will not lead to homelessness/starvation/etc.
What would be the motivation then to even start a company/corporation if every time it happens, it is seized and given away?
As long as you still work at it, you are one of the workers.
The only forcing going on here would be forcing you to consider all the workers’ voices, not just yours.
If you stop working at the company, then you’d have to give up any control over it. Which is frankly entirely reasonable.
Really good question!
We look at the motivations for starting businesses through a modern-day capitalist lens, but the motivations would change under a different economic system (not entirely, though, depending on the economic system).
Making money is still the goal here for most people, but this would be combined with a strong social welfare program that makes all basic human needs (housing, food, utilities, internet, etc.) available to everyone, so fear of failure is vastly reduced.
As for the motivation to create a startup, there could be a few different cases, such as only having large businesses (determined by either employee count or total annual profit or revenue) be impacted by that regulation that forces all businesses to be worker-owned.
Another reason could simply be wanting to create something new for the betterment of humanity. If all basic human needs are met, then the profit motive, while not going away entirely, is greatly reduced, as the need for survival is already met, so more experimentation with different ideas can happen with the fear of failure being greatly reduced, as it would be simple to restart from scratch with a strong safety net. There could still be a profit motive here, but it would be secondary to the actual idea.
You’re an artist, but you’re not popular and you don’t make money off your work? Cool, you can do that full time.
You’re wanting to open a (non-chain/franchised) corner store with 5 well-paid employees? Go for it.
Your business expanded to over 50 employees, or makes more than $10 million in annual profit (completely arbitrary numbers here)? Now your business gets equally split up amongst the workers. The stock market in this situation would no longer exist, where external parties can both gamble on a company and influence the direction of that company, usually in favor of short term gain. When employees own the business, they tend to favor long term sustainability and stability, as that is what most people are seeking for themselves.
There should also be a hard cap on wealth, as nobody could ever possibly need more than $50 million for their entire life (again, arbitrary number). If wealth had a hard cap, that would also reduce incentive to constantly try to seize more power in any field (wouldn’t limit it entirely, but I don’t think anything can).
This will not eliminate the profit motive, as most people aren’t going to be satisfied with just the bare minimum for survival, but the lack of profit/business failure will not lead to homelessness/starvation/etc.