While discussing what is to be done about the insane increase in the cost of things we need to live (mainly gas, rent & food) you may run into a bootlicker Capitalism supporter who defends the companies squeezing us with statements like this:
…companies have obligations to shareholders, they can’t just pay people more across the board because it’s “the right thing to do” while deflating stock value and profit margins
My response:
– Who are today's shareholders? Mostly institutional holders such as banks and hedge funds. Then you have retirement funds, 401ks, Roth accounts and the like. After that you have a small percentage of shares held by individual “retail” investors.
– That means the only people corporations exist to serve right now are people fortunate enough to have large retirement accounts, the largest banks in the world, and people who are wealthy enough to invest. In other words, a very small number of us get to benefit from these corporate profits!
– Shares/stocks are literally a “pay to win” scheme within Capitalism. The more money you have => more shares you can buy => the more you can profit off company growth => the more money you have => the more shares you can buy…
– We are all forced to play this rigged game to survive. The “best” way to win is by having enough capital to live off the dividends and growth of a large stock portfolio. People call this “passive income” which is a nice way of saying leeching off the work of millions and the profiteering of millions more people.
– There is only a monetary barrier to entry to becoming a shareholder. All you have to do is pay for the shares, and now you get a slice of a company. You never have to step foot in an office, or do a minute of work, or even understand anything about the company itself to reap it's rewards. In effect the people who have the least impact on how the company functions have the most ownership over the company. Does this sound backwards to anyone else?
– What may be good for the shareholders may not be good for society at large. Shareholders of jewelry companies are profiting off potential child labor. Shareholders of companies like Raytheon are profiting off war. Shareholders of agribusiness firms are profiting off factory farms, exploitation of undocumented workers, etc.
– If you aren't a shareholder, you have nearly zero ability to influence what a company does, even if what that company is doing is hurting our society. If they raise prices and you can't live without the product, you're shit out of luck. If a company is polluting your river, too bad! Chances are the company paid off your local elected officials, and it's not like voting for one of the two Capitalist parties is going to make things better.
– Even if you ARE a shareholder, you have far less control over how a company operates than you would be led to believe. Yes, you get to “own” some small part of a company, but unless you are a owner of a sizable % of the company (aka millions of shares) you aren't going to have any real power over the executive board or any day-to-day decisions. In effect a handful of executives and the banks control everything that goes on in corporations.
Bottom Line: We need to gain control over how corporations operate.
– We need unions to force companies to listen to someone other than shareholders! As individuals the system is designed to keep you under control, but united with other workers you have real leverage over a company. Strikes and work stoppages are effective. Collective bargaining works. Unions protect ALL workers from unfair termination, unfair wages, and unsafe conditions.
– I want to see legislation that changes the responsibilities that public corporations have to society. Right now corporations are accountable to their shareholders, NOT the public or society at large. Corporations exist by law, and they can be forced to change how they operate by law. I want the law to change to force these corporations to consider not just the shareholders, but all of the people that they affect. That might mean hard caps on profit margins, forced profit sharing with all workers, workers are first in line for money during bankruptcy, price controls limiting the amount of profit allowed for essential goods, etc. Of course I ultimately want workers to own the means of production, but in the meantime there are a lot of ways we can control and limit the harm that “free markets” do to us if we can get legislators that think creatively about fighting back against this system.