Capitalism could be hugely improved via worker representation on board of directors

[Victorian Gray]

That's another thing, their taxes aren't considerably high and they don't try to operate on a tax/spend/debt up to their eyeballs economic illiterate system like leftyloons here love. Your attempts to cast Germany as the Marxist shithole your ilk pines away for is pathetic. And you surfing the Internet all day trolling forums isn't actually being more productive than them.

And their social safety net compared to that of the US?

Some direct comparison:

http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/wsj_com...c.php?page=all

And some history:

"THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL POLICY in Germany has followed a unique historical path. During a long process of growth and social experimentation, Germany combined a vigorous and highly competitive capitalist economy with a social welfare system that, with some exceptions, has provided its citizens cradle-to-grave security. The system's benefits are so extensive that by the 1990s annual total spending by the state, employers, and private households on health care, pensions, and other aspects of what Germans call the social safety net amounted to roughly DM1 trillion (for value of the deutsche mark--see Glossary) and accounted for about one-third of the country's gross national product (GNP--see Glossary). Unlike many of the world's advanced countries, however, Germany does not provide its citizens with health care, pensions, and other social welfare benefits through a centralized state-run system. Rather, it provides these benefits via a complex network of national agencies and a large number of independent regional and local entities--some public, some quasi-public, and many private and voluntary. Many of these structures date from the nineteenth century, and some from much earlier.


The legislation that established the basis of this system dates from the 1880s and was passed by imperial Germany's parliament, the Reichstag, with the dual purpose of helping German workers meet life's vicissitudes and thereby making them less susceptible to socialism. This legislation set the main principles that have guided the development of social policy in Germany to the present day: membership in insurance programs is mandated by law; the administration of these programs is delegated to nonstate bodies with representatives of the insured and employers; entitlement to benefits is linked to past contributions rather than need; benefits and contributions are related to earnings; and financing is secured through wage taxes levied on the employer and the employee and, depending on the program, sometimes through additional state financing.


These insurance programs were developed from the bottom up. They first covered elements of the working class and then extended coverage to ever broader segments of the population and incorporated additional risks. Over time, these programs came to provide a wide net of entitlements to those individuals having a steady work history."


http://countrystudies.us/germany/111.htm

 

[piasabird]

Germany has done some interesting things. For instance you might remember the Federal Car Buyback plan we did. The model for that was Germany, but they bought back any car over 10 years old. I kind of liked that plan because it got rid of a lot of old junkers.

Germany also had a Solar Power plan. They wanted solar investment and they set up some kind of system that guaranteed a specific rate of return on the electricity produced. With this guarantee a bank could approve a loan program for a set number of years and there was almost a guaranteed payback to base a lown on. Some Farmers that raised pigs put Solar panels up in their livestock areas.

Other countries like South Korea encourage investors to build independent restraunts instead of chain restraunts. It is the little things that can make life worth living.

If the USA would just encourage local investment and give preferences to companies that produce products made in the USA we could make a lot more JOBS here in the USA instead of China, India, and other places.

 

[Anarchist420]

i have always said that the labor unions are only as bright as their average member. so i answered no to the poll... labor unions become big because they have to have a leader which means unions can get as big as the corporations that the unions claim to oppose.

 

[Anarchist420]

i dont know where the german republic would be if it didnt control the EU.

 

[Atreus21]

One of the problems capitalist economies seem to face is that a corporation's focus can be purely upon short-term growth for shareholders at the expensive of the corporation's long term viability, or job stability for employees.

Now, sometimes short-term is exactly the purpose of a corporation - nothing wrong with that - and I think we all agree that corporations do not exist simply to provide employment to the citizenship, but I think the financial crisis of '07-'08 did wonders to highlight the worst excesses of short-term thinking. I think it's in society's interest to curb this sort of destructive excess.

So - could we steal a good idea that's been proven elsewhere? Ever since hearing about the German legislation regarding Mitbestimmung (co-determination), I've thought that a major improvement to the stability of large organizations could come from their concept of employee representation on the board of directors.

The effect of this model on the largest type of organization (500 - 2000 employees) would be that employees would vote to elect one-third of the board of directors. The hope would be that general strife and relations between management and employees would be reduced due to the greater representation at the highest levels, and that the worst excesses of short-term thinking would also be checked.

Here's a related Wikipedia article as well:

Wikipedia - Co-determination



Some other interesting reading material on this topic:

- BLS - Foreign Labour Developments (PDF)
- ADBInstitute: Employee Representation on the Board of Directors

Who here has ever run a business?

 

[Incorruptible]

Who here has ever run a business?

Very few since so many idiots want to force companies to do this.