Against the looting of our intangible heritage, let us change our habits.

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Who owns a company today?
Our ownership habits are challenged by the complexity of the business creation process. They must therefore evolve. Bosses do not directly feel the need, but the conditions to be met to become an attractive land and to fight against the plundering of our intangible heritage show that we will have to change our habits. Here is why and how.

Little parable:
In the past, I bought a field. I asked some farm workers to cultivate it. In return, I conceded them a part of the harvest.
Afterwards, I set up a factory. I transferred my workers there and taught them how to operate the machines I bought. When I sold their production, I paid them a salary and repaid the loan to buy the machines. I had no problem selling because this was before globalisation and so we had direct contact with our customers. They made us progress and our regular relations allowed us to foresee our own future.
In both my agricultural and industrial activities, the state has taken part of my profits to ensure its own functioning and to provide social protection for my workers.
Now, I've started a startup to exploit an interesting idea. I've filed patents on processes developed with my team, made up of young people from the best universities in the region. It was difficult to make a name for myself, but little by little customers began to appreciate our innovations. We worked hard. Fortunately, we have benefited from public support in various forms.
Our business is doing well, so well that it is attracting investors who are offering me a good price for it. I don't know what they're most interested in. Probably the patents, the know-how and the fine academic brains that have remained loyal to us and eventually to our customers.
At best, they will relocate the company; at worst, they will kill it because our offer is competing with a giant in the sector which is struggling to modernise, but which has great means to survive in the market.
If I accept their offer, I'll be able to embark on more personal projects. On the other hand, my employees, to whom I owe a large part of this fortune, will receive nothing (or very little).
The public authorities who helped me won't get anything either. On the contrary, not only will they have to take charge of the unemployed who will inevitably turn up, but they have been robbed of the knowledge heritage that we had developed.
Good for me, but is it good for the community? Is there a fairer solution?

When I took over a field by becoming the owner, I didn't take a risk because I knew, basically, what the agricultural and therefore financial return was going to be.
When I set up my factory, I took more risks because I didn't know if the workers would be able to operate the machines properly.
When I created my startup, I took a lot more risks because I wasn't sure that we would be able to register our patent and I had no guarantee that my product would be accepted on the market.
To give me a clear conscience, I tell myself that the big cheque I'm going to pocket rewards my risk-taking and the efforts I've made; but honestly, these young people who followed me also took risks because a failed startup negatively marks the CV of those who invested in it.

My team is hostile to the sale of the company, they don't know how to oppose it. The law does not protect these employees and our public authorities do not protect themselves either against these forms of looting, which have become more and more frequent as we enter the intangible economy, in the era of the post-globalization and in the talent wars.

THE AP2E is working on a bill that aims to promote the takeover of companies by their employees, when the context is appropriate. The current government is also working on this (promises of the Dutch candidate). Alas, the bill, by passing from hand to hand, loses its relevance day after day.
Among the obstacles is the legal view of ownership. It is treated as it was when I had a field (in the 18th century). It has been revised with the nuances induced by industrialization. It must now be reviewed in the light of the challenges of globalisation and the war for talent.

Our legal vision now seems incoherent in the face of the current context where a company relies more and more on immaterial wealth (know-how, networks) which is increasingly becoming the fruit of a collective work.
Immaterial wealth is easy to plunder. To preserve it, you have to create attractiveness. This attractiveness is created by the environment (local and national authorities). The environment must be able to get involved from start to finish in the renewal of its entrepreneurial fabric. It must give itself the means to do so. It must not only pay the bills for the maternity hospital, the crèche, the hospice and pay subsidies to orphans, because beyond a business that closes or leaves the territory, there is a loss of talent, knowledge and socio-economic dynamics that will be very difficult to rebuild.

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Moreover, ownership appears as the counterpart of the entrepreneur's risk taking. However, with few exceptions, the entrepreneur can no longer take risks on his own. Thus, our vision of the business and the concept of ownership, as well as the law that flows from it, deviates from reality and becomes too unsuitable. Legislating, in the hope of adapting, seems ridiculous. In fact, laws are multiplying and only make the lives of those who want to be entrepreneurial heavier.

However, there is a solution, and those who are beginning to implement it are pleased to see it: any individual (physical, moral or institutional) who contributes to the enrichment of the company through his or her work, the provision of resources and risk-taking must own a share of the company in return, when his or her contributions are not rewarded at the right price.
What is new in this new economic approach is that even the community that has granted aid (of all kinds) will begin to own a share of the companies it supports and the number of citizens "emotionally" involved in the capital of the companies will also grow, thus amplifying the process initiated by crowdfunding.
That's the way it is in the collaborative world we're inexorably entering.
We used to say, "Every punishment deserves a salary". Now we are going to add "every risk deserves a share of capital".

Those who oppose this new approach will not be able to survive because complexity has become too pervasive in our wealth creation processes. By sharing risk taking, we raise the expectations of success, because, as is well known, "there is strength in numbers".

This new economic approach is aimed at more mature citizens who want to be involved in social and economic life. They are therefore citizens who aspire to a renewed form of democracy, made possible by a rising standard of living, modern means of communication and an awareness of the "I" in the "we". Such a project for society is carried only by these committed citizens, who day after day shape a new consensus in our collective vision.

Without waiting for the outcome of this in-depth work, for the specific subject of employee takeovers, you can sign the PA2E petition.

Geneviève Bouché, Doctor in Prospective

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