> don't try to use the club of government to change an existing for-profit, shareholder-controlled company into what you want it to be, just because you want it.
Do you think existing corporate management structures don't rely on state violence to maintain themselves? If a bunch of workers enacted control over their workplace, do you think shareholders would be the ones coming in and cracking heads, or government agents?
You're simply defining your narrow conception of property rights and economic organization to be the Right and Natural Way for Things to Be, and you choose to not see the club of government used to enforce it.
So? I do think some people have bad practices. Non-competes, for instance, are often abused. But you can still leave...
> existing corporate management structures... rely on state violence to maintain themselves... If a bunch of workers enacted control over their workplace
Yes, if there was a workers uprising, I would darn well hope the police would come in and crack heads. You don't get to "enact control" over other people's stuff (including their company). But I do think that crony capitalism is cancer, see Amazon's recent $15/hr push to force competitors out of business.
> You're simply defining your narrow conception of property rights and economic organization to be the Right and Natural Way for Things to Be, and you choose to not see the club of government used to enforce it.
You're absolutely right that property rights are the Right and Natural Way for things to Be. If you don't agree, read about the tragedy of the commons. And look at the 100s of millions communism has killed.
We live in a nation founded on the basis of property rights. One of the most basic functions of our government is to enforce property rights. It's impossible to run a civilization on our scale without it. If you really don't like America and the way she's run, you could leave.
And the idea that you can have my stuff just because you want it is plain wrong.
Are there current issues as well? [1][2]
A main point is this (and I think its been mentioned elsewhere in this thread as well):
An attack on the status-quo is not a promotion of socialism
Our current implementations are a far cry from a free market. The entrenched powers and corporations don't want free markets-- its socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor [3] [4]
We'd have to start from scratch to attain a free market. And even then, the oft-quoted invisible hand of competitive markets falls flat in an increasingly opaque, complex world [5]
It seems to me that you have a strong sense of what is fair. I urge you to look out into all the wealth of information we have and take a hard look to see if our current way of being is fair [6][7]
[1] https://poverty.umich.edu/research-projects/policy-briefs/ri...
[2]https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2015/sdn1513.pdf
[3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Economic_Stabilizati...
[4]https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/07/social-...
[5]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient-market_hypothesis
I'd say most companies are similar. Yes, the worker does a lot. Without the company, it's unlikely one guy manufacturing something could find as many customers, if any. Finally, not everything can be done on an individual scale: the iPhone can't be built by one man.
Also, what do you mean by dictatorships? You can leave any time you want to. The job market is amazing for a worker right now.
The workers get their compensation in the form of benefits, wages, etc. There are companies that are run as co-ops: see REI. Most employees love it their, according to a friend who worked their for a while. If you want to work there, that's fine. If you want to work at a company with stock options, that's fine. But don't try to use the club of government to change an existing for-profit, shareholder-controlled company into what you want it to be, just because you want it.
That's authoritarianism.