Suchergebnisse
"Hannes Kuch"
Titel: Plural Cooperativism. The Material Basis of Democratic Corporate Governance
Autor: Hannes Kuch
Seite: 131-159
This paper argues that democratizing corporations requires more than simply allocating control rights to employees while leaving ownership structures intact, because such an arrangement leaves democratic decision-making vulnerable to the persistent threat of disinvestment. True democratic control requires a deeper transformation – specifically, a foundation in social ownership. To this end, various models of social ownership are critically examined. While none offers a satisfying solution on its own, their strengths can be combined. From this emerges the concept of Plural Cooperativism: a hybrid, society-wide model of cooperative ownership that systematically integrates other forms of social ownership, allowing for limited private stock ownership, counterbalanced by public stock ownership and a more democratic reallocation of control rights over private ownership.
Titel: The Meaning of Social Ownership, the Priority of Cooperativism, and the Unpleasant Need for Private Shareholding: A Reply to Claassen
Autor: Hannes Kuch
Seite: 195-205
This paper defends the model of Plural Cooperativism against criticism. Plural Cooperativism is a society-wide economic system of cooperative ownership that allows for limited private shareholding, counterbalanced by public shareholding and a more democratic reallocation of control rights, while universal inheritances enable broad-based investment in cooperatives. In response to Rutger Claassen’s critique, the paper clarifies the normative foundations of social ownership and argues that cooperatives can serve a wide range of values beyond workplace democracy, especially when a public shareholder complements them. It further defends the focus on cooperatives against Claassen’s proposal to rely more strongly on trust-owned firms, since the latter exhibit a structural deficit in workplace democracy and impose overly demanding altruistic requirements. Finally, it justifies the opportunity for private shareholding by addressing issues of entry costs, financing, and portfolio diversification, and it argues for a strong role of the public shareholder by showing that disinvestment threats from private shareholders persist under Plural Cooperativism.