Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
This is the wrong set of numbers. Amazon's net book value is about $400 billion. The extra $2.3 trillion is the market's estimate of the PV of future profits - it is value that can only be realised by selling parts of the company to outside investors, and would be invisible if Amazon was a co-op. Total profit to date is a better metric of what could plausibly have been exploited out of workers, and is somewhat less than $2 trillion. And most of that comes from AWS, so it doesn't come from exploiting the warehouse workers.
If Amazon had been a Mondragon-style co-op, the money available for distribution to workers (including Bezos) would not have included that $2.3 trillion - it would be latent value that would ultimately accrue to future workers when the promised profits were realised. If corporate Amazon has never paid a dividend (it hasn't) or bought back more shares than it issued to fund acquisitions and employee share options (they haven't - shares out increases over time), then it hasn't put cash directly into Bezos' pocket (Bezos' billionaire lifestyle is funded by selling rights to the $2.3 trillion of future profits) and the hypothetical Mondazon could not have distributed more money to workers than it in fact did while still investing in growth like Amazon did.
One of the problems maintaining co-ops which don't have an explicit social mission (such as professional partnerships) or which have de facto lost their social mission and become ordinary commercial businesses (like the UK's building societies) is that turning a co-op into a stockmarket-listed company, or selling it to an existing listed company, allows the current generation of members to monetize that value.
More options
Context Copy link