THE Global Justice Movement Website

THE Global Justice Movement Website
This is the "Global Justice Movement" (dot org) we refer to in the title of this blog.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Mazurek Dąbrowskiego, IV: Expanded Capital Ownership


As we saw in yesterday’s posting, the goal is to get capital ownership into the hands not just of ordinary workers, but everybody.  The question is, then, ownership of what?  Doesn’t everything already have an owner?

The answer is that yes, everything that exists in the way of capital or marketable goods and services already has an owner.  That’s why we need to concentrate on future capital as well as the marketable goods and services that can be produced in the future, not what has been withheld from consumption in the past.  That’s why we advocate that, to get “pure credit” loans based on the present value of future marketable goods and services, a company needs to expand its ownership base.

Thus, as a matter of national economic policy, to get loans on advantageous terms, a company must make the workers into owners of the new capital financed with the loans generated within Poland.  This can be done either when the company in need of replacement capital sells new shares (which is not fair, as it would dilute the ownership rights of existing owners) or when current shareholders of their own free will sell existing shares to an ESOP at a fair market price, but there may be other ways, as well.

In this way the workers will gradually become the owners of most of the company.  When they own the majority block of shares, they can vote to purchase the rest of the company, offering a fair and just price for the remaining shares owned by the foreign investors.

The same thing can be done with companies that are owned by rich Poles.

That is a way to deal with transferring the ownership of capital that already exists.  As I said, however, the capital (wealth) that can exist is far greater and more important than the capital (wealth) that does exist.  It is, in fact, better for everyone in the short run to “ignore” existing ownership, and concentrate on future ownership.

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