Instigator / Pro
7
1518
rating
5
debates
60.0%
won
Topic
#1223

Would it improve or worsen the USA's economy to have most businesses worker-owned?

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
3
0
Better sources
2
0
Better legibility
1
1
Better conduct
1
1

After 1 vote and with 5 points ahead, the winner is...

Cogent_Cognizer
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
5
Time for argument
Three days
Max argument characters
15,000
Voting period
Two weeks
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
2
1697
rating
555
debates
68.11%
won
Description

The burden of proof is shared since both of us will be making a positive claim. I will argue an economy where the above should improve the American economy. Con will argue that, in such a situation, it will worsen it.

Definitions of terms I am proposing and that con accepts by accepting the debate:
Worker-owned company: A company in which the majority of common stocks, as opposed to preferred non-voting or common non-voting stocks, in the company are owned by the employees as a whole and they have some form of representation in major business decisions(with reasonable exceptions such as if a decision needs to be done quickly by a representative or president of the company).

Common, voting stocks: Stock options in a company in which risk is taken on the investment one has in the company but is typically very likely to change in price, they are also able to vote in certain business decisions normal stockholders would, such as voting for the board of directors and potential mergers.

Common, nonvoting stock: Same as the above, but with no voting powers in choosing the board of directors or mergers.

Preferred stock options: Often does not carry voting power(sometimes can, but given the other perks this gives, businesses do not often offer voting power with these) but does provide the buyer of these stocks with a much greater likelihood of a return than other normal stocks, since they are given a return at a higher priority than those with normal stock options. Often are not as volatile as common stock options, but can be again, depending on what the business is offering.

These definitions *should* be my own, but are definitely based on various definitions(too many to list probably) I've heard throughout my life.

For the definitions of "business", "economy" etc, we will use common definitions. The definitions of any other terms I will accept from my opponent automatically when presented in round 1 unless any are very unreasonable(i.e claiming "nice" means "a jerk" or something. We all know it doesn't). I would like to think I defined the above terms in a suitable way, though I recognize I may have left out or worded something improperly. If that's the case, my opponent should let me know IN THE COMMENTS, before accepting the debate so I may change the definitions if I agree with you that I somehow misrepresented these terms.

Since I think this debate will start off with me, I will just forego most of what round 1 is used for once someone has stated interest in accepting and there are no issue with what I've brought up. That said, here is the round structure:

Round 1: To be used for clearly stating you've read the rules and definitions in this debate. You may present definitions of terms you think will be important to present that I've not done so already. We will also clearly state our position, think of it as a thesis in a written paper. Our specific evidence and arguments, however, will be presented later. But you may (and should) state the contentions you plan on arguing, as one would do in a formal English paper's thesis. Leave it unsubstantiated for now though. The only thing I will do is state my thesis.

Round 2: We will offer opening arguments and attempt to refute the contentions our opponent listed in round 1 as well as start backing up our contentions in round one with evidence and logic. DO NOT specifically refute the logic, evidence, etc the other presents in this round: only the contentions/claims made in round 1. There should be some leniency, as it's possible for someone to refute a specific argument by coincidence(though it's doubtful it's a coincidence if someone refers to a specific article someone presents in this round). This will be up to voters to decide. The voters will award conduct points accordingly, as it would be a matter of conduct.

Round 3: Each of us will refute the specific logic and evidence the other brings up in round 2. We each can also still present new arguments and supporting evidence too.

Round 4: This round and round 5 are prohibited from presenting brand new positive claims supported by evidence or logic. This round is purely intended for refutation(negative arguments) of the positive claims one's opponent has made previously OR defending arguments you've yet to defend from your opponent's offensive on your points. If you feel you've done that already sufficiently, feel free to forego this round.

Round 5: Concluding remarks and closing statements. A proper closure would restate major points, point out why your points outweigh the opponent's, stuff like that. There should be no new arguments and no rebuttals. Rebuttal would be referring to presenting evidence/logic disproving what the opponent said. An argument, in this context, means to present logic/evidence in support of one's own proposition. Neither is allowed in this round. Only comparing and contrasting the pros and cons of each position is allowed.

Googles SEC filings indicates I’m correct, and the claims that you made multiple times, that companies would never have majority non voting stock, that I could never ever find a single company that did, that google definitely didn’t, and I wouldn’t be able to show google did were not correct.

That you went a dozen posts doubling down on the claim, being repeatedly proven wrong and still - after being confronted with someone who is prepared to search the internet for facts - not bothering to check whether what you’re saying Is true, and still acting like you’re still correct despite the clear documentary evidence is a microcosm of why you lost this, and other debates: and very much why everyone laughs at you when you claim you’re a strategic genius.

Also, I’m not a socialist.

I understand you think you are correct, you're even getting 2 thumbs up at times from fanboys who really just don't like me and/or buy into socialist propaganda.

