Twitter - BadMouse101 Many wonder why Cooperatives fail to compete well with Capitalist Businesses. Here's some reasons why. And this isn't their fault.
White blood cells not being able to out-compete cancer cells doesn't show that cancer cells are better, only that they are better at spreading like a virus. Although, it's interesting that generally worker coops are more productive, effective, efficient, have better working conditions, are more ecologically and socially conscious, their workers earn more and have higher job-satisfaction than workers in comparable jobs at capitalist firms. The only thing that capitalist firms are better at is spreading.
Actually workers gaining more in coops isn't universal , coops usually keep some of the proffit to invest in the coop in Argentina there is an old hotel the workers turned into a coop and they gain (From what i've read) less then the average , tough one of it's members , said it's still better due to the greater control over their workplace and freedom.
I'm a bit late to the party, but do you have some articles/books supporting these claims that workers in coops are better off? I'd love to read more on that subject.
this link can help you understand worker co-operatives better. There are also many studies indicating how effective worker co-ops can be institute.coop/resources/brief-guide-understanding-employee-ownership-structures
It's the same argument about republics. Remember when people said republics can't work in big states and the need a monarch? Republics were usually only small cities, like the small cooperatives now. Monarchies were a more competitive form of government due to centralisation, but that doesn't mean they were better to live in, does it?
@@jamieleezandarski5749 There is a part in Engels "The origin of Family, private property and the state" where he says something similar about democracy. I hope you can translate since I have the text in Spanish. "No fue la democracia la que condujo a Atenas a la ruina, como lo pretenden los pedantescos lacayos de los monarcas entre el profesorado europeo, sino la esclavitud, que proscribía el trabajo del ciudadano libre." I know it isn't exactly about republics, but it is an example of the negativity towards the new governments
Western Europe eventually took inspiration from the US and made reforms themselves. It's also worth noting that the UK and the Netherlands (pretty much the freest countries in Europe) led the industrial revolution. Meanwhile, worker cooperatives have not found similar success against private businesses.
@@darthutah6649 This is because coops are not meant to operate under the profit motive, they are akin to guilds whose main purpose is to safeguard occupation and livelihood. And as for the reforms, you may be having a blank space. It was the event known as the French Revolution which all but permanently destroyed and altered all prior forms of social organization as the dominant forms of organization. The so called Western states chose to reform themselves as popular insurrection or its threat is pressuring them to do so.
Labour policy under Jeremy Corbyn is to make it government policy that whenever a corporation wants to shut down or sell up it most give its workers rights of first refusal to buy the company. They would be offered government backed loans.
In my opinion it's better to view and use cooperatives as one part of a larger anti-capitalist strategy, rather than seeing them as a comprehensive solution by themselves. Cooperatives aren't inherently radical, but they can very much be used for radical purposes, especially in collaboration with labor unions and counter-economic activity.
On the Sargon "triggered" joke: it really is a shame that all you have to do to set some people off is just mention the idea that the way our society is structured *privileges* some people above others.
c4p0ne you claim that sargon of akkad and other anti sjw youtubers are serving the establishment. This claim is completely detached from the reality we live in. The media is overwhelmingly liberal and neo progressive. Academia is neo progressive and supports social justice causes such as feminism. Feminists have media conglomerates like buzzfeed on their side. Anti sjws are mainly confined to alternative media. If sargon is creating pro establishment propaganda then why were media outlets so anti gamer gate?
+mitz avor can't believe no-one responded to this. It's because feminism is one of the movements which was in part coopted by the establishment. Why else would we have Terfs and the pro-life lot, except that they realised they needed to get more people on board. Also stuff by buzzfeed and other such groups 1) isn't controlled by, nor is it, the establishment, so you get the good intentions of some youtubers filtered to appeal to the broader public. Plus what with Trump and a rise in far right extremism even the establishment can just blame things on the latest administration.
mitz avor First of all, even the so-called 'liberal' media is extremely beholden to the state and even after repeatedly being fed deliberate lies by the government, they still take any statements made by the government at face value. The conflict you see within the media represents the very narrow range of viewpoints among the elites, and it has a very important function: Make people think that because there is disagreement, the media is 'free'. This is why there is disagreement over women's rights/racism/health care and other, relatively minor issues but there is hardly any disagreement about issues like capitalism/the need for endless wars/corporatist imperialism in the third world (at least in the US). Even if you look at something like the Vietnam war, which was clearly an unprovoked war of aggression in which terrible crimes were commited, the media only turned against it after the business elites realized it wasn't profitable anymore. Go read "Manufacturing consent" by Noam Chomsky if you want to get a more comprehensive picture.
I grew up and live in one of the last housing cooperatives in London, and it’s really good! Maintenance and even building work (new kitchens and walls taken out etc) is all provided for free out of rent money, and the rent is still very low, especially for central London, because no ones making a profit from it, and there’s a genuine sense of community. The local council has been planning to build some new homes nearby in collaboration with us, and we’ve collectively had a genuine say in the negotiations. Cooperative housing is the way to go!
There are some rather large co-ops, and a lot of smaller co-ops are part of larger networks, besides which independent co-ops can organize to produce much larger scale enterprises they just normally don't under the current system.
Socialist Bad thing is,even if a cooperative did well,you think the mainstream corporate media is going to tell us about it?Pfft.Theyd be better off telling us to start a Communist revolution then.
TheCommunistDragon lol yeah the media circuits that discuss business and finance are all for capitalists. Like literally, that's the whole point of them, to advertise to investors and act as "Business News" for the 1%. They've no interest in how well a co-op is doing because a co-op is run by and for the workers, they can't profit off of that the way the can off private companies.
Socialist Tell me about it.Theres a reason 6 Corporations own the media,there's a reason they don't show anything that features socialist ideals unless it's "muh healthcare" and then preceed to tell is "how bad it is". Mainstream media is probably the biggest threat to Leftism at this point.
IMO, co-ops shouldn't be nice until they have enough power to outcompete big businesses. Don't get me wrong. Leisure and meaningful work-life balance is important. But until workers get enough economic power, the big businesses will keep crushing them. There is a difference between grinding for oneself and grinding for a boss. Our children will enjoy a better future with less working hours when co-ops are strong and dominating the market.
It’s hard to spread as fast when funds are going directly to the ones that create the value of the business instead of paying them as little as possible to spread faster.
The biggest bank in Finland (Osuuspankki) is a consumers' co-op, and the biggest retailer (including gasoline stations and restaurants) in Finland (S-ryhmä) is also a consumers' co-op. Finland's biggest Pharmacy chain is owned by the University of Helsinki. The biggest oil company (Neste) and the biggest energy company (Fortum), the biggest Airline company (Finnair) are partially owned by the Finnish state. Most of the top 10 energy companies in Finland are owned by the public sector (including municipalities). So saying "why co-ops" or "why public companies" don't work is very misleading. In many countries, the biggest companies are owned by the public sector or are co-ops. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OP_Financial_Group en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S_Group
Then there is the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, where 30% of GDP is from cooperatives, competing with the likes of Ferrari, Maserati and Lamborghini.
There is Coop Norge (formerly Norges Kooperative Landsforening), the second largest grocery chain in Norway with almost 1,5 million members/co-owners (although most of these aren't workers). I'm not entirely sure how it operates, but I think each individual store is a part of one of 97 semi-independent-cooperatives controlled by their workers who are organized by an administrative branch (mainly responsible for buying goods and logistics) that is controlled (I think) by some mixture of direct and representative democracy of all members (both workers and customers that has signed up for membership).
***** fair enough. Had he said that "it was a long time ago that it collapsed" then I would agree. But I think that most people would say that 25 years is not recent. But it really is up to interpretation. Great video regardless though.
***** you could say WW2 was recent in the grand scale of history. But in the context of modern history, it really isn't that recent (in my opinion anyway)
From my observations. Coops are more stable, but the people that have the talent to start businesses don't want to start coops, because its harder to become a millionaire with a coop.
Cooperatives have a significantly lower failure rate than traditional business. I'd imagine starting a coop is a less risky and possibly easier feat from the individual's perspective, especially if one decides to become a voting member/owner later on. Budding entrepreneurs could then take that experience from building a successful coop into other ventures whether it be in private business or another cooperative enterprise.
Well you are taking a much bigger risk than a regular Corp. EVERYONE that becomes a member has to work together or they'll all fall apart. It's baked into the whole system. It's not surprising that the person would just make a corporation themselves that they own.
Perhaps. though data suggests About 10% of cooperatives fail after the first year while 60-80% of traditional businesses fail after the first year. Personally I prefer the odds for cooperatives.
+BadMouseProductions would be nice if you had done some homework on this subject - see my comments above as you are painting a negative picture of worker coops that just is plain false! Thanks for the good explanation of what they are though, its good to spread the word and get people thinking about alternatives to capitalism
@@benjaminr8961 they lose because their goal is not to spread out, it's to provide a benefit to the community and workers alike. A cooperative, given the oppurutnity, won't fill their neighborhood lake with trash. A bigger corportation would do it with abandon (but only in the third world of course, otherwise first world people might start to object!)
No actually this video is inaccurate, co-ops tend to be three times more successful than capitalist businesses. The person who made this video clearly don't know what he's talking about.
The cooperatives work, but there are not a lot of cooperatives because the people don´t even know what is a cooperative and don´t know how to create one.
Actually about 10% of cooperatives fail after the first year while 60-80% of traditional businesses fail after the first year. Sounds like a win to me.
