Newsgroup: it.politica.pds
Titolo: Societa per Azioni e cooperative

Qualche tempo fa io (e alcuni altri su questi NG) abbiamo proposto che
un buon modo per aumentare la giustizia sociale sul lavoro e il
controllo che il lavoratore medio ha sulla propria vita sarebbe di
dare la possibilita ai dipendenti di una "public company", se la
maggiorparte di questi lo vuole, di trasformare la societa in cooperativa
in cui la direzione e eletta dai lavoratori e responsabile ad essi.
(piuttosto che responsabile agli azionisti).
Se i dipendenti scegliessero questa via, gli azionisti sarebbero
rimborsati con un interesse dei loro investimenti,
ma perderebbero ogni futura
possibilita di influenzare l'amministrazione della compagnia.
Un controllo di tutte le societa per azioni da parte dei
dipendenti precluderebbe "flessibilita", licenziamenti selvaggi, ecc.
Sopratutto, gli azionisti non potrebbero decidere di usare
i dividendi dell'azienda per guadagni extra piuttosto che
aumento degli stipendi, miglioramento delle condizioni
di lavoro, ecc.   (Come avviene adesso:   Per esempio, il continuo
boom sulla borsa di Wall Street e degli
stipendi dell'upper management e stato accompagnato da una stagnazione
dei guadagli dei DIPENDENTI della maggioranza delle compagnie quotate).
Le obiezioni ad una legge simile erano:
a)    "Non e giusto" privare gli investitori del controllo sulla
    "loro" societa.
b)   Se i lavoratori dovrebbero veramente rimborsare gli investitori, si
     troverebbero con debiti cosi giganteschi da non aver
     migliorato per niente la propria situazione
A questo proposito, allego un'articolo illuminante (in inglese):
-----------------------------
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/9586/corp.html
Editorial by Marjorie Kelly, in Business Ethics,
January/February 1997, page 5.
Why all the Fuss About Stockholders?
Where does wealth come from? More precisely, where
does the wealth of public corporations come from?
Who creates it?
To judge by the current arrangement, one might suppose
capital creates wealth -- which is odd, because a pile
of capital creates nothing. Yet capital-providers,
stockholders, lay claim to all wealth public corporations
generate. They also claim the more fundamental right to
have corporations managed exclusively on their behalf.
Corporations are believed to exist for one purpose: to
maximize returns to shareholders. This message is
reinforced by CEOs, The Wall Street Journal, business
schools, and the courts. It is the guiding idea of the
public corporation, and the law of the land -- much as
the divine right of kings was once the law of the land.
Indeed, the notion of "maximizing returns to shareholders"
is universally accepted as a kind of divine,
unchallengeable truth.
It is not in the least controversial. Though it should
be.
What do shareholders contribute, to justify the
extraordinary allegiance they receive? They take
risk, we're told. They put their money on the line, so
corporations might grow and prosper. Let's test the truth
of this with a little quiz: Stockholders fund public
corporations -- True or False?
False. We speak as though it were true: "I have invested
in AT&T," we say -- imagining AT&T as a steward of our
money, with a fiduciary responsibility to take care of it.
In fact, dollars don't go to AT&T, but to other speculators.
"Investments" reach a public corporation only when new
equity is issued -- a rare event.
Public corporations need capital to operate -- $555 billion
in 1993, for example. According to the Federal Reserve,
equity contributed 4 percent of that. Borrowing provided
14 percent; retained earnings, 82 percent. From 1987 to
1994, corporations bought back more equity than they
issued. Dividends flowed out in generous streams: $1.2
trillion. Capital gains piled up. But the flow of funds
the other way was nil.
Well, yes, critics will say -- that's recently. But
stockholders are pocketing gains today, because they
funded corporations in the past.
Not so. Take the steel industry. A study by Eldon
Hendrickson examined capital expenditures from 1900 to
1953, and found that common stock provided only 5 percent
of capital -- over the entire first half of the 20th
century. Equity capital is one relatively minor source
of funding, vital at a certain point. Yet it entices
holders to suck out all wealth, forever. Equity investors
essentially install a pipeline, and decree that
corporations' sole purpose is to funnel wealth into it.
The pipeline is never to be tampered with -- and no one
else is to be granted access (except CEOs, whose function
is to keep it flowing). With the exception of initial
public offerings, the commotion on Wall Street is not
about funding corporations. It's about extracting from
them.
The productive risk in building businesses is borne by
entrepreneurs and their initial venture investors, who do
contribute real investing dollars to create real wealth.
Those who buy stock at sixth or seventh hand, or 1,000th
hand, take a risk -- but it is a risk speculators take
among themselves, trying to outwit one another, like
gamblers. It as little to do with corporations, except
this: Public companies are required to provide new chips
for the gaming table, into infinity.
It's odd And it's connected to a second oddity -- that we
believe stockholders are the corporation. When we say "a
corporation did well," we mean its shareholders did well.
Employees might be shouldering an outsized workload,
getting by without health insurance, doing without a
raise for three years -- still we will say, "the
corporation did well." One never sees rising employee
income as a measure of corporate success. Indeed, gains
to employees are losses to the corporation. Employees
can go to work for twenty years, using all their energy
to create wealth for a company -- yet not really be
considered part of that corporation. They have no claim
to wealth they create, no say in governance, and no vote
for the board of directors.
Investors, on the other hand, may not know the names of
the companies they "own."They may not know where "their"
companies are located, or what they produce -- and they
may hold stock for only a day. Still, corporations exist
to enrich them alone. Only those who own stock can vote,
like an earlier time in America, when only those who
owned land could vote. Employees are disenfranchised.
We think of this as the natural law of the free market.
It's really the government-made law of the corporation.
And it violates free market principles. In a free market,
everyone scrambles to get what they can, and keeps what
they earn. In the artificial construct of the corporation,
one group gets what another earns. One group contributes
nothing, never lifts a finger, and takes no responsibility
("limited liability'') -- yet has a "legitimate" right to
siphon off all wealth. Another group does all the work,
and makes the corporation a success -- yet counts itself
lucky not to be thrown off the premises in a layoff.
The oddity of this is veiled by the incantation of a
single, magical word: "ownership." Because we say
stockholders "own" corporations, they are permitted to
contribute nothing, and take everything.
What an extraordinary word. One is tempted to recall
Lycophron's comment, during an early Athenian movement
against slavery. "The splendor of noble birth is
imaginary," he dared to say, "and its prerogatives are
based upon a mere word."
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Interessante esercizio accademico. Dovresti pero' integrarlo con uno
studio sul campo, analizzando la cooperazione in emilia romagna o in
toscana, con particolare attenzione alee problematiche della
flessibilita', dei livelli salariali, della compartecipazione alle
decisioni strategiche e, non ultimo, dell'impatto sul mercato e sulla
libera concorrenza.
auguri.
andrea

 
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Think about it
Sandro