Editors note: From time to time we’ll share questions that we’ll eventually post on our FAQ page. These questions come from readers and others following Copiosis.
How will the transition effect companies?
Companies are comprised of owners, management, employees, debt and assets. Assets could generally mean tangible property, cash and other cash equivalent holdings, Intellectual Property, legal instruments, etc.
Since companies are organized as functions for one primary goal, generating profit for its owners, it can be said that all a company is, is a collection of costs, which when functioning, generates profit.
In Net Benefit Value (NBV) terms, that can be said this way: A company is a collection of decisions about employing resources in an organized way so some amount of NBV gets created when a consumer consumes what the company creates.
When a company transitions from today into Copiosis all the profit generated by that organization goes to the company owners’ at the net present value NPV of that profit stream. That releases financial ownership interest in the company.
We liquidate asset value in the same way, thus releasing financial ownership interest in the assets. Liability liquidation follows similarly, so owners are not liable for any debt. At that point former owners have no financial stake in company resources. That takes care of the non-emotional aspects of removing owners from resource value.
But ownership is emotional
This is tricky because in the case of private companies, private owners may be emotionally resist. As you’ll see, resistance could destroy their company.
Next, someone must steward freed assets as Copiosis societies depend on private property ownership. Owners no longer financially own assets. Someone must steward all the equipment, supplies, inventory, vehicle fleets, copiers, etc. Who will do that?
The people in the former company must answer that question because no one else will. It’s no one else’s business. In fact, former owners released financially from the assets, still privately own them.
The problem with all those assets owned by a small group of partners, or owners is, that small group can’t employ these assets alone. If they retain ownership and try directing other people in asset employment, some may go with that.
But, in light of their new found freedom – owners no longer control people through their paycheck – these former employees could walk away leaving owners literally holding a bag of equipment and nothing else.
After all, that company is no longer a company, but a collection of people and resources formerly organized to produce profit. Not any more. Someone now must decide what happens next.
Everyone is free
There are a lot of ways this can go. Our expectation is former owners will decide along with former employees, who are now independent producers, who will steward what assets.
For example, a privately-owned copy store chain comprises six stores. Each store employs 12 employees, (to keep it simple) 20 copy machines, and two former staff and operational managers, a day shift manager and a night shift manager, making 14 total employees in each store. The owner manages all six stores.
The owner must work with the former store managers and the 12 employees and figure out who will steward each of the copy machines, each of the stores and everything else the owner used to own.
Some of those employees aren’t working there because the love that work. So they are probably going to bail. Better opportunity awaits them. If the managers or the owner assert some kind of decision authority over their former “employees”, of which they now have none, maybe all 12 people will bail.
This is what we meant before about destroying the company. If the former owner still tries to act like an owner, he will likely destroy his company because, ultimately (which has always been the case), people make companies. And if the now-independent producers (former employees) all leave, all that’s left is a bunch of idle assets.
The owner must become magnanimous. Distributing property stewardship among his 80 or so former employees and now fellow producers could keep his former company functioning as it had. Maybe even better as these newly independent producers have complete authority to run their stewarded property as they see fit, which could mean in improved ways.
Of course a the owner could automate the whole operation, releasing all 80 employees. He will then receive all the NBR for NBV generated by his six stores. He’ll still need someone maintaining all that equipment though. He’ll still need people restocking the stores, serving customers who have problems, etc. As we said, there are a lot of ways this can go.
So the formal transition is the dispossession and compensation process. Everything that happens after that is up to the both the (former) owners and (former) employees.
But people can be generous and loving and fair during this process. With all necessities provided and everyone out of debt, there’s lots of time and space for people to make these productive, beneficial decisions.
The Copiosis is not about making all decisions for everyone. When everyone becomes free, it’s not utopia. What it is is a new adventure where everyone gets a say and everyone is equal. That’s thrilling!