*Suma* deserves a mention, 140 employees, £40mil in turnover, non-hierarchical and practices role rotation: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suma_(co-operative) Valve is also worth a mention and you can find/read their employee handbook online. It has a extremely flat structure and although it falls just short of non-hierarchical it is turning over billions of USD. I would add another reason there not more mutually-run, mutually-managed coops; it simply does not occur to individuals starting businesses that they could structure it in such a way and if they do ever realise it is probably too late. It is _very hard_ to change the ownership/management structure of a business after it has started to grow. Another reason not mentioned is there are not enough anarchists. It is hard enough finding the right people to grow a business when you get to tell them what to do; add the requirement for them to hold belief and self-confidence in non-hierarchical structures and it becomes a thousand times harder. I have been running my own limited company in the tech sector for 19 months. I am the only employee but should be in a financial position to grow next year with one or more employee-owner-managers, wish me luck I guess.
***** Oops, yeah, *160 but no small feat considering the sector and decline of the coop movement in general! I think more anarcho-communists should be trying to run their own business. Working so closely with capital is self-assigned suffering in the short term but, in the long term, if there were more employee-owned, employee-managed businesses across a more diverse range of sectors (including high-growth sectors like tech & space) those businesses would better be able to support each other and reduce their dependence on capital. Kinda like syndicalism without unions innit brah. Such a strategy for change is more possible now in the days of the interwebs and remote working. ***** thanks!
+OliverUnderTheMoon _"I think more anarcho-communists should be trying to run their own business. Working so closely with capital is self-assigned suffering in the short term but, in the long term, if there were more employee-owned, employee-managed businesses across a more diverse range of sectors (including high-growth sectors like tech & space) those businesses would better be able to support each other and reduce their dependence on capital."_ This sounds sort of like an attempt at economic dual power if I'm interpreting you correctly. The question is how would we actually disconnect from capitalism? It seems more like a smaller co-op economy within the larger capitalist economy, which doesn't really reduce dependence on capitalism and create a state of dual power but rather creates a sector of capitalism that caters to socialists. The only thing I can think of at the moment is, as you hinted at, to create a co-op federation, with more profitable co-ops supporting smaller or less profitable ones. It's not a complete disconnect from capitalism, but it's something, and it still allows profit and competition to be less of a focus. I'd be interested to know if you have an idea to actually create a way to separate the co-ops from the capitalist economy.
There are many examples of successful cooperatives. The problem is many of these cooperatives have to compete with already established corporations that usually have more of a market share. This is mainly evident in urban areas (co-ops have been shown to work better in more rural areas). Ideally the products/services delivered by a cooperative would be as high quality and in demand as a corporate business, with the main difference being how the profits are distributed (in the form of shares vs to the workers). More money usually means better services/etc, so I can see why reinvesting the money into shares makes corporations 'better'/more lucrative. A successful co-op would essentially have enough profits (to pay the employees more fairly) while not sacrificing on their operations. Forgive me if non of this makes sense, I don't have a formal education in economics/business, but I do know that there is something genuinely good and moral about co-operatives. The problem is the landscape that they are in is not in favour of them, there are many barriers because we are in a society with a capitalism ideology.
"compete with already established corporations that usually have more of a market share" Unless you invent a particular trade, that will always be the case for businesses.
There is academic research on this. Essentially, if a co-op relies on highly-skilled workers (engineers, managers, specialists, etc.) who are forced to take lower pay to subsidize lower-skilled workers, many of them quit the co-ops to join private firms where they can make more. On contrast, if a the firm is in a mostly homogeneous low skill / low complexity sector (e.g. agriculture, small retail) then co-ops can run well since they are less vulnerable to specialists leaving.
I agree with some of these, but there are some very large, very predatory/competitive Coops like Fonterra who have for a long time been pushing for neo-liberal anti-worker reforms here in Australia, so you CAN run a Coop and not give a single shit about people apart from yourselves. There was also a time at least here in Australia and NZ where Coops were massive. NZ I believe even had a economy in the early 20th century that was majority Coops. There are also still in the 21st century and massively overlooked by Socialists Coops like Credit Unions, Building societies, Mutual savings banks, Housing Cooperatives, Cooperative Motoring groups, Cooperative investment firms. Many of these can be very, very predatory and very successful. Fun fact: 8 out of 10 Australians are a member of a Cooperative.
Another thing is that to create a cooperative, you need like minded people that want to provide the same service. In many areas, this means the chances of a cooperative popping up is slim to none. Looking at the Southeastern United States, it's completely devoid of co-ops, not because they can't compete, but because it's too left wing. Hell, I only know of one co-op in a my state, and it's not exactly a workers co-op.
+XirmiX The idea of workers owning and controlling their workplace is very left wing. It makes sense that it wouldn't appeal to as many in a place as conservative as southern US.
Legendary176 It's because you have Fox News and other corporate media going "Socialism is da state doing shit!" and they think the Republicans are going to do.less Government t stuff(that's true,less government interaction with citizens and more with the corporations.)
Brocialist Manifesto not exactly when it's basically a requirement for any (white) candidate to advertise that he's a businessman to get votes. "Populism" is pretty meaningless when their proposed reforms are "sell out our resources to powerful multinational corporations for pennies, but with a country twang y'all."
Don't know if Jackson, Mississippi counts as part of the Southeastern US for your point here (it is reasonably not quite southeast), but the city has been moving on drawing from the Cleveland Evergreen Cooperatives experience to develop an alternative economic structure. Anyway, here is the list of the 100 largest cooperatives in the United States. A few of them are in the Southeast: impact.ncb.coop/hubfs/assets/resources/NCB_Co-op_100_2018_WEB.pdf
Cooperatives are capitalistic democratically run businesses as opposed to corporate capitalistic businesses. ie workers benefit not CEO's and shareholders.
What do you imagine would be the best way to transition to a society with more cooperatives? The system has in place some clear barriers to their success. I imagine the only way would be forcing governments to take a more cooperative-friendly approach to the economy. Such as, instead of relentlessly attempting to support private banks every time they fail the government support the people moving money to more socially responsible cooperative banks.
Supporting change in the legislation , making it harder for governments to give bailouts to banks and large corporations in general , or supressing the effects of money in politics or limiting patents and copyrigth law, would be a good idea yes. Other strategys , like direct action migth work too for example ocupying houses banks have seized with the objective of returning them , to their original owners ,ocupying factorys and failing businesses specially those who haven't payed their workers in months ,taking food wasted by farms and supermarkets and giving it for free . Actively organizing social cooperatives industrial cooperatives service sector cooperatives , and organizing a union of cooperatives were they can , help each other to better improve efficiency technology working conditions. By creating schools and colleges under anarchist principles of education making the curriculum adapt to the students , and colleges were the graduates must pay after graduation acording to their earnings or by proving services , perhaps even organizing with local communitys so that , they can benefit from the skilled work and have a place to send their children in exchange from help to mantain the college. By creating radical unions or a confederation of unions , around the principles of mutual aid and direct action general strikes and ocupations can have a tremendous effetc on governments and can make them work much faster.
First off, I would make it so that when a company was foreclosed or declared bankruptcy that the workers of said company would be given approximately six months to purchase the old company and if they succeeded they wouldn't have to pay taxes until they made at least 20,000 dollars in profit. These same luxuries would not be afforded to corporations.
worker co-ops are still private enterprises so they still fall under the umbrella of capitalism. when we conservatives talk about socialism, we are always referring to "state socialism" not worker owned private enterprises, because worker owned or not, they are still run for a profit, so they dont fall under the socialist umbrella.
Absolutely. Am going to shoot any capitalist who have any angst with cooperatives or workers owning the means of production. Lol. Capitalists just want to be left alone. So cooperate all you want. It's a big world.
@@juanche978 How would you know, the public sector doesn't even exist in some countries and if it did it would be very small. And I would much rather give more power to the government rather than corporations who are concerned primarily with profits, mostly because the government can be reformed.
We need to form a coalition of cooperatives. For a beginning cooperative it would provide training, assistance with funding. For establish cooperatives it would protect from failure with further training. In addition to common ethics of making the cooperative system grow, trading inside the coalition would respect the fact that that market is owned by the community. It would reduce manufacturing/business cost for a cooperative to buy inside the coalition.
Hmm... What about economic independence on an Agorist/Mutualist route? Ie Co-ops and communes that operate in local markets? A lot of social inertia to fight, as you said but has it been tried in recent times besides during civil wars?
Cooperatives by themselves arent enough to uproot Capitalism because they are just one part of a bigger scheme, one piece of the puzzle, one wheel of the car, one portion of the alternate system. Proudhon and Bakunin knew that and said as much. They are only supposed to take apart the Production step, subvert the Use Value link. Nonprofit Credit unions and Consumer Coops can tackle the Exchange value link. Nonprofit Mutual Aid societies can provide for the universal services everyone needs. By using labor notes, Time Banks and several other ways to reduce or eliminate the use of currency by adopters of this system, while selling the productive Surlpluses for bourgeoise money while undercutting their prices (and profits) as much as possible... then spending it to acquire more Means of Production instead of using it to accrue interest... then slowly, inch by inch, all material wealth is owned by collective institutions, while only immaterial wealth is held by capitalist enterprises... which will have a smaller and smaller market to sell things to and less and less variety of commodities not supplied by the socialist economy. Once the superior technological advancements of the socialist economy come along, on account of all that research funded in mutual aid societies, the capitalist system would then have to either reverse engineer it or steal it with espionage, being liable to lawsuits for doing so, or be beaten. And speaking of beating, it would be smart if some of those Mutual Aid societies included in their education curriculum things like Self Defense classes, trained and maintained Community Policing groups (better than current cops obviously) and equiped and dispatched well armed Coop-PMCs along worldwide aid missions, to ensure security and spread all around good will accross the globe (and incidentally creating a strong enough force to discourage State violence). You know... the hardest part of the plan(other than fighting against all the roadblocks you mentioned) is convincing people to accept a lesser variety of commodities at first. Only through building up class consciousness and developing direct democracy habits can do that, either a majority gets on board, or it won't work. Which is also true for any real alternatives to Capitalism btw. We are all aware what vanguardism has done to socialist ideas by now...