I am not concerned with whatever you say or if you have a fanclub, I am concerned only with letting you know that you are ill-informed and didn't grasp this debate.

“please reveal your source that shows that the owners of B stocks are in any way guaranteed to be Google employees”

Done

“Google is one of the hugest corporations on Earth, you cannot possibly tell me that you are so naive to think it's anywhere near being even 40% owned by its workers (even at the top level).”

It is.

I thought I’d mention that; as you seem to have forgotten that you just seem to have forgotten what you just said, and started talking about something completely different.

You are confused because the opposite is true. Obviously the highest rankers in Google are major shareholders of it but what's also true is that by owning enough of the class B stocks while they were for sale, it granted you high authority in the company whereby you're regarded as a director of sorts that votes on executive decisions. Go into the fine-print and realise that you have no idea what you're talking about. Google, Facebook and frankly every single corporation in their realm are all owned by the same group of major shareholders differing in ones with a very specific agenda but having in common the shareholders who are involved with groups like the Vanguard group.

Private Equity refers to getting in fast and with a large amount of money at a time when a corporation is snowballing to become so juice to invest in that it will then pull off something like cancelling the biggest voting-power share (class B for Google) because it's voted to be so by the shareholders as an optimal move.

https://hbr.org/2007/09/the-strategic-secret-of-private-equity

Socialists who truly take the cause to its fullest, such as yourself even though you list yourself as 'Progressive' for now, generally only support the notion because of a lack of understanding of economics, I see that you are not an exception to the rule.

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@Ramshutu

I do not suggest continuing to engage with RM

https://abc.xyz/investor/static/pdf/2019_alphabet_proxy_statement.pdf?cache=3ed6a89

2019 - it’s dropped to 58%!

Just so you’re aware, a genius or Sun Tzu would have at least googled the information they claimed as true before doubling down on their vehement accusations.

Hell, it’s like you didn’t even know that shareholder information like this is normally all publicly facing.

Good lord.

Way to double down! Do you realize when making these ridiculous opinionated claims that are not based on facts, that this information is publically available? What type of strategy genius throws out his opinions, and doesn’t check them when in a discussion with someone who Is CLEARLY willing to check things:

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000130817917000170/lgoog2017_def14a.htm

Google 2017 AGm proxy statement SEC filings. Page 31

All executive officers and directors as a group - own 44m class B shares totalling 58.2% of voting power.

But please, tell me more about how I’m confused, and lying about facts that are recorded in googles own public filings.

You are frankly confused and lying. Many of the biggest shareholders are ex-Google CEOs or the opposite (resulting from mergers with Android etc where a high ranking Android employee moved over to Google as an ambassador from Google to Android to keep relations good) but please reveal your source that shows that the owners of B stocks are in any way guaranteed to be Google employees, I'll sit here and wait.

“Google is one of the hugest corporations on Earth, you cannot possibly tell me that you are so naive to think it's anywhere near being even 40% owned by its workers (even at the top level).”

Why on God’s green earth does a self professed genius and strategy God make opinionated claims about objective reality that can easily be verified or disproved - and yet don’t bother to actually bother to google or validate any of those claims before wading in and vehemently stating these opinions as facts.

61% of google voting stock is in class B shares which are not publicly traded: they are owned by people who work for the company, primarily directors. Same with Facebook.

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/052215/goog-or-googl-which-google-should-you-buy.asp

Google is one of the hugest corporations on Earth, you cannot possibly tell me that you are so naive to think it's anywhere near being even 40% owned by its workers (even at the top level).

That is because the firms don't usually get it by public purchase, they make private arrangements from early on and part of their voting power lets them declare permanence to the percentage of shares they hold so long as the company keeps profiting over time.

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@Cogent_Cognizer

Interestingly, I think there is only 39% of googles voting stock is publically tradeable. Similar deal with Facebook and NewsCorp.

So the “You will never ever find...” is actually “I found three examples, and it doesn’t seem that uncommon.”

Not quite worker owned, as most of the voting stock reside with key insiders allowing them to control the company; but interestingly refutes that possible argument - but still. Interesting debate.

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@RationalMadman

You had said: "You will never ever find that the majority of stocks in any firm at all is non-voting, that is a total waste of investment for the firms because they want to steer the company as time goes by."

I get this point, but as was stated in the description of my debate:

" I would like to think I defined the above terms in a suitable way, though I recognize I may have left out or worded something improperly. If that's the case, my opponent should let me know IN THE COMMENTS, before accepting the debate so I may change the definitions if I agree with you that I somehow misrepresented these terms. "

If you had an issue with how they were defined in the description, we could have worked out a better definition in the comments. I was more than willing to adjust the definitions if I determined I did misrepresent something in them. I apologize if that wasn't clear. I did have a very large description, perhaps it offered difficulty in comprehending it all or made one decide not to read it all.

