> Are you basically proposing worker-owned cooperatives?
From what I know about them, they would be one example of what I am talking about, yes, since as I understand it, the cooperative makes all the business decisions--what products to build and sell, how much of what to produce, where to locate the factory, what supply chains to rely on, etc.
But I'm not just proposing that we adopt something that already exists, or tweak something that already exists a little. I suspect that if all, or even a significant majority, of people who are currently working for wages adopted the mentality I describe, the entire economy of the planet would look very different.
From the sound of it, you're just proposing that people at the bottom have to play the free market better on a large scale, and you aren't giving much in the way of specifics of how they would do that.
One property of free markets it that they're unstable: as soon as any company gains enough power, they use that power to create rules and make the market unfree. Lobbying and laws are one way, monopolies and trusts are another. CEOs have no compunction about lobbying or taking bail-outs. You aren't really a successful company until you've pulled the ladder up behind you. And if CEOs aren't bound by free markets, it's foolish for workers to play by the rules when nobody else is.
In this terminology where every person is a business owner, then unions are trusts, worker-owned cooperatives are just companies owning the means of production, etc. If you're willing to let workers break the free market in their favor the same way CEOs break the markets in their favor, then this idea that everyone should own their own company is just linguistic gymnastics about worker-favored structures that already exist.
> you're just proposing that people at the bottom have to play the free market better on a large scale
If they want to capture more of the value they create, yes. The fact that for increased upside you need to take on increased risk, which is what underlies my proposal, is just a fact (one that is often unpleasant, which is why it is often swept under the rug), not a proposal by me or anyone else.
> One property of free markets it that they're unstable: as soon as any company gains enough power, they use that power to create rules and make the market unfree
In a free market, nobody can "create rules" as you describe. The process of "creating rules" that you describe only exists in the first place because the government has the power to make the market not free, by prohibiting transactions that people would otherwise choose to engage in, or by forcing people to engage in transactions they would otherwise not choose to engage in. And as you correctly note, the government exercises this power, not for the benefit of the people in general, but for the benefit of special interests.
> If you're willing to let workers break the free market in their favor the same way CEOs break the markets in their favor
No, what I would propose is that nobody be allowed to break the free market. But I understand that's a lot to propose, since people are extremely unwilling to give up the fantasy that they can somehow get the government to use its power for the benefit of the people as a whole instead of for special interests.
From what I know about them, they would be one example of what I am talking about, yes, since as I understand it, the cooperative makes all the business decisions--what products to build and sell, how much of what to produce, where to locate the factory, what supply chains to rely on, etc.
But I'm not just proposing that we adopt something that already exists, or tweak something that already exists a little. I suspect that if all, or even a significant majority, of people who are currently working for wages adopted the mentality I describe, the entire economy of the planet would look very different.