We have no infrastructure for cooperatives here in America. Whereas a place, such as the Basque country, already has powerful series of cooperatives and their own banks that are willing to lend money to upstart coops. With that said, cooperatives do appear to be on the rise in America-- slowly but surely. I remain optimistic but that's just me.
All co-ops really do is collapse the wage fund and profit. They are fundamentally capitalist enterprises, and will face the same tensions faced by capitalist enterprises. If the industry does not require high levels of capital investment, they might be able to out-compete capitalist enterprises by effectively enduring lower-overheads (i.e a smaller wage-profit fund) which nonetheless may support a higher standard of living (i.e by effectively forgoing some profit). However, most industries are capital intensive, which means that to survive, the co-op owners will either need to invest in the appropriate capital and limits wages to the levels of their competitors (barring some sort of locational/brand/environmental advantage) or rely on intensified self-exploitation (i.e. paying themselves less/working longer) With the administrative problems that sustaining large number of 'equal say' managers often presents (not all that different from the shareholder doctrine) it is not unusual that they fall apart, or become effectively normal companies. So they are not a solution to capitalism, or a vehicle to transition. But they can be nice.
Actually they can be a gateway drug. People see that Coops are more effective in every way except monetarily. Then we can say "Okay so get rid of the focus on the monetary part and just make everything a coop." There you go, that's how Socialism works.
I have to strongly disagree that cooperatives are inherently inferior to capitalist businesses when it comes to market competition. Cooperatives are much more common in capitalist Europe (about 1/6 citizens belong to them) and even then, many Europeans still haven't heard of them at all. There are over 40,000 coops in the US alone and pay over $25 billion in wages, though compared to Europe this is a drop in the bucket. Most of the reason you don't see cooperatives more often is due to difficulty getting capital, awareness, and the fact that enterprising individuals with the wherewithal choose to form private businesses instead,
Coops are more complex to setup than a sole proprietor business hence you don't see many of them. Coops are on average more profitable and far more likely to succeed.
+XirmiX He's saying that if cooperatives were bad they would be commercially unsuccessful, and then saying that because cooperatives are commercially unsuccessful they are bad. If A then B, B not therfore A.
Or more precisely: If cooperatives can't compete with capitalist businesses, then cooperatives would be scarce; Cooperatives are scarce, therefore they're scarce because they can't compete with capitalist businesses. Having said that, a more charitable interpretation of the argument, to be fair, is something more like this: If cooperatives worked, then there would be lots of cooperatives; There aren't lots of cooperatives, so therefore cooperatives don't work. So modus tollens, rather than affirming the consequent. Either way, it's not a very good argument. Somebody living in the 1600s could just as well have said, "if democratic republics worked, we'd expect to see a lot of them... "
Sorry you are right. It is a consumer coop, customers can join and have a democratic say on its polices. However, it is not a conventional capitalist enterprise owned and controlled by shareholders. Similar to the large number of mutual building society and insurance companies. These were very successful until an ideological attack against them in the 1980s and their conversion to conventional capitalist businesses by use of bribes to the members (many of which were new members who joined just to get the bribes, hence distorting the vote). Another model is the John Lewis Partnership - it is a very successful staff owned department store chain.
The fact that banks won't lend to start them because of the business model and people should give you pause. Basically it means that they lose money on average generally (not just in a capitalist system unless you think that final 5% usury tips it over). Apply state controls to enable them to compete and the entire economy loses money.
Coop will always be small because it is more focus on members rather than growing the whole entity, the leadership is base on voting regardless of how many shares you have. its like letting the employee union run a corporation, A ship driven by a plumber because he was voted by popularity. So more like democracy combine with socialist.
Cooperatives DO actually outcompete traditional businesses in a lot of ways. And they're actually 30% less likely to fail. The problem is often times they stay in a vacuum. What they have to do and many are doing now is FEDERATINGGGGGGGGGGGG. Meaning they cooperate with other cooperatives locally, nationally, globally instead of competing. Do this over and over and over and you start to build something that can actually fight against capitalism. We're also forming community investment cooperatives now. How people used to form businesses and how actually 75% of the electrical network in the US was formed. And getting banks to loan to them. Yes, we're doing that too. But yeah everyone is still fixated on venture capital being the way to start a business. Lots of laws changed after WWII to make cooperatives hard to form. By the way by converting to automation a cooperative can still own those means of production, it doesn't have to close, if connected within a federation of cooperatives it can simply use the profits to either provide basic income, to invest in further anti-capitalist organizing or finance starting other cooperatives. Yes please let's fetishize revolution and killing capitalists some more and not actually build any socialist practices into working people, that'll work. More magic fairy vanguard dust, with a side of class saviorism, thank you.
Let me repeat that for you: 30% LESS LIKELY TO FAIL. So yeah they actually outcompete traditional business. They just have both never had significant access to finance until starting now, their model was severely suppressed by US centric economic policies after WWII anddd capitalism has socialized those that want to start a business to not even consider ceding control & profits democratically.
Also blockchain is changing all this. It's going to eliminate management entirely and traditional capitalist businesses will have to either pivot to becoming cooperatives or actually be outcompeted by cooperatives.
There's even already a syndicalist uber starting on the blockchain. arcade.city/ So yeah if you want to maybe do a new video on this, there is cooperative organizer right here ready to talk co-ops.
Desjardins is competing very well against the Capitalist banks of Canada, its 3rd biggest. The Co-Operative St-Albert cheese factory is dominating the cheese curd market in Canada and has caused many capitalist cheese factories to shutdown because they can't compete with the affordable prices of St-Albert and its quality is the best world wide.
I was totally expecting some totally brogressive view on on worker coops about how they couldn't compete with corporations because they're too nice or friendly or some bullshit like that. I'm glad that we got the real reason that cooperation is looked down upon in modern society from this video.
The title is not right. It should be ""Why there are no more workers' co-operatives" Btw, a worker co-operative IS a business. It's just a business where decision-making and profit-distribution (and more stuff) are done in a different way from a 'traditional (non co-operative)' business. And there are a lot of logical phallacies here...
I want to recommend a book to everyone here: Leigh Phillips and Michal Rosworski, "People's Republic of Walmart: How the World's Biggest Corporations are Laying the Foundation for Socialism". Verso press, 2019. They show the degree to which the current economy is planned, how the existing technology renders Hayek's main arguments against planning the economy null and void, and how democratic organization of business activity is now more relevant as an alternative than ever before, including democratic running of workplaces.
You should read about mixed cooperatives. Whereas some coops are worker owned (ie. the cafe is owned by the baristas) or member owned (ie. the cafe is owned by the coffee drinkers), a mixed model allows for 50-50 member-worker owner, or even a private( CAPITALIST) owner , ie. 33 % worker, 33 %member, 33 %private investor or another company ownership.
Worker cooperatives do work maybe a look at professor Wolff on workplace democracy would elaborate more about the qualities of cooperatives and workplace reform! The trouble is cheap labor conservatives have all the control through the mantra of neoliberalism which has had a stranglehold on governments for 4 + decades !
If they don't work that shouldn't be your problem. Go and take part in what works for you. Earlier in my life I met numerous people who were always trying to tell me why I should or shouldn't try this or that new idea. I finally got tired and told all of them to get lost. Now I live with my solitude,debt free progress, and economic stability. Friendships are sometimes overrated.
A very prominent reason why capitalism of today seems to work, " work" being a very broad and relative term, is due to increasing corruption being controlled by fewer people over time. I was very hard to defeat at the game of monopoly as a youngster because I always cheated. I usually elected myself as banker and the deed was done, but even if the other players were on to me ( and no one was ever completely on to me because I was a pathological liar) I still managed to win most of the time because that was the game for me - to deceive, perform slight of hand, and take full advantage of my opponents lethargy at every opportunity. It's too late to save society from the path it's on at this point in time. All we can do is learn from the results of the rampant selfishness that is going to engulf almost all of us in the horrible experience that is our common future. Maybe then, most of us who survive, will really understand the word "cooperation".
My favorite local bike shop is a worker co-op, and they've been pretty successful. They've got 2 or 3 locations and have been around as long as I have lived here (17yrs). Plus we have a handful of cafes and a record store that I believe are all co-ops. Now, if only I could find a co-op machine shop to work at 🤔
I was delighted to find that the only "anti-cooperative" video did such a great job of revealing why they do work. Anti-socialism cannot stop the growth of this futuristic movement. In fact, the Capitalist powers that be either don't want to acknowledge the power of Worker Self-Directed Enterprise, or they simply cannot believe that this democratic, socially-responsible, community-serving, environmentally-friendly way of organizing the workplace can ever out-compete their own selfish model. Ask any informed individual worker which mode he would prefer to be a part of, and the answer is a no-brainer. I have high confidence that our young people will figure this out. I look forward to the blossoming of cooperative enterprise over the next century. WE have the power to enact it.
