WHERE You Work Matters

I keep trying to tackle this issue about 'ownership' and the currently accepted structure of capitalism, but I am (apparently) much too abrasive. (I believe this because I find no allies and create enemies.)

I point out the specific hypocrisy and dependence that is currently the rage. I believe this leads people to believe I am attacking them personally, and they, of course, calm their fear by attacking me…

ESOP's are my obsession. Publx [www.publix.com] is one of my favorite examples and is the largest corporation based out of Florida. Every employee receives stock; the employees seem happier than at other grocery stores; they seem more involved, more concerned, with their tasks. I personally know an older guy who works at one nearby part-time and, after 5 years, he has $5000 in stock.

Yet, the average Joe on the street shows no preference in filling out applications. They show no preference in jobs. They will work at the grungy store next door for the same wage, minus the yearly stock benefits. People don't shop differently either. Shoppers don't seem to care if the profits go to their neighbor or to Dubai.

Also, I see "liberal" group after liberal group shouting the same thing as the conservatives; "Jobs, jobs, jobs." They do not seem to care that the sole purpose of a job is to create a profit for the owner. (Strike that, many [politicians] probably do realize that--but they are concerned about their ownership stake in GE, or Wal-Mart… and need more bodies to work for subsistence wages and create more profit for them, the owners …)

I often snap at posters online. I go through posts of right-wing talking points and rip at them … I create more enemies..

Anyway, I have a sick feeling that if Wal-Mart or GE or Raytheon or Credit Suisse offered to hire all the current 99% protesters, I see no evidence that they all wouldn't file off to to work to while away the rest of their lives creating a profit for their new owners. [And yes, I see it that drastically, that harshly. They would be 'owned,' they would be "human resources" no more valuable to the corporation than any other "resource," like a lump of coal or a piece of paper. And the owners would owe them nothing, other than the subsistence wage previously agreed to, and the 'human resources' can usually be fired at will, and if they get to uppity the owners will just close that factory, or office, and move it to India and buy some cheaper human resources …

The owners of an ESOP [like Publix] are also the employees, giving them an incentive to not close their own store. It also gives them an incentive to think long-term and not skip on maintenance or investments. It also keeps the profits in their community, benefiting the community. It also allows them to feel less alienated, more involved in determining their own future. And on, and on …

So, there's my thoughts for the day. I am currently in law school and have researched and thought about these concepts extensively, from start-up financing to products to marketing and promotion. But, alas, I have found few who are interested, and most run off to apply to Wal-mart or Koch Industries while simultaneously complaining about the influence the profits (those same human resources create for Wal-mart or Koch Industries) are applied by the owners in the political realm … as lobbying to change laws to benefit the owners and cripple the workers. That is how the profit the workers create is used, yet people are clamoring to work to create those profits for corporations. So that the corporate owners can then use it to harm the workers.

So you know my position--the workers need to "own the means of production." But the worker's revolution should be in their own minds and spirits. "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink." Right now, Americans don't seem to care where they work--but they should.

One final note: I spoke of Publix … which is a multi-billion dollar corporation, entirely owned by its employees. Americans should aim high. You don't need to be sole owner of a little used clothes shop, you can be part owner of a huge corporation… a corporate and a community leader. I am advocating evolution, not revolution. Eventually the workers will realize they are better off working at Publix rather than at Wal-mart. Eventually, greedy bastards like the Walton family will die off, and people like George Jenkins will rightfully be held in high regard.

Thoughts on jobs, etc.

[An email I sent recently.]

Friend,

You seem rational, educated, compassionate, etc. and thought you could give me some outside perspective. (Here's a rambling overview ….)

I am interested in starting a non-profit business that starts for-profit ESOPs.

Many things have contributed to my thoughts.

