I do like the bones of this idea. But I have one nit pick and that is pay schedules. leaving as an intrenal decision is the very way the current system broke in the first place. Power corrupts, afterall, and even in democratic systems, power can be gamed. Just look at who is sitting in the white house to understand THAT.

before I offer this critique, I want to say I do agree with most of what is said here and it really seems solid otherwise, and I also understand that you are attempting a ground up approach, (a noble and laudable stance BTW) so what I am about to suggest does fly in the face of it. I’m acknowledging that upfront to avoid hurt feelings.

Governmental regulations on pay is the only way to “frustrate the bullshit.” Let me give you a rather graphic (hypothetical) example to help you understand. Suppose I was to kidnap a dom and their sub. Now if I was to sit there with a tattoo removal laser and methodically remove the ink from the dom, you would rightly call that assault. However “the sub” is right there. They can stop me at any time. They are not bound in anyway, merely in a cuck chair, as they say. Why this frustrates the bullshit is because it uncovers the underlying white lie that proves someone here is toxic (other than myself in this PURELY HYPOTHETICAL example). If the Sub does nothing the Dom will suffer as then I’ll wash the color out of their hair and then remove, seal, and cauterize all their piercings. This proves the dom was abusive and the sub was truly a worthless pile of cartilage, but also, importantly, that their dom has no real power, only the power the sub let them have. If the sub stops me then the Dom now owes the Sub possibly their life, so that dynamic is ruined forever, and the Sub must face some of the mental issues they have that led them to this lifestyle. So which is it? ( Jeopardy Theme )

In our case, the government must give corporate business a similar conundrum: give your employees what they need or you’ll lose your licence to conduct business AT ALL. Full stop, no second chances. And it MUST go harder: A CEO that does a “Venture Capital” and intentionally crashes a company to sell off the thing for profit? You will NEVER be allowed to be a CEO again and you’ll face HARD Jail time. Why? Because people were depending on that business for their livelihoods, and the Venture Capitalist took that away. That’s almost the same as MURDER.

F.A.F.O.

My specific nitpick is this: Pay must adhere to not just a living wage, but also a pay range. There must also be a MAXIMUM wage to make the minimum wage worth a damn. Instead of just Hourly, the pay must also meet a MONTHLY goal. I worked for a grocery chain a decade ago that had some corporate drama regarding who would run the company. (I won’t name names but it’s in the NE USA, and one of these CEO’s needed a government loan to buy out his cousin.) One of the sneaky things they would do is bookending hours so on paper employees were “full time” but in reality you might work 10 -12 days straight, “legally,” on the first half of the month due to you having to work those hours over the payroll flip, then given a pittance on the schedule for the back half so that their payroll numbers looked (artificially) low every month. You were TECHNICALLY still full time as you worked enough to qualify, but the hours were all over the place to make it function. By setting a monthly quota for earning it “frustrates that bullshit” because sure, you may work at $12 an hour, and it may be “full time” but if you don’t cross $2400 at the end of the month somebody from the State is going to be breathing down your bosses neck. It works even better if that monthly rate is set by the government based on GDP and inflation rates, AND NOT THE BUSINESS.

of course this goes into a larger discussion about ending “the invisible hand of the market” mentality, but that also is beyond the scope of this idea, I feel.

Again, LOVE the other ideas though. The notion of enforced meritocracy through democracy is inspired, especially.