Worker co-ops face a greater sense of ethics which is a natural attrition to profit. The more a central authority skims profit off labor, or price dump, or destroy their local biome by cutting corners... the more they can invest in self-owned means of production... Raw production however, mutates from a creative to a destructive trait when not guided by ethics. See climate change, or slavery or etc etc.
Cooperatives are just as good as traditional businesses in the market. They actually last longer, in general. The problem is their creation is more rare, because of cultural propensity and since they have a harder time getting funding because a traditional model is more profitable for investors (revenue goes to dividends rather than wages & childcare). It has little to do with being more competitive in the market. And even if it was the case, I'm sure a plantation run by slaves was more profitable than a plantation with wage-laborers but obviously morality still rightly comes into our decision to disallow the former. I'm not saying capitalist wage labor is the same as slave labor but we can still argue based on morals.
If given the choice of purchasing a product from a Worker Cooperative or a Capitalist Company my choice with be the Cooperative. What is needed is choice....
I find it funny how they think cooperatives not dominating the marketplace means that we shouldn't support them. We're critiquing the system of capitalism for incentivizing selfish behavior (businesses), so of course cooperatives wouldn't dominate under that system.
State having too much power is a bad idea. You must miss Middle Age and Nazi Germany. I can't trust state because it's formed by people and I don't trust people, we are shit.
Co-operatives are a capitalistic systems it's just the profits go to the co-op members instead of CEO's and shareholders. In other words the workers benefit directly from the fruits of their labors without having to share this wealth with folks who didn't work for the money
this is why you need a public bank and tax subsidies that capitalist businesses get Labour party in England have came up with a great policy, which is if any company wants to sell or move, they have to ask the workers first if they want to buy shares in the business and run it as a co-op more awareness and government help and business teaching in schools can help well more co-ops in the future I had to find out about co-ops myself and when I mention it to my colleagues and friends, no one has ever heard of it
Are you sure that cooperatives are rare because they tend to fail? I had the impression that cooperatives were slightly more likely to stay in business, but there were vastly more capitalist businesses founded.
The biggest bank in Finland (Osuuspankki) is a consumers' co-op, and the biggest retailer (including gasoline stations and restaurants) in Finland (S-ryhmä) is also a consumers' co-op. Finland's biggest Pharmacy chain is owned by the University of Helsinki. The biggest oil company (Neste) and the biggest energy company (Fortum), the biggest Airline company (Finnair) are partially owned by the Finnish state. Most of the top 10 energy companies in Finland are owned by the public sector (including municipalities). So saying "why co-ops" or "why public companies" don't work is very misleading. In many countries, the biggest companies are owned by the public sector or are co-ops. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OP_Financial_Group en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S_Group
In the past consumer coops were created in Italy to support productive coops, yet they have been completely absorbed by capitalism in a few decades. Coops are the enterprises who impose the most exploitative type of work organisation in the country to the point that many comrades are organising specifically against them. In any case now the power of the struggles is not adequate to produce such a mass movement as the one that supported and created the first cooperative phenomena, who was whatsoever positive for many people.
I think co-operativism is good and can work but it would need a massive shift in government perception. It won't work on its own but only if the government supports it like it does neo liberalism at the moment
The Mondragon Cooperative in Northern Spain is a multi-billion dollar, worker-owned, cooperative with a presence on every continent...I think they are working just fine.
Still, Spain is populated by cooperatives because is also a way to survive capitilistic crisis. There are 18 000 workers cooperatives in spain, employing 300k workers.
Coopertives prove socialism in concept, help workers live better live, and take away some amount of power from capitalist even if the amount is seems minuscule. Even if they require some concessions to capitalism to exist, they are worthwhile projects that take us a step in the right direction, and revolutionary leap is going to require a running start.
Capitalist companies are certainly about maximising profit but this is achieved by serving customers. It is the customers who decide which companies succeed and which fail. The companies that please their customers the most prosper the most. State capitalism, corporate capitalism or crapitalism is not free market capitalism. The problems attributed to the former stem from government not from commercial activity where people trade with each other freely for mutual benefit.
you should cooperating to gain sense of how economy run. actually. and if, IF, you read Lenin's Imperialism once you will grasp how economic mode come to the scene of history, in Lenin's context, the Cartel movement
Thank you for this video so much. I'm a teenage ex-liberal recently turned socialist. I was wondering what I can do to avoid traditional wage-labour and also not be a capitalist. I've lived 17 years somehow not knowing that co-ops existed.
"capitalism is subject to greed" but what is preventing communism from being the same way? And what is enforcing that it does not end up that way? And who decides that? I am watching a lot of your videos so maybe I will come to that answer.
Doesn't corporate taxes makes the state too dependent on corporations? I mean, it should make sense that the economic institution with the largest influence over funding would get the most influence over social institutions, right?
Saying that a co-op is worse than a capitalist corporation in this day and age is like saying that a snail is better, in every way, than a shark because it can beat it in a 100m dash
1:47 but when this happens that means the more trivial or dangerous work once done by people and now given to automation frees individuals to learn new skills and trades for occupations that society deems more worthy of their time and energy in producing. That is unless we should keep jobs like coal mining and assembly lines around
When working people retake our government, this time around we'll work to advantage worker coops so they can grow to a scale that competes with the large capitalist organizations. Anti-trust enforcement would help a lot as well.
You know it’s so interesting when I see videos like these and audience reaction is exactly the opposite.. Co-op are the future. Everyone will like them.. the idea is as old as there’s been humans on this planet!
Badmouse. I was curious if you would be interested in a conversation. You come across to me as a reasonable person. I don't agree with anarcho communism, I don't think it's possible, at least not until we reach post scarcity, however I want to know a bit more about your view of it. You may be able to answer some of my questions and concerns with it.
Cooperatives can be much more effective if part of a larger strategic approach to create an alternative economy/collective political constituency - see the Evergreen Cooperatives project in Cleveland (about which there are many TH-cam videos), the work of Gal Alperovitz and the efforts in Jackson, Mississippi to draw on the Cleveland experience. If cooperatives are interlnked, mutually reinforcing, and if they can eventually be financed by a public bank of some kind, they can make a much bigger difference even politically.
I'd say this is a pretty good assessment of the worker co-op situation. Indeed, there are limitations around capital especially within the current capitalist context. But here's the catch: Since the co-ops ecosystem (not just worker co-ops but all kinds of service co-ops and autonmous bodies) is so much better compared to the profit-centric private enterprise - as a society we can have a lot more of that spirit in the economy! And just like the capitalist corporation has benefited from cronyism, the co-op 'ecosystem' can be intentionally nurtured in the economy! And yes, that may mean that certain essential goods/services sectors of the economy are relegated to coops only [with competition among themselves to promote efficiencies!].
White blood cells not being able to out-compete cancer cells doesn't show that cancer cells are better, only that they are better at spreading like a virus. Although, it's interesting that generally worker coops are more productive, effective, efficient, have better working conditions, are more ecologically and socially conscious, their workers earn more and have higher job-satisfaction than workers in comparable jobs at capitalist firms. The only thing that capitalist firms are better at is spreading.
Actually workers gaining more in coops isn't universal , coops usually keep some of the proffit to invest in the coop in Argentina there is an old hotel the workers turned into a coop and they gain (From what i've read) less then the average , tough one of it's members , said it's still better due to the greater control over their workplace and freedom.
I'd say AIDS instead of cancer, that would be a more intelligible argument.
(There's a lot of myths around both of those Geoffrey & some great sound criticism of the biomedical paradigm from those in the know.)
I'm a bit late to the party, but do you have some articles/books supporting these claims that workers in coops are better off? I'd love to read more on that subject.
this link can help you understand worker co-operatives better. There are also many studies indicating how effective worker co-ops can be
institute.coop/resources/brief-guide-understanding-employee-ownership-structures
It's the same argument about republics. Remember when people said republics can't work in big states and the need a monarch? Republics were usually only small cities, like the small cooperatives now. Monarchies were a more competitive form of government due to centralisation, but that doesn't mean they were better to live in, does it?
Also it was thought that non-slave societies couldn't compete with slave societies.
Can you source this? It would be a valuable resource
@@jamieleezandarski5749 There is a part in Engels "The origin of Family, private property and the state" where he says something similar about democracy. I hope you can translate since I have the text in Spanish.
"No fue la democracia la que condujo a Atenas a la ruina, como lo pretenden los pedantescos lacayos de los monarcas entre el profesorado europeo, sino la esclavitud, que proscribía el trabajo del ciudadano libre."
I know it isn't exactly about republics, but it is an example of the negativity towards the new governments
Western Europe eventually took inspiration from the US and made reforms themselves. It's also worth noting that the UK and the Netherlands (pretty much the freest countries in Europe) led the industrial revolution. Meanwhile, worker cooperatives have not found similar success against private businesses.
@@darthutah6649 This is because coops are not meant to operate under the profit motive, they are akin to guilds whose main purpose is to safeguard occupation and livelihood. And as for the reforms, you may be having a blank space. It was the event known as the French Revolution which all but permanently destroyed and altered all prior forms of social organization as the dominant forms of organization. The so called Western states chose to reform themselves as popular insurrection or its threat is pressuring them to do so.