Yeah: you are muddling up two different issues.

In the debate, you confused voting and non voting stock, pretended as if they were the same, and made no reference to any of the issues or differences. This is what I voted on, and this is what made no sense.

A day or so later, after your error has been pointed out, you then go a half dozen posts before offering a new argument that appeared no where in the debate: this argument is unsourced, not justified by data, occurred too late, and retroactively corrects the actual error in your debate - but is plausible.

I can’t vote on arguments you didn’t make. And while correcting your own error is a great way for self growth, don’t confuse being able to correct a glaring error in your debate with not making the error in the first place.

You just correctly stated my perfectly valid argument and then said it makes no sense. :) Common stocks are voting stocks, the non-voting stocks are a severe minority stock that usually workers will buy because they're generally never allowed to pull them out while working for the company so would prefer the lower risk, lower reward stock.

Meanwhile, the firms buy out huge stocks, all voting, to have major say in the company. If you can't grasp that logic, that's your burden to bear.

Let me explain again, gently in a way that helps guide you the reality of your error.

Your opponent was arguing that companies should be controlled by workers. This was defined clearly and excessively in the description and by your opponent.

You were arguing that this meant that companies would have half their assets owned - and half of all stock - owned by the workers.

You appeared not to understand the distinction between the two - despite your opponent explaining it several times.

I used your opponents description in the debate title - and his opening argument as it was clear and unambiguous to determine what worker owned meant - and this inherently meant your arguments made no sense any more, as the debate was you asserting one thing, and your opponent pointing out that you were incorrect.

After the debate has finished, the error has been pointed out, and you have now gone a dozen or so posts objecting to your own misunderstanding... you appear to NOW provide a justification of why a hedge fund wouldn’t invest in a worker owned business, as it would not want to pay money for non voting stock.

That’s a reasonable opinion. Which you should find easy to back up with data and sources.

Where did you post this in the debate?

I can’t vote based on you retroactively correcting your own error in the comments days after the debate has ended.

You gave sources to explain that there are massive investment firms that outweigh what workers can contribute.....

To start with - no. You didn’t. You gave sources to explain the amount that the top hedge funds could contribute, but did not make any reference or mention of the potential contribution of workers. You didn’t explain to what workers would need to contribute - this was largely assumed - and you didn’t reference the concept of voting and non voting stock - so your source was largely one sided and arbitrary s

Second - this whole argument is only relevant if you’re arguing that workers must necessarily take up the slack of lack of investment of investment firms.

As pro pointed out - and repeatedly an patiently explained - and you largely ignored in favour of repeating your claim - is not the case : voters have voting stock, and investment firms would hold non voting stock.

This is why your misunderstanding lost you the debate - your argument was dependent on workers having to invest in the company to pick up the slack - which appears to have been based on you not realizing the difference between non voting and voting stock, andarguing as if there is one single pool of stocks for which the workers must own 50% of the company: rather than 50% of the control of the company - as your opponent was arguing

This was, yet again, your error: you made a strategic blunder by confusing two types of stock, failed to address anything your opponent raised: and seem to still not understand the error you made.

You will never ever find that the majority of stocks in any firm at all is non-voting, that is a total waste of investment for the firms because they want to steer the company as time goes by.

Common stock is voting stock, the stock that massive firms buy is always voting stock.

I gave sources to explain that there are massive investment firms that outweigh what workers can contribute. Not much else needed to be sourced, it was pure logic. I coul dhave expanded on every tiny point as much as 15k would allow but I know you'd call it gish gallop and it would be more effort for a more guaranteed loss anyway.

You're a confused socialist in a world you barely understand, it's okay I get it. You're biased, want me to lose and couldn't grasp the debate. I think you think I'm still angry about this, I genuinely feel nothing I am at total peace with your flaws and the equally flawed system enabling you to guarantee me losses. I am genuinely quitting this website after the moon landing debate, I had some things to clear up on CD and elsewhere before I fully quit but once I finally make my case for the moon landing and a sensible basis on which to suspect NASA, especially when they were under Nixon's admin, I will be at peace to leave the website. The problem is that it's 2-week Rounds so it will be dragged out. I hope I opened my opponent's mind in this debate and stopped caring about 'wins' after my original break when I had the 50 Cent image. I am not here to win in the literal sense anymore, I understand your monopoly on controlling that and also understand that if I got revenge it would be too long-term difficult as you're already much higher than me in Rating and intentionally pick very weak opponents alone but also because you have garnered enough respect and kinship from a select few members who actively vote (predominanty Ragnar) who think very much like you; superficial truths based on very superficial reasoning. It's fine by me, continue what you're doing I can't stop you. The foolish will cheer you on, the wise will realise this site isn't worth staying on with corrupt 'gang mentality' voters controlling who wins and loses based on how much they like them or superficially agree with the conveyed opinions.

