this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2024
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Why stop there? Why keep the stock market at all? It's only real purpose is for the rich to play games with their wealth, to distribute wealth towards themselves, etc. People shouldn't be making a living off of speculative investment at all. Jobs should contribute to society. Owning is not a job.
That's an interesting idea. I've found personally that every time I've worked for a publically traded company I've hated it because everything is just about increasing share price no matter what. OTOH I think investment is very useful for progress though... I'm not sure how investment would work without ownership
This matches my experience quite well. I'm currently working at a place that isn't traded publicly for the first time ever, and it is significantly better. Granted, it isn't perfect, I still have plenty of criticisms that are separate issues. And many of those issues could be solved/lessened by workplace democracy, but that's a different conversation.
End goal would be at most investment works through loans. Somebody has a business and wants to expand, or wants to start a new one? Get some loans, and the interest is how you would "invest". I am sure there would be loopholes around this to end up with lots of stupidity, but it would be a better system.
It would be a lot slower growth though. And IMO that's a good thing given that the planet is on fire. Policies and institutional changes that will lessen our impact on the environment is a good thing. We ultimately need de-growth to an extent, and slower growth at a minimum.
The bigger issue here is how to abolish a stock market. When investors catch wind of this happening, they'll sell as hard and fast as possible, and move their wealth to overseas stock markets. A slow and steady abolishment would probably make it a bit better, but it's probably worth a scientific study or twenty to look into the long term effects/potential solutions for this.
I'm pretty sure if you got rid of "the stock market" it would immediately be reinvented.
"Hey, I need money to start my CatChat app. If you invest, I'll give you part of the company"
"Cool."
"Hmm.. I bet I could sell parts of this to the public the same way"
Maybe the worst parts wouldn't be reinvented right away, but those are the things that need to actually go. High frequency trading, weird nonsense that's not actually creating value, etc
Maybe ban the derivative stuff like futures and bonds. No high speed trading, buying stock is like buying a handgun and has a waiting period.
Banking is a racket, make it public.
Insurance is a racket, make it public.
100% tax above 999,999,999 on any and all assets owned by a single entity.
Yeah, there would be a risk of that happening. But to prevent that, the existing concept of ownership in a company needs to change as well. All companies should be legally required to be 100% employee owned, no other form of ownership allowed.
The switch away from a stock market wouldn't be simple, and it would probably be quite painful. But absolutely worth it.