JaxLegalAid was involved in a program to help ex-cons start businesses. (I haven't seen any evidence of success…)

I spoke with a Libertarian at school who felt the lack of ownership rights was at the root of the BP spill;
"When people own something they take care of it… sell off the Gulf of Mexico…"

I agree about the ownership stake …

Publix is the largest corporation out of Florida, and is an ESOP. An acquaintance who works at Publix says after five years he now has $5000 in Publix stock. I don't understand why the workers don't show a preference about where they work… but the workers at Publix sure seem friendlier than those at Winn-Dixie ...

Jobs create wealth for the corporations. When I worked as a freelance lighting tech the company would pay me $12/hr and bill the client $36/hr. When I went to law school professors pointed out that you have to bill three times your wage; if you make $50,000/year you need to bill $150,00/year. That's how capitalism works. One third to pay you, one third to pay for the building, the equipment, the electricity, whatever, and one third for the money men, the capitalists, profit. So, getting a job is getting exploited, getting taken advantage of, basically, for chumps. But thats what we [working class chumps] teach our kids; "Get a job."

(The SBA is worthless… but that's another story…)

And everyone knows that a house is "the average Americans largest investment, their largest asset" Yeah, the average chump. From the business perspective it is just a very big widget to sell the average consumer. Reagan said, "Buy a house ['cause I have stock in Lennar Homes…"]

Obviously, instead of teaching our kids "to get a job" and "buy a house" we should be teaching "start a business."

I believe this could be done sustainably. Loan a group $50,000 to start a business, they pay back 10,000/yr and they "buy-out" the business and are the employee-owners, and the loan is repaid with interest!!

I've thought about this from many more levels….

I've thought about approaching Peter Rummell, a wealthy local business man who "switched sides" and contributed $100,000 to Alvin Browns mayoral race and now is with the Urban Land Institute (ULI).

I've thought about approaching Chef Gordan Ramsey: "Hey, we have ten folks that are starting a restaurant… you can do a TV show that would inspire people..."

I thought about creating support by writing blogs. But comments are very tepid. Again and again people are like, "Just give me a job…" I see no ambition to be part of the ownership…! Just more, "Give me a job… I'll work to create a profit for somebody else"

I wonder if I should continue down this path. Why should I help these fools. I should just buy a boat and sail off
to the Cayman's…

Even after I explain all this to people, they are like, "Just give me a job… I'll work to create a profit for somebody else… " Yet working for Wal-Mart, or Raytheon, or BP, just creates more profit for Wal-Mart, or Raytheon, or BP, who then hire more lobbyists…

People are in fear, and overcompensate by acting macho and independent. (I joke, "the bigger the pick-up truck, the smaller the penis." People over-compensate for their weaknesses.

They convince themselves that getting a job is independent -- but it is pure subservience to the corporation. At least the folks at Publix are working for their corporation, one they have part ownership in.

Politics and the economy and culture are all intertwined.
We need to build a culture of true independence, where kids want to start a restaurant or a software company. (Of course you can make a lot more money working as an engineer at Raytheon than running a flower shop. But, at Raytheon you are spending your time working to pay for your own wage and then both to pay the owner's electric bill and making the owner a profit, and, ultimately, the job isn't very secure…)

Writing blogs and trying to generate interest is frustrating, and I am starting to think it's the wrong way to go.

That's where my thoughts are at this point…

Again, you seem rational, educated, compassionate, etc. and I'd like to sit down over a beer and hear your thoughts…

Drop me a line whenever.

Crazy Thoughts

So my thoughts are starting to coalesce into a semi-coherent plan. (If I said this to any of my friends they would, since they know my personality, undoubtably laugh, or at least chuckle… they would think, "Danger, danger Will Robinson!") I have this concept, this thought, and it dwells in the shadows of my mind and takes over my thoughts in quiet times of contemplation, and I polish the concept.

The thought that occupies my mind is, in the simplest words, starting a business that starts businesses. Obviously, the thought is greatly polished by this point. It is fancy by now and I call it a concept, and I have many layers of thought attached to that concept. At the start is the reason why I want to do this. The reason is itself a many-layered story.