Labour policy under Jeremy Corbyn is to make it government policy that whenever a corporation wants to shut down or sell up it most give its workers rights of first refusal to buy the company. They would be offered government backed loans.
And people thought Accelerationism was a good idea.
Corbyn also pledged to double the number of cooperatives, progress is definitely being made it looks like
I'd love to learn more about that. Thank you.
I'd love to hear more about government support for workers first right of refusal.
Mondragon Corp is a giant co-op. It is the 6th largest company in Spain. Not saying they're perfect, but they are a foothold.
In my opinion it's better to view and use cooperatives as one part of a larger anti-capitalist strategy, rather than seeing them as a comprehensive solution by themselves. Cooperatives aren't inherently radical, but they can very much be used for radical purposes, especially in collaboration with labor unions and counter-economic activity.
The whole point isn't to turn every company into a co-operative it's to turn the whole country into a cooperative
On the Sargon "triggered" joke: it really is a shame that all you have to do to set some people off is just mention the idea that the way our society is structured *privileges* some people above others.
c4p0ne black lives matter is a capitalist organisation. Why would the establishment shut down black lives matter when it serves their interests?
c4p0ne you claim that sargon of akkad and other anti sjw youtubers are serving the establishment. This claim is completely detached from the reality we live in. The media is overwhelmingly liberal and neo progressive. Academia is neo progressive and supports social justice causes such as feminism. Feminists have media conglomerates like buzzfeed on their side. Anti sjws are mainly confined to alternative media. If sargon is creating pro establishment propaganda then why were media outlets so anti gamer gate?
+mitz avor can't believe no-one responded to this. It's because feminism is one of the movements which was in part coopted by the establishment. Why else would we have Terfs and the pro-life lot, except that they realised they needed to get more people on board. Also stuff by buzzfeed and other such groups 1) isn't controlled by, nor is it, the establishment, so you get the good intentions of some youtubers filtered to appeal to the broader public. Plus what with Trump and a rise in far right extremism even the establishment can just blame things on the latest administration.
mitz avor First of all, even the so-called 'liberal' media is extremely beholden to the state and even after repeatedly being fed deliberate lies by the government, they still take any statements made by the government at face value. The conflict you see within the media represents the very narrow range of viewpoints among the elites, and it has a very important function: Make people think that because there is disagreement, the media is 'free'. This is why there is disagreement over women's rights/racism/health care and other, relatively minor issues but there is hardly any disagreement about issues like capitalism/the need for endless wars/corporatist imperialism in the third world (at least in the US). Even if you look at something like the Vietnam war, which was clearly an unprovoked war of aggression in which terrible crimes were commited, the media only turned against it after the business elites realized it wasn't profitable anymore. Go read "Manufacturing consent" by Noam Chomsky if you want to get a more comprehensive picture.
It's my opinion that these people are legit shills who are completely aware they're shills.
I grew up and live in one of the last housing cooperatives in London, and it’s really good! Maintenance and even building work (new kitchens and walls taken out etc) is all provided for free out of rent money, and the rent is still very low, especially for central London, because no ones making a profit from it, and there’s a genuine sense of community. The local council has been planning to build some new homes nearby in collaboration with us, and we’ve collectively had a genuine say in the negotiations. Cooperative housing is the way to go!
There are some rather large co-ops, and a lot of smaller co-ops are part of larger networks, besides which independent co-ops can organize to produce much larger scale enterprises they just normally don't under the current system.
Socialist Bad thing is,even if a cooperative did well,you think the mainstream corporate media is going to tell us about it?Pfft.Theyd be better off telling us to start a Communist revolution then.
TheCommunistDragon
lol yeah the media circuits that discuss business and finance are all for capitalists. Like literally, that's the whole point of them, to advertise to investors and act as "Business News" for the 1%.
They've no interest in how well a co-op is doing because a co-op is run by and for the workers, they can't profit off of that the way the can off private companies.
Socialist Tell me about it.Theres a reason 6 Corporations own the media,there's a reason they don't show anything that features socialist ideals unless it's "muh healthcare" and then preceed to tell is "how bad it is".
Mainstream media is probably the biggest threat to Leftism at this point.
IMO, co-ops shouldn't be nice until they have enough power to outcompete big businesses. Don't get me wrong. Leisure and meaningful work-life balance is important. But until workers get enough economic power, the big businesses will keep crushing them. There is a difference between grinding for oneself and grinding for a boss. Our children will enjoy a better future with less working hours when co-ops are strong and dominating the market.
It’s hard to spread as fast when funds are going directly to the ones that create the value of the business instead of paying them as little as possible to spread faster.
"tiny"
Isn't the Mondragon corporation one of the largest companies in Spain lol
The 7th largest in Spain I believe.
The biggest bank in Finland (Osuuspankki) is a consumers' co-op, and the biggest retailer (including gasoline stations and restaurants) in Finland (S-ryhmä) is also a consumers' co-op. Finland's biggest Pharmacy chain is owned by the University of Helsinki. The biggest oil company (Neste) and the biggest energy company (Fortum), the biggest Airline company (Finnair) are partially owned by the Finnish state. Most of the top 10 energy companies in Finland are owned by the public sector (including municipalities).
So saying "why co-ops" or "why public companies" don't work is very misleading. In many countries, the biggest companies are owned by the public sector or are co-ops.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OP_Financial_Group
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S_Group
Then there is the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, where 30% of GDP is from cooperatives, competing with the likes of Ferrari, Maserati and Lamborghini.
Mondragon is a cooperative on paper. In operation, it has a traditional worker/management divide.
This comment is written like you didn’t finish the video
There is Coop Norge (formerly Norges Kooperative Landsforening), the second largest grocery chain in Norway with almost 1,5 million members/co-owners (although most of these aren't workers). I'm not entirely sure how it operates, but I think each individual store is a part of one of 97 semi-independent-cooperatives controlled by their workers who are organized by an administrative branch (mainly responsible for buying goods and logistics) that is controlled (I think) by some mixture of direct and representative democracy of all members (both workers and customers that has signed up for membership).
Thank you for your comment.
Naked Ape is a person who once said that the Soviet Union "recently collapsed" so I struggle to take anything he says seriously.
It has recently collapsed.
***** a quarter of a century isn't recent.
up to interpretation.
***** fair enough. Had he said that "it was a long time ago that it collapsed" then I would agree. But I think that most people would say that 25 years is not recent. But it really is up to interpretation. Great video regardless though.
***** you could say WW2 was recent in the grand scale of history. But in the context of modern history, it really isn't that recent (in my opinion anyway)
From my observations. Coops are more stable, but the people that have the talent to start businesses don't want to start coops, because its harder to become a millionaire with a coop.
Cooperatives have a significantly lower failure rate than traditional business. I'd imagine starting a coop is a less risky and possibly easier feat from the individual's perspective, especially if one decides to become a voting member/owner later on. Budding entrepreneurs could then take that experience from building a successful coop into other ventures whether it be in private business or another cooperative enterprise.
Well you are taking a much bigger risk than a regular Corp. EVERYONE that becomes a member has to work together or they'll all fall apart. It's baked into the whole system. It's not surprising that the person would just make a corporation themselves that they own.
Perhaps. though data suggests About 10% of cooperatives fail after the first year while 60-80% of traditional businesses fail after the first year. Personally I prefer the odds for cooperatives.
can you go into the specifics of the rojava revolution and its economics.
Do your own homework lol.
no I'll get something done at some point, probably not for a while though.
+BadMouseProductions ok thanks.
The center for a stateless society has a good article on the kurdish revolution and i read Boochkin's widow has written some articles on Rojava.
+BadMouseProductions would be nice if you had done some homework on this subject - see my comments above as you are painting a negative picture of worker coops that just is plain false! Thanks for the good explanation of what they are though, its good to spread the word and get people thinking about alternatives to capitalism
Basically Cooperatives don't play dirty, that's why they lose.
They lose because they are inherently flawed.
@@benjaminr8961 they lose because their goal is not to spread out, it's to provide a benefit to the community and workers alike.
A cooperative, given the oppurutnity, won't fill their neighborhood lake with trash. A bigger corportation would do it with abandon (but only in the third world of course, otherwise first world people might start to object!)
No actually this video is inaccurate, co-ops tend to be three times more successful than capitalist businesses. The person who made this video clearly don't know what he's talking about.
The cooperatives work, but there are not a lot of cooperatives because the people don´t even know what is a cooperative and don´t know how to create one.
Actually about 10% of cooperatives fail after the first year while 60-80% of traditional businesses fail after the first year. Sounds like a win to me.
*Suma* deserves a mention, 140 employees, £40mil in turnover, non-hierarchical and practices role rotation: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suma_(co-operative)
Valve is also worth a mention and you can find/read their employee handbook online. It has a extremely flat structure and although it falls just short of non-hierarchical it is turning over billions of USD.
I would add another reason there not more mutually-run, mutually-managed coops; it simply does not occur to individuals starting businesses that they could structure it in such a way and if they do ever realise it is probably too late. It is _very hard_ to change the ownership/management structure of a business after it has started to grow.
Another reason not mentioned is there are not enough anarchists. It is hard enough finding the right people to grow a business when you get to tell them what to do; add the requirement for them to hold belief and self-confidence in non-hierarchical structures and it becomes a thousand times harder.
I have been running my own limited company in the tech sector for 19 months. I am the only employee but should be in a financial position to grow next year with one or more employee-owner-managers, wish me luck I guess.
