> Says who? The only "requirement of capitalism" is that individuals are allowed to have ownership rights.
That's not quite complete. To have capitalism, you also need labor to leverage capital. Capitalism requires the ability to extract money from the labor of other people.
If every company was worker owned, you could still have a market economy and private property, but it wouldn't be capitalism anymore.
> If every company was worker owned, you could still have a market economy and private property, but it wouldn't be capitalism anymore.
That's not correct. If every company was worker owned as long as the goods and services produced are traded on the open market as an exchange of value, that would still be capitalism. If "worker-owned" actually means government owned, however, then you're correct. Capitalism requires private ownership of the means of production.
> If every company was worker owned as long as the goods and services produced are traded on the open market as an exchange of value, that would still be capitalism.
No. We had "exchange of goods on an open market" long before we had capitalism.
> If every company was worker owned, you could still have a market economy and private property, but it wouldn't be capitalism anymore.
Again, says who?
Depending on your definition of capitalism, corporate charters pre-date capitalism! Corporate charters were rights granted by governments to pursue economic activity. What we define as the introduction of "capitalism" was the granting of individuals without nobility the rights to corporate charters.
Today, a corporation is still a government defined-entitity for the purpose of generating economic activity.
That's actually basically how the economy of Yugoslavia worked, worker's self-management [0] being the key term. You had worker-owned coops competing on the market.
That's not quite complete. To have capitalism, you also need labor to leverage capital. Capitalism requires the ability to extract money from the labor of other people.
If every company was worker owned, you could still have a market economy and private property, but it wouldn't be capitalism anymore.