I was going to point out that these days it has become much more common for people to notice the corporate bias built in to modern reality, but it occurs to me I should start back even further in time, back before I had the thought that became a concept.

The thought grew from other thoughts, thoughts on interconnectivity and arrogance. That everything is so greatly interconnected and overlapped that none of us can truly perceive the extent, and that we are also all so arrogant that we are, to some extent, willfully refusing to perceive.

I'd like to say one word on arrogance here. I pointed out the wisdom in a line from a Who song: Nobody knows what it's like to be the bad man…" Of course my friend just said, "Yeah, it rhymes with 'sad man'." I went on to explain that nobody ever feels that they are the bad man; nobody. Everybody has a perfectly reasonable explanation for their actions, reasonable explanations we can all somewhat agree with, or at least have heard before and understand. From the person who is late for an appointment who leaves their fast food bag of trash in an inappropriate place as they rush off to an interview, to the executive making a cost/benefit analysis on a piece of [safety] equipment for the factory, or oil rig.

Later, each decision might be called bad. Not just incorrect 'bad', but morally wrong 'bad'. That's human arrogance. Even though we have each done something bad at some point, something evil, none of us feels evil. That's human arrogance.

Human arrogance leads us to feel that we are individual, independent. Yet we live in a society, with roads, and buildings, and laws, all built and erected by many other people.

So since we are all so arrogant, and "independent," it is easy for us to gobble up the reasoning that we should get a job and take care of ourselves. And buy a house. That seems rational.

When I worked as a freelance lighting tech the company would pay me $12/hr and bill the client $36/hr. When I went to law school professors pointed out that you have to bill three times your wage; if you make $50,000/year you need to bill $150,00/year. That's how capitalism works. One third to pay you, one third to pay for the building, the equipment, the electricity, whatever, and one third for the money men, the capitalists, profit. So, getting a job is getting exploited, getting taken advantage of, basically, for chumps. But thats what we [working class chumps] teach our kids.

And everyone knows that a house is "the average Americans largest investment, their largest asset" Yeah, the average chump. From the business perspective it is just a very big widget to sell the average consumer. I saw somebody in finance joke, "Yeah, in the office we say 'it's a wasting asset.'"

Obviously, instead of teaching our kids "to get a job" and "buy a house" we should be teaching "start a business." And now I'm gonna' loop this around to American jobs getting shipped overseas: If you ran a restaurant/hardware store/flower shop/auto repair shop/beauty saloon/whatever, how quick would you ship that store overseas?

And, yes, I know that's overly simplistic. Of course you can make a lot more money working as an engineer at Raytheon than running a flower shop. But, at Raytheon you are spending your time working to pay for your wage and then both to pay the owner's electric bill and making the owner a profit, and, ultimately, the job isn't very secure. (I'll not talk about our ever-present fear right now, our fear that, hand-in-hand with our arrogance, drives us to always be "in control," to always be right.") (Nor do I have time or space to point out that by adding to Raytheon's coffers you build Raytheon's political clout, by working for a multi-national corporation you add to the lobbying efforts of a multi-national corporation.)

An acquaintance here in Florida works at a nearby Publix. Publix is an ESOP. After five years, he said, he's got $5,000 in Publix stock. He gets an ownership stake in the company. (Yes, the largest corporation out of Florida is an ESOP. Eeks, they let the workers own the means of production! Don't let the wage slaves over at Winn-Dixie know what those socialists are up to.) And I swear, and I realize this is just my anecdotal perception, but the employee-owners at Publix never seem as surly as the human resources at other supermarkets.

So that's the twisted maze that leads me to my thought at the top of the page: I want to start a business to start businesses. But not just any businesses: ESOPs! I got this crazy thought that if the workers owned the factory they wouldn't relocate to China. But, that's just me.

And oh, there's more, so much more …

Apple - Remembering Steve Jobs


"Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose, there is no reason not to follow your heart."

— Steve Jobs, 1955 - 2011