Except shares don’t represent the amount of ownership of a company. Everyone gets one vote regardless of how many shares they have, thus equal ownership.
They do however represent the ability to profit from it. Which is what the whole “paid enough to care” thing is all about.
I don’t much care if I have equal voting rights to everyone else in a co-op of which my share is worth ten bucks a year in dividends if the founder is making a million a year or something (which I’d say is realistic for a medium sized company). At the same time, the founder is not going to just give away his ownership, maybe in small chunks, but not the majority of it.
As the other commenter put it, it depends on how it’s structured. There are so many ways to set up a coop I won’t get into how shares affect dividends. Instead I’ll use your example to show why your voting right is worth more than how the profits gets distributed.
If you’re making ten bucks from your share and the founder is making a million, then the cooperative has to be okay with that arrangement. If you’re collectively not okay with it then you have the power to change that. The founder can have all the shares in the world, they still have one vote. Since you collectively have the majority of votes you can simply vote to change how profits get distributed and the founder has to accept it because they don’t own the cooperative, you all do.
Except shares don’t represent the amount of ownership of a company. Everyone gets one vote regardless of how many shares they have, thus equal ownership.
They do however represent the ability to profit from it. Which is what the whole “paid enough to care” thing is all about.
I don’t much care if I have equal voting rights to everyone else in a co-op of which my share is worth ten bucks a year in dividends if the founder is making a million a year or something (which I’d say is realistic for a medium sized company). At the same time, the founder is not going to just give away his ownership, maybe in small chunks, but not the majority of it.
As the other commenter put it, it depends on how it’s structured. There are so many ways to set up a coop I won’t get into how shares affect dividends. Instead I’ll use your example to show why your voting right is worth more than how the profits gets distributed.
If you’re making ten bucks from your share and the founder is making a million, then the cooperative has to be okay with that arrangement. If you’re collectively not okay with it then you have the power to change that. The founder can have all the shares in the world, they still have one vote. Since you collectively have the majority of votes you can simply vote to change how profits get distributed and the founder has to accept it because they don’t own the cooperative, you all do.
It depends on how it’s structured.
Well yeah, but cooperatives generally avoid the possibility of buying voting power because that kinda contradicts the purpose of a coop.