The description and your opponent clearly made a distinction between stocks owned to control business decisions - and the stock of the company in general. It was clear from the description and your opponents argument that to be worker owned, half the voting stock should be owned by workers: and your opponent explained that the remaining stock could be owned and purchased by anyone - but would not necessarily be allowed to use those shares to control business decisions of the company. This was - literally - explicit in the debate.

You completely ignored the debate description and your opponent multiple times, in order to argue that it was not possible for workers to own all the stock, and that there would be less stock available for investors - neither of which is true because workers only have voting stock - as your opponent stated

You either didn’t read the debate description, didn’t understand it, didn’t realize despite your opponent mentioning it multiple times, or realized all of these things and simply didn’t mention this key distinction despite it being central to the opponents thesis and definition of worker owned.

Either way, the lack of thought, or strategic error undermined you’re entire argument.

However - as I noted you didn’t bother refuting your opponent, and the debate still boiled down to well explained and justified facts backed up by studies and data vs a vehemently asserted opinion, and 40% or the debate rounds dedicated to explaining how you had won.

1.) The description distinguishes the two stock types: your opponent made the distinction multiple times in the debate, and even helpfully explained it in his second round. 75% of your argument was based entirely on you clearly and completely misunderstanding what was being discussed.

2.) You offered no rebuttal - your opponent offered detailed evidence and clear benefits. It is strategic suicide in a debate to simply drop every single thing your opponent said.

3.) You offered no source basis for any of your points - again, strategically suicidal in a policy debate - meaning that it was study based claims supported by facts vs your vehemently stated opinion.

4.) There is a broad spectrum of possible strategies - in which most other debaters inhabit - between “let’s throw out so many small, individual points that I have made no effort to justify that my opponent will not be able to address all of them” and “I am not going to address a single point my opponent raises in any way”. If you view the only alternative to one as the other - I would take a look at, literally, any debate conducted by individuals in the top 5 of this forum - here you will see a plethora of debates where individuals both address points raised, and do not engage in Gish gallops.

"3.) Did not understand the difference between “voting stock” and “common stock”, despite it being pointed out at least 3 times."

This is where you really know there's a comprehension gap. They are the same stock.

Omg, RM tries in another debate to address every point, source everything and it's NO VOTE THAT IS GISH GALLOP!

Omg, RM makes sure not to gish gallop, tears apart the case from the seams and also noticed that common stock is voting stock because that's literally the same type of stock.

Omg, Ramshutu the socialist had a booboo

1.) offered no sources to directly substantiate your claims.

2.) Refused to offer ANY rebuttal against anything your opponent said.

3.) Did not understand the difference between “voting stock” and “common stock”, despite it being pointed out at least 3 times.

4.) Offered no argument, speech or explanation in R2 or R5.

Omg voters are corrupt!

@RM

Didn't attempt in Round 2, 4 or 5

Losing a debate where the voters are inept and/or corrupt is easy Omar, welp.

@RM

How can you lose this?

Welp.

I didn't see the vote in time before it apparently was removed. What did it say?

hehe

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@David
@bsh1

franklin's vote is straightforward removal for the below-stated reasons.

Your vote will be taken down because you have to explain fully why you tied arguments for it to qualify and go into where I said 'mentally ok'.

Also, C4 should be C3, typo.

Where I said his first contention is in contradiction to the last, it should have been the second one technically, but depending on what we mean by "first" it technically was "first" when just looking at contention 2 and 4. I mean, 2 is first for the range of 2-4... but alright, I'm obviously trying to cover my ass for this mistake XD

I might need to let the owners of this site know. It's rather annoying this technical issue is happening.

Also:
Dang it. Somehow Debateart continually messes with the organizations of my paragraphs now and then. I apologize for one of my paragraphs being split up randomly: the first one for C2(There should only be two paragraphs for C2). I don't understand why this is happening. I do know for sure it happens when I type on debateart, but this one I literally copied and pasted from a document file, since I'm already aware of this issue. I haven't the foggiest clue how this one happened this time. Maybe it is doing it after I click publish in addition to when I type? I'm really lost here guys.

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@Dr.Franklin

Thanks for your vote of confidence. My opening argument with supporting evidence is up by the way.

go Cogent!

RM make up your mind, are you quitting or are you not?

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@TheAtheist

this is quite simply impractical for any business that is remotely large. In other words, the only businesses this will prove true for are the minority who make the least money overall in general and thus won't benefit US's economy overall as US is a nation whose economy is almost entirely driven by 'big business' these days.

Very interesting topic. I haven't really thought about this before. Right now I'm neutral on this, but let's see who is a better debater!

Interesting challenge. I haven't debated something like this before. I don't know if I want to accept yet due to some IRL stuff, but I am considering it. Especially if no one else is interested.