Companies have a largely democratic component at the top, called the board. Voters (those who own the company) have representatives on the board. Some boards also have representatives from the employees, that varies.
Companies have a largely democratic component at the top, called the board. Voters (those who own the company) have representatives on the board. Some boards also have representatives from the employees, that varies.
It's not one person, one vote, so it's not democracy. It's very explicitly plutocracy (rule by money) as the operating principle of voting power is one share, one vote.
Except there's also a bunch of companies with special dual class share structures, where the founder gets way more voting power than everyone else and you can't even buy your way in. A lot of tech companies do this. This is, functionally speaking, an autocracy.
If you want an actual corporate democracy you would need to assign voting rights to everyone working at the company, aka build a co-op. Co-ops are a great corporate structure in a lot of cases but you can't really raise capital that way because VCs all want on your cap table, so all the big companies wind up being plutocracies.
It's one share, one vote. And you have a choice: You can ask the company to pay you (ie. apply for a job there), or you can pay for a share in the company. Either way, the decisions are made by those who pay. And that can include you — anyone and everyone has the right to start a company and to employ others, anyone and everyone has the right to ask for shares in the company as part of negotiating compensation.
I employed a painter a few months ago, and I decided what colour the kitchen now is.
> It's one share, one vote.
This is just wrong. As kmeisthax mentioned, shares can have different voting weights - if any at all. Many shareholders have no voting power.
> I employed a painter a few months ago, and I decided what colour the kitchen now is.
Did you actually employ them, or did you buy a specific service?
Indeed, shares can have different voting weights. And that matters, if you care mostly about the corner cases.
Well, it matters a whole lot once you choose to bring up "One share, one vote" in response to "One person, one vote", since it shows that it's either wrong or shows a gross misunderstanding of democracy.
A hypothetical country with multiple classes of citizens that had different rights and voting powers would not inherently be undemocratic. It's not something I'm in favor of but equality != democracy.
But said country would not fulfill "One person, one vote". Why should we weaken such fundamental ideas by allowing them to mean the opposite of their real meaning?
The same phenomenon is happening with "Opt-In by Default". This is newspeak.
You are asserting this "one person one vote" definition of democracy. I am questioning it. Where did this constraint on what qualifies as "real" democracy come from?
Keep in mind that the US is a democratic republic (thus a democracy) yet spent the first part of its history restricting who could vote based on (approximately) both gender and race.
> You are asserting this "one person one vote" definition of democracy. I am questioning it. Where did this constraint on what qualifies as "real" democracy come from?
From kmeisthax? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49683985
I'm not asserting this definition. I'm arguing against the attempt at newspeak. If one share doesn't imply one vote (because there are different classes etc.), what is wrong with pointing out the obvious contradiction in "One share, one vote"?
> Keep in mind that the US is a democratic republic (thus a democracy) yet spent the first part of its history restricting who could vote based on (approximately) both gender and race.
I disagree that the US was a democracy while voting was restricted, but that's not really relevant. I'm not claiming that my view is right, or that anyone should be convinced - take that up with kmeisthax if you wish.
> It's not one person, one vote, so it's not democracy
Voting is a democratic instrument, but a blunt one and not the most important.
"...those who spend five minutes voting every three years and call it democracy..."
Majoritarianism is undemocratic in that any desire less than 50% + 1 is deprecated.
If you care IMO the most important feature of a democracy is rule of law and access to the courts.