Sadly only 160 owners.
Good luck man! :)
***** Oops, yeah, *160 but no small feat considering the sector and decline of the coop movement in general!
I think more anarcho-communists should be trying to run their own business. Working so closely with capital is self-assigned suffering in the short term but, in the long term, if there were more employee-owned, employee-managed businesses across a more diverse range of sectors (including high-growth sectors like tech & space) those businesses would better be able to support each other and reduce their dependence on capital. Kinda like syndicalism without unions innit brah.
Such a strategy for change is more possible now in the days of the interwebs and remote working.
***** thanks!
I agree with Kronnen -- good luck man, best wishes to you. :)
Edit: Small correction, I'm having a few issues with TH-cam lately.
+OliverUnderTheMoon _"I think more anarcho-communists should be trying to run their own business. Working so closely with capital is self-assigned suffering in the short term but, in the long term, if there were more employee-owned, employee-managed businesses across a more diverse range of sectors (including high-growth sectors like tech & space) those businesses would better be able to support each other and reduce their dependence on capital."_
This sounds sort of like an attempt at economic dual power if I'm interpreting you correctly. The question is how would we actually disconnect from capitalism? It seems more like a smaller co-op economy within the larger capitalist economy, which doesn't really reduce dependence on capitalism and create a state of dual power but rather creates a sector of capitalism that caters to socialists.
The only thing I can think of at the moment is, as you hinted at, to create a co-op federation, with more profitable co-ops supporting smaller or less profitable ones. It's not a complete disconnect from capitalism, but it's something, and it still allows profit and competition to be less of a focus.
I'd be interested to know if you have an idea to actually create a way to separate the co-ops from the capitalist economy.
Badmouse? More like... Greatmouse! Ok... Sorry.
Almost a rat:)
There are many examples of successful cooperatives. The problem is many of these cooperatives have to compete with already established corporations that usually have more of a market share. This is mainly evident in urban areas (co-ops have been shown to work better in more rural areas). Ideally the products/services delivered by a cooperative would be as high quality and in demand as a corporate business, with the main difference being how the profits are distributed (in the form of shares vs to the workers). More money usually means better services/etc, so I can see why reinvesting the money into shares makes corporations 'better'/more lucrative. A successful co-op would essentially have enough profits (to pay the employees more fairly) while not sacrificing on their operations. Forgive me if non of this makes sense, I don't have a formal education in economics/business, but I do know that there is something genuinely good and moral about co-operatives. The problem is the landscape that they are in is not in favour of them, there are many barriers because we are in a society with a capitalism ideology.
"compete with already established corporations that usually have more of a market share"
Unless you invent a particular trade, that will always be the case for businesses.
There is academic research on this. Essentially, if a co-op relies on highly-skilled workers (engineers, managers, specialists, etc.) who are forced to take lower pay to subsidize lower-skilled workers, many of them quit the co-ops to join private firms where they can make more. On contrast, if a the firm is in a mostly homogeneous low skill / low complexity sector (e.g. agriculture, small retail) then co-ops can run well since they are less vulnerable to specialists leaving.
Holy shit your production quality skyrocketed. I love it!
I agree with some of these, but there are some very large, very predatory/competitive Coops like Fonterra who have for a long time been pushing for neo-liberal anti-worker reforms here in Australia, so you CAN run a Coop and not give a single shit about people apart from yourselves. There was also a time at least here in Australia and NZ where Coops were massive. NZ I believe even had a economy in the early 20th century that was majority Coops.
There are also still in the 21st century and massively overlooked by Socialists Coops like Credit Unions, Building societies, Mutual savings banks, Housing Cooperatives, Cooperative Motoring groups, Cooperative investment firms. Many of these can be very, very predatory and very successful.
Fun fact: 8 out of 10 Australians are a member of a Cooperative.
Yeah there are a tonne of farming co-ops and huge wholesaling co-ops in Australia.
Yeah, well thats sort of the point, many coops are pushed heavily to be Capitalist-lite.
That's not a true co-op then.
Another thing is that to create a cooperative, you need like minded people that want to provide the same service. In many areas, this means the chances of a cooperative popping up is slim to none. Looking at the Southeastern United States, it's completely devoid of co-ops, not because they can't compete, but because it's too left wing. Hell, I only know of one co-op in a my state, and it's not exactly a workers co-op.
+XirmiX The idea of workers owning and controlling their workplace is very left wing. It makes sense that it wouldn't appeal to as many in a place as conservative as southern US.
I think he means the idea is too left-wing for Southeastern USA
Legendary176 It's because you have Fox News and other corporate media going "Socialism is da state doing shit!" and they think the Republicans are going to do.less Government t stuff(that's true,less government interaction with citizens and more with the corporations.)
Brocialist Manifesto not exactly when it's basically a requirement for any (white) candidate to advertise that he's a businessman to get votes. "Populism" is pretty meaningless when their proposed reforms are "sell out our resources to powerful multinational corporations for pennies, but with a country twang y'all."
Don't know if Jackson, Mississippi counts as part of the Southeastern US for your point here (it is reasonably not quite southeast), but the city has been moving on drawing from the Cleveland Evergreen Cooperatives experience to develop an alternative economic structure. Anyway, here is the list of the 100 largest cooperatives in the United States. A few of them are in the Southeast: impact.ncb.coop/hubfs/assets/resources/NCB_Co-op_100_2018_WEB.pdf
"socialist corporations"
The objective of a co-op is to keep the money in the pockets of the workers.
Cooperatives are capitalistic democratically run businesses as opposed to corporate capitalistic businesses. ie workers benefit not CEO's and shareholders.
What do you imagine would be the best way to transition to a society with more cooperatives? The system has in place some clear barriers to their success. I imagine the only way would be forcing governments to take a more cooperative-friendly approach to the economy. Such as, instead of relentlessly attempting to support private banks every time they fail the government support the people moving money to more socially responsible cooperative banks.
Supporting change in the legislation , making it harder for governments to give bailouts to banks and large corporations in general , or supressing the effects of money in politics or limiting patents and copyrigth law, would be a good idea yes.
Other strategys , like direct action migth work too for example ocupying houses banks have seized with the objective of returning them , to their original owners ,ocupying factorys and failing businesses specially those who haven't payed their workers in months ,taking food wasted by farms and supermarkets and giving it for free .
Actively organizing social cooperatives industrial cooperatives service sector cooperatives , and organizing a union of cooperatives were they can , help each other to better improve efficiency technology working conditions.
By creating schools and colleges under anarchist principles of education making the curriculum adapt to the students , and colleges were the graduates must pay after graduation acording to their earnings or by proving services , perhaps even organizing with local communitys so that , they can benefit from the skilled work and have a place to send their children in exchange from help to mantain the college.
By creating radical unions or a confederation of unions , around the principles of mutual aid and direct action general strikes and ocupations can have a tremendous effetc on governments and can make them work much faster.
First off, I would make it so that when a company was foreclosed or declared bankruptcy that the workers of said company would be given approximately six months to purchase the old company and if they succeeded they wouldn't have to pay taxes until they made at least 20,000 dollars in profit. These same luxuries would not be afforded to corporations.
Great idea!
worker co-ops are still private enterprises so they still fall under the umbrella of capitalism.
when we conservatives talk about socialism, we are always referring to "state socialism" not worker owned private enterprises, because worker owned or not, they are still run for a profit, so they dont fall under the socialist umbrella.
Absolutely. Am going to shoot any capitalist who have any angst with cooperatives or workers owning the means of production. Lol. Capitalists just want to be left alone. So cooperate all you want. It's a big world.
Socialism is when the workers own the means of production. Therefore Coops are socialist.
That kind of socialism is kinda shitty because the state having too much power is a bad idea.
@@juanche978 How would you know, the public sector doesn't even exist in some countries and if it did it would be very small. And I would much rather give more power to the government rather than corporations who are concerned primarily with profits, mostly because the government can be reformed.
@@jghifiversveiws8729 I don't like either of them, I prefer cooperativism.
I have to say it. Your videos are getting better. :D
3:29 What about Credit Unions?
We need to form a coalition of cooperatives. For a beginning cooperative it would provide training, assistance with funding. For establish cooperatives it would protect from failure with further training.
In addition to common ethics of making the cooperative system grow, trading inside the coalition would respect the fact that that market is owned by the community. It would reduce manufacturing/business cost for a cooperative to buy inside the coalition.
Nice production improvements.
Hmm... What about economic independence on an Agorist/Mutualist route? Ie Co-ops and communes that operate in local markets? A lot of social inertia to fight, as you said but has it been tried in recent times besides during civil wars?
Might I suggest a lecture by Graeber called "The Gun has no trigger "
I was just watching it, also, "the new edge of radical economics is good"! Have you read "Debt: The First 5000 Years" yet!
+Jamie Mitchel
I've had it reccomended many times before, but I have yet to grab myself a copy. I'm sure my mind will be blown.
