Is Selling Shares in Yourself the Way of the Future?

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/01/is-selling-shares-in-yourself-the-way-of-the-future

by mitchbob • 4 years ago

17 23 4 years ago

newyorker.com

mitchbob• 4 years ago

Archived: https://archive.ph/HTQI1

oifjsidjf• 4 years ago

I'll be buying my own gym physique derivatives then.

Surely nothing can go wrong.

The problem with shares is that for someone to buy something someone will have to sell something.

If shares are tied to you personally then you basicaly get a personal worth score ala black mirror implicitly in this.

People will play the system to increase the net share worth without producing anything that brings down prices of goods or improves the net-good of humanity.

This will also paralyize the system since people will be obsessed with this, thus everything else will suffer.

It's basicaly Instagram "I always look good look at my picture" but now that is tied to your financial survival.

It's basicaly "industrial capitalism" vs "financial capitalism."

Industrial captialism created abundance as it actually makes things more affordable to the masses.

But now financial capitalism (Wall street sheninigans etc...) is parasiticaly destroying everything by betting on the money itself.

routerl• 4 years ago

Personally, I'm gonna short myself, and then literally fail my way into great wealth.

AinderS• 4 years ago

So a loan you can never repay?

gruez3• 4 years ago

You can certainly repay those loans. Corporations do that all the time, they're called "buybacks".

nonameiguess• 4 years ago

I seem to remember there being some hullabaloo back in the day in the US over the issue of whether one person can own another. This is voluntary, but I don't believe you can voluntarily sell yourself into slavery, either. So I suppose the relevant difference is these shares grant the owner some percentage of all your future wealth, but they're never voting shares? They can't tell you what to do, so it's fine?

Or is it just that no one has challenged whether this is legal or not?

swagasaurus-rex2• 4 years ago

Dividens on a person?

Seems ripe for abuse.

JediLuke• 4 years ago

The south shall rise again, this time with fractionalized ownership!

MrWiffles• 4 years ago

Selling shares of yourself? Didn’t the Ferengi do that in Star Trek DS9?

bobkazamakis• 4 years ago

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Body_Parts_(episode)

horsawlarway2• 4 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unincorporated_Man would like a word.

Speaking only for myself: Why the fuck would I take on a loan I can never repay?

gruez3• 4 years ago

Speaking only for myself: Why the fuck would I take on a loan I can never repay?

Same reason startup founders sell equity in their startup.

horsawlarway2• 4 years ago

One is a transaction involving assets. This is a transaction involving people.

I'm still pretty firmly in the "humans are not mere assets" camp. They absolutely can be an asset, but I don't find it acceptable to treat them solely as assets.

For the same reason I don't believe slavery is moral.

I literally don't see any way to pitch this that doesn't devolve straight back to "you're selling yourself into serfdom/slavery". But if you can make an argument... go for it.

MerelyMortal• 4 years ago

Great book and great series, if anyone is looking for a sci-fi recommendation.

The Wikipedia page needs to be updated. The synopsis is woefully-lacking, and there are four books in the series:

https://us.macmillan.com/series/theunincorporatedman

rekabis• 4 years ago

That series was horrifically dystopian, and should serve as a cautionary warning to avoid that path entirely.

swagasaurus-rex2• 4 years ago

One big reason shares have value because with enough shares you own a company.

gruez3• 4 years ago

This comment is bad regardless of what "you own a company" means.

If "own" means "control of a company", this is trivially proven false by comparing the price GOOG (without voting power) vs GOOGL (with voting power). The one with voting power actually trades lower than the one without voting power (probably due to better liquidity), which is not what we'd expect if control was "One big reason shares have value".

If "own" means "claim on future profits of the company", then it's also wrong because you don't need "enough" shares to have a claim on future profits. More is certainly better, but there isn't some arbitrary amount you have to reach to have "enough".

leobg• 4 years ago

So, slavery in installments?

winternett• 4 years ago

Sounds like the next phase for failed NFT promoters.

I can't wait to see how this gets marketed. I envision it devolving into some sort of scheme to facilitate human trafficking before it gets shut down.

The more these wacky schemes proliferate, they destroy any trust worthiness the Internet once had, and they flood all the outlets we used to go to for valid information with ads... The future has been fraught with so much disappointment in terms of the Internet's promise from the early days. It's infected almost every aspect of business online.

einherjae• 4 years ago

Betteridge’s law of headlines, nothing to see here.

yesbut• 4 years ago

No.

PeterStuer• 4 years ago

So you sell your lifetime for tokens to a class of buyers that get those tokens for free.

Well, the future is a distopean's "told you so" generator confirmed.

kderbyma• 4 years ago

It's like buy into an Alimony payment for all!!!

Is Selling Shares in Yourself the Way of the Future?

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