Socialism: lend for voluntary sales to workers, on a separate track

Add buyouts.md: owners who choose to sell a healthy firm to its workers can borrow on a separate $100M track with its own test (money plus a pay floor), a capped independent price, a seller note that shares the risk, a vote of the whole workforce and the lock. Restate the total worst case as $450M and answer open problem #12. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <[email protected]> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01QWPs69B8nQZjtPEUXMKzZx
2026-09-24 00:59:20 -06:00
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@@ -15,6 +15,7 @@ This model doesn't buy, seize or convert anyone's company. Instead it builds new

 - **Workers own their company.** Every member gets one vote. A share of the profits grows with tenure until long-time members split them equally. Salaries still exist, and hard jobs still pay more. Part of each year's profit builds up in a personal account that's paid out when you leave, and part goes into a permanent reserve that keeps the business investing. An insurance pool the co-ops pay for protects workers' last paychecks and part of their savings if the co-op fails. [Worker Ownership](worker-ownership.md), [Member Capital Accounts](capital-accounts.md), [Protecting Members' Savings](savings-guarantee.md) and [Investing for the Long Run](the-long-run.md)
 - **A small public bank lends to worker co-ops.** It charges market rates, so it only succeeds if co-ops can really compete. Its whole job is to be willing to lend to a kind of company other banks won't. Spain, Italy and the US have all tried versions of this, and the pilot is built around what went right and wrong. [The Bank](the-bank.md) and [Has This Been Tried?](precedents.md)
+- **Owners who want to sell to their workers can.** The bank lends for these sales on a separate track, with its own $100 million and its own test. Only healthy firms qualify, there's no new tax break, the price is capped at an independent appraisal, the seller shares the risk, and the whole workforce votes. [When an Owner Wants to Sell to the Workers](buyouts.md)
 - **Co-ops funded this way stay co-ops forever.** They can't be sold to conventional owners, and members can't vote to cash out what earlier members built. An independent lock-holder can veto any attempt, including selling the business off piece by piece. [The Lock](the-lock.md)
 - **It runs as an honest experiment.** A one-time $350 million pilot aims to fund about 400 new co-ops. The success measures are published before the first loan. If, after twelve years, co-ops stay open about as well as similar conventional firms while paying their members fairly, and the bank earned at least what Treasury bonds would have, Congress votes on growing it. If not, it shuts down automatically. It's built so that a hostile government can't quietly freeze it or rig the result, though Congress can always repeal it. [The Test](the-test.md), [The Pilot, in Numbers](pilot-spec.md) and [Making It Last](durability.md)
 - **Co-ops back each other up.** They pool part of their profits into a shared fund. If one fails, its workers are moved into others instead of being left with nothing. [The Federation](federation.md)