Cooperatives by themselves arent enough to uproot Capitalism because they are just one part of a bigger scheme, one piece of the puzzle, one wheel of the car, one portion of the alternate system. Proudhon and Bakunin knew that and said as much. They are only supposed to take apart the Production step, subvert the Use Value link. Nonprofit Credit unions and Consumer Coops can tackle the Exchange value link. Nonprofit Mutual Aid societies can provide for the universal services everyone needs. By using labor notes, Time Banks and several other ways to reduce or eliminate the use of currency by adopters of this system, while selling the productive Surlpluses for bourgeoise money while undercutting their prices (and profits) as much as possible... then spending it to acquire more Means of Production instead of using it to accrue interest... then slowly, inch by inch, all material wealth is owned by collective institutions, while only immaterial wealth is held by capitalist enterprises... which will have a smaller and smaller market to sell things to and less and less variety of commodities not supplied by the socialist economy. Once the superior technological advancements of the socialist economy come along, on account of all that research funded in mutual aid societies, the capitalist system would then have to either reverse engineer it or steal it with espionage, being liable to lawsuits for doing so, or be beaten. And speaking of beating, it would be smart if some of those Mutual Aid societies included in their education curriculum things like Self Defense classes, trained and maintained Community Policing groups (better than current cops obviously) and equiped and dispatched well armed Coop-PMCs along worldwide aid missions, to ensure security and spread all around good will accross the globe (and incidentally creating a strong enough force to discourage State violence).
You know... the hardest part of the plan(other than fighting against all the roadblocks you mentioned) is convincing people to accept a lesser variety of commodities at first. Only through building up class consciousness and developing direct democracy habits can do that, either a majority gets on board, or it won't work. Which is also true for any real alternatives to Capitalism btw. We are all aware what vanguardism has done to socialist ideas by now...
This was a great read, thank you.
Don't forget freelancers. They need love too.
We have no infrastructure for cooperatives here in America. Whereas a place, such as the Basque country, already has powerful series of cooperatives and their own banks that are willing to lend money to upstart coops. With that said, cooperatives do appear to be on the rise in America-- slowly but surely. I remain optimistic but that's just me.
All co-ops really do is collapse the wage fund and profit. They are fundamentally capitalist enterprises, and will face the same tensions faced by capitalist enterprises.
If the industry does not require high levels of capital investment, they might be able to out-compete capitalist enterprises by effectively enduring lower-overheads (i.e a smaller wage-profit fund) which nonetheless may support a higher standard of living (i.e by effectively forgoing some profit).
However, most industries are capital intensive, which means that to survive, the co-op owners will either need to invest in the appropriate capital and limits wages to the levels of their competitors (barring some sort of locational/brand/environmental advantage) or rely on intensified self-exploitation (i.e. paying themselves less/working longer)
With the administrative problems that sustaining large number of 'equal say' managers often presents (not all that different from the shareholder doctrine) it is not unusual that they fall apart, or become effectively normal companies.
So they are not a solution to capitalism, or a vehicle to transition. But they can be nice.
Actually they can be a gateway drug. People see that Coops are more effective in every way except monetarily. Then we can say "Okay so get rid of the focus on the monetary part and just make everything a coop." There you go, that's how Socialism works.
I have to strongly disagree that cooperatives are inherently inferior to capitalist businesses when it comes to market competition. Cooperatives are much more common in capitalist Europe (about 1/6 citizens belong to them) and even then, many Europeans still haven't heard of them at all. There are over 40,000 coops in the US alone and pay over $25 billion in wages, though compared to Europe this is a drop in the bucket. Most of the reason you don't see cooperatives more often is due to difficulty getting capital, awareness, and the fact that enterprising individuals with the wherewithal choose to form private businesses instead,
Coops are more complex to setup than a sole proprietor business hence you don't see many of them. Coops are on average more profitable and far more likely to succeed.
If this was true we would see more of them coops are an old idea it didn't start recently
this is a subject rarely talked about but I'm very glad to see you hit on it so well. love your work!
Love the new style.
Isn't his argument just an enormous affirming the consequent fallacy?
+XirmiX He's saying that if cooperatives were bad they would be commercially unsuccessful, and then saying that because cooperatives are commercially unsuccessful they are bad.
If A then B, B not therfore A.
+XirmiX I wasn't talking about BadMouse by the way.
Or more precisely: If cooperatives can't compete with capitalist businesses, then cooperatives would be scarce; Cooperatives are scarce, therefore they're scarce because they can't compete with capitalist businesses.
Having said that, a more charitable interpretation of the argument, to be fair, is something more like this:
If cooperatives worked, then there would be lots of cooperatives; There aren't lots of cooperatives, so therefore cooperatives don't work.
So modus tollens, rather than affirming the consequent. Either way, it's not a very good argument. Somebody living in the 1600s could just as well have said, "if democratic republics worked, we'd expect to see a lot of them... "
@@seedyoda5714 the 2000s are far removed from 1600s. If something works then it is often quickly replicated.
In the UK the Cooperative Society is a major retailer and bank. It dominates the funeral business in the north.
Bergh. Cooperative, not a Worker Coop. I've spoken to some staff about whether they are co-owners since its a coop, and they said no.
Sorry you are right. It is a consumer coop, customers can join and have a democratic say on its polices. However, it is not a conventional capitalist enterprise owned and controlled by shareholders. Similar to the large number of mutual building society and insurance companies. These were very successful until an ideological attack against them in the 1980s and their conversion to conventional capitalist businesses by use of bribes to the members (many of which were new members who joined just to get the bribes, hence distorting the vote).
Another model is the John Lewis Partnership - it is a very successful staff owned department store chain.
The fact that banks won't lend to start them because of the business model and people should give you pause. Basically it means that they lose money on average generally (not just in a capitalist system unless you think that final 5% usury tips it over). Apply state controls to enable them to compete and the entire economy loses money.
Coop will always be small because it is more focus on members rather than growing the whole entity, the leadership is base on voting regardless of how many shares you have. its like letting the employee union run a corporation, A ship driven by a plumber because he was voted by popularity. So more like democracy combine with socialist.
"socialist corporation"
threw up a little in my mouth tbh
Baby steps.
Co-ops are capitalistic democratically run businesses. So sorry your stomach didn't understand that. Be well.
Coops cater to the worker and not the customer, of course they will never compete with a proper business.
Yo, like the video.
I notice you use a lot of Zelda sounds in your videos now. What do you think of the series and do you like any particular games?
In Québec we got cooperative like in the URSS
Cooperatives DO actually outcompete traditional businesses in a lot of ways. And they're actually 30% less likely to fail. The problem is often times they stay in a vacuum. What they have to do and many are doing now is FEDERATINGGGGGGGGGGGG. Meaning they cooperate with other cooperatives locally, nationally, globally instead of competing. Do this over and over and over and you start to build something that can actually fight against capitalism. We're also forming community investment cooperatives now. How people used to form businesses and how actually 75% of the electrical network in the US was formed. And getting banks to loan to them. Yes, we're doing that too. But yeah everyone is still fixated on venture capital being the way to start a business. Lots of laws changed after WWII to make cooperatives hard to form. By the way by converting to automation a cooperative can still own those means of production, it doesn't have to close, if connected within a federation of cooperatives it can simply use the profits to either provide basic income, to invest in further anti-capitalist organizing or finance starting other cooperatives. Yes please let's fetishize revolution and killing capitalists some more and not actually build any socialist practices into working people, that'll work. More magic fairy vanguard dust, with a side of class saviorism, thank you.
Let me repeat that for you: 30% LESS LIKELY TO FAIL. So yeah they actually outcompete traditional business. They just have both never had significant access to finance until starting now, their model was severely suppressed by US centric economic policies after WWII anddd capitalism has socialized those that want to start a business to not even consider ceding control & profits democratically.
Also blockchain is changing all this. It's going to eliminate management entirely and traditional capitalist businesses will have to either pivot to becoming cooperatives or actually be outcompeted by cooperatives.
There's even already a syndicalist uber starting on the blockchain. arcade.city/ So yeah if you want to maybe do a new video on this, there is cooperative organizer right here ready to talk co-ops.
Desjardins is competing very well against the Capitalist banks of Canada, its 3rd biggest. The Co-Operative St-Albert cheese factory is dominating the cheese curd market in Canada and has caused many capitalist cheese factories to shutdown because they can't compete with the affordable prices of St-Albert and its quality is the best world wide.
Another interesting and well edited video! Nicely done badmouse :)
I was totally expecting some totally brogressive view on on worker coops about how they couldn't compete with corporations because they're too nice or friendly or some bullshit like that. I'm glad that we got the real reason that cooperation is looked down upon in modern society from this video.
The title is not right. It should be ""Why there are no more workers' co-operatives"
Btw, a worker co-operative IS a business. It's just a business where decision-making and profit-distribution (and more stuff) are done in a different way from a 'traditional (non co-operative)' business.
And there are a lot of logical phallacies here...
I want to recommend a book to everyone here: Leigh Phillips and Michal Rosworski, "People's Republic of Walmart: How the World's Biggest Corporations are Laying the Foundation for Socialism". Verso press, 2019. They show the degree to which the current economy is planned, how the existing technology renders Hayek's main arguments against planning the economy null and void, and how democratic organization of business activity is now more relevant as an alternative than ever before, including democratic running of workplaces.
You should read about mixed cooperatives. Whereas some coops are worker owned (ie. the cafe is owned by the baristas) or member owned (ie. the cafe is owned by the coffee drinkers), a mixed model allows for 50-50 member-worker owner, or even a private( CAPITALIST) owner , ie. 33 % worker, 33 %member, 33 %private investor or another company ownership.
Worker cooperatives do work maybe a look at professor Wolff on workplace democracy would elaborate more about the qualities of cooperatives and workplace reform! The trouble is cheap labor conservatives have all the control through the mantra of neoliberalism which has had a stranglehold on governments for 4 + decades !
If they don't work that shouldn't be your problem. Go and take part in what works for you. Earlier in my life I met numerous people who were always trying to tell me why I should or shouldn't try this or that new idea. I finally got tired and told all of them to get lost. Now I live with my solitude,debt free progress, and economic stability. Friendships are sometimes overrated.
Actually, they compete very well in the capitalist structure. In fact, they outperform many normal corporations.
A very prominent reason why capitalism of today seems to work, " work" being a very broad and relative term, is due to increasing corruption being controlled by fewer people over time. I was very hard to defeat at the game of monopoly as a youngster because I always cheated. I usually elected myself as banker and the deed was done, but even if the other players were on to me ( and no one was ever completely on to me because I was a pathological liar) I still managed to win most of the time because that was the game for me - to deceive, perform slight of hand, and take full advantage of my opponents lethargy at every opportunity. It's too late to save society from the path it's on at this point in time. All we can do is learn from the results of the rampant selfishness that is going to engulf almost all of us in the horrible experience that is our common future. Maybe then, most of us who survive, will really understand the word "cooperation".
Or just take control of the nukes to blackmail the white house.
My favorite local bike shop is a worker co-op, and they've been pretty successful. They've got 2 or 3 locations and have been around as long as I have lived here (17yrs). Plus we have a handful of cafes and a record store that I believe are all co-ops. Now, if only I could find a co-op machine shop to work at 🤔
I was delighted to find that the only "anti-cooperative" video did such a great job of revealing why they do work. Anti-socialism cannot stop the growth of this futuristic movement. In fact, the Capitalist powers that be either don't want to acknowledge the power of Worker Self-Directed Enterprise, or they simply cannot believe that this democratic, socially-responsible, community-serving, environmentally-friendly way of organizing the workplace can ever out-compete their own selfish model. Ask any informed individual worker which mode he would prefer to be a part of, and the answer is a no-brainer. I have high confidence that our young people will figure this out. I look forward to the blossoming of cooperative enterprise over the next century. WE have the power to enact it.
This video is simply not true. Co-operatives properly understood and organized leave capitalism in the dust.
Kevin Matthews Defeating capitalism by keeping commodity production and markets
Worker co-ops face a greater sense of ethics which is a natural attrition to profit.
The more a central authority skims profit off labor, or price dump, or destroy their local biome by cutting corners... the more they can invest in self-owned means of production... Raw production however, mutates from a creative to a destructive trait when not guided by ethics. See climate change, or slavery or etc etc.
Cooperatives are just as good as traditional businesses in the market. They actually last longer, in general. The problem is their creation is more rare, because of cultural propensity and since they have a harder time getting funding because a traditional model is more profitable for investors (revenue goes to dividends rather than wages & childcare). It has little to do with being more competitive in the market.
And even if it was the case, I'm sure a plantation run by slaves was more profitable than a plantation with wage-laborers but obviously morality still rightly comes into our decision to disallow the former. I'm not saying capitalist wage labor is the same as slave labor but we can still argue based on morals.
If given the choice of purchasing a product from a Worker Cooperative or a Capitalist Company my choice with be the Cooperative. What is needed is choice....
Earthbound... nice
I find it funny how they think cooperatives not dominating the marketplace means that we shouldn't support them. We're critiquing the system of capitalism for incentivizing selfish behavior (businesses), so of course cooperatives wouldn't dominate under that system.
I like selfish people. I hate people who say others are selfish. What they really mean is, give me free stuff.
State having too much power is a bad idea. You must miss Middle Age and Nazi Germany. I can't trust state because it's formed by people and I don't trust people, we are shit.
Co-operatives are a capitalistic systems it's just the profits go to the co-op members instead of CEO's and shareholders. In other words the workers benefit directly from the fruits of their labors without having to share this wealth with folks who didn't work for the money
this is why you need a public bank and tax subsidies that capitalist businesses get
Labour party in England have came up with a great policy, which is if any company wants to sell or move, they have to ask the workers first if they want to buy shares in the business and run it as a co-op
more awareness and government help and business teaching in schools can help well more co-ops in the future
I had to find out about co-ops myself and when I mention it to my colleagues and friends, no one has ever heard of it
Did i mention Desjardins is a Co-Operative BANK?
Are you sure that cooperatives are rare because they tend to fail?
I had the impression that cooperatives were slightly more likely to stay in business, but there were vastly more capitalist businesses founded.
The biggest bank in Finland (Osuuspankki) is a consumers' co-op, and the biggest retailer (including gasoline stations and restaurants) in Finland (S-ryhmä) is also a consumers' co-op. Finland's biggest Pharmacy chain is owned by the University of Helsinki. The biggest oil company (Neste) and the biggest energy company (Fortum), the biggest Airline company (Finnair) are partially owned by the Finnish state. Most of the top 10 energy companies in Finland are owned by the public sector (including municipalities).
So saying "why co-ops" or "why public companies" don't work is very misleading. In many countries, the biggest companies are owned by the public sector or are co-ops.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OP_Financial_Group
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S_Group
In the past consumer coops were created in Italy to support productive coops, yet they have been completely absorbed by capitalism in a few decades. Coops are the enterprises who impose the most exploitative type of work organisation in the country to the point that many comrades are organising specifically against them. In any case now the power of the struggles is not adequate to produce such a mass movement as the one that supported and created the first cooperative phenomena, who was whatsoever positive for many people.
Battersea power station has been destroyed... so sad
I think co-operativism is good and can work but it would need a massive shift in government perception. It won't work on its own but only if the government supports it like it does neo liberalism at the moment
The Mondragon Cooperative in Northern Spain is a multi-billion dollar, worker-owned, cooperative with a presence on every continent...I think they are working just fine.
That scumbag steve hat on Mondragon got me.
Worker Coops actually works, sometimes even better than capitalism. They arent just that good in expanding the business, because they dont play dirty.
You might want to mention the Mondragon Corporation case.
Lol I should end videos before commenting sorry Mouse!
Still, Spain is populated by cooperatives because is also a way to survive capitilistic crisis. There are 18 000 workers cooperatives in spain, employing 300k workers.
by far the best video talking about business Co-Ops so far
Coopertives prove socialism in concept, help workers live better live, and take away some amount of power from capitalist even if the amount is seems minuscule. Even if they require some concessions to capitalism to exist, they are worthwhile projects that take us a step in the right direction, and revolutionary leap is going to require a running start.
Every time a socialist misunderstands the profit motive, another copy of "The Road to Serfdom" is sold. Thank you BadMouse.
Trouble with capitalism is there isn't enough capitalists.
Capitalist companies are certainly about maximising profit but this is achieved by serving customers. It is the customers who decide which companies succeed and which fail. The companies that please their customers the most prosper the most.
State capitalism, corporate capitalism or crapitalism is not free market capitalism. The problems attributed to the former stem from government not from commercial activity where people trade with each other freely for mutual benefit.
The law does not allow for workers first right of refusal.That is why they are tiny. Employ people or no tax break.
you should cooperating to gain sense of how economy run. actually. and if, IF, you read Lenin's Imperialism once you will grasp how economic mode come to the scene of history, in Lenin's context, the Cartel movement
Thank you for this video so much. I'm a teenage ex-liberal recently turned socialist. I was wondering what I can do to avoid traditional wage-labour and also not be a capitalist. I've lived 17 years somehow not knowing that co-ops existed.
"capitalism is subject to greed" but what is preventing communism from being the same way? And what is enforcing that it does not end up that way? And who decides that? I am watching a lot of your videos so maybe I will come to that answer.
Think acceptance instead of enforcement. It relies on people growing up so it may take a while.
Doesn't corporate taxes makes the state too dependent on corporations? I mean, it should make sense that the economic institution with the largest influence over funding would get the most influence over social institutions, right?
How unfortunate that he didn't mention FrieslandCampina, which is a cooperative dairy multinational and one of the biggest in that field
Saying that a co-op is worse than a capitalist corporation in this day and age is like saying that a snail is better, in every way, than a shark because it can beat it in a 100m dash
1:47 but when this happens that means the more trivial or dangerous work once done by people and now given to automation frees individuals to learn new skills and trades for occupations that society deems more worthy of their time and energy in producing. That is unless we should keep jobs like coal mining and assembly lines around
When working people retake our government, this time around we'll work to advantage worker coops so they can grow to a scale that competes with the large capitalist organizations. Anti-trust enforcement would help a lot as well.
What's the Uruguay joke at 3:40?
You know it’s so interesting when I see videos like these and audience reaction is exactly the opposite.. Co-op are the future. Everyone will like them.. the idea is as old as there’s been humans on this planet!
Badmouse. I was curious if you would be interested in a conversation. You come across to me as a reasonable person. I don't agree with anarcho communism, I don't think it's possible, at least not until we reach post scarcity, however I want to know a bit more about your view of it. You may be able to answer some of my questions and concerns with it.
So the reason it doesn't work is because it has to survive in a radioactive wasteland and doesn't have cockroach skin.
Cooperatives can be much more effective if part of a larger strategic approach to create an alternative economy/collective political constituency - see the Evergreen Cooperatives project in Cleveland (about which there are many TH-cam videos), the work of Gal Alperovitz and the efforts in Jackson, Mississippi to draw on the Cleveland experience. If cooperatives are interlnked, mutually reinforcing, and if they can eventually be financed by a public bank of some kind, they can make a much bigger difference even politically.
I'd say this is a pretty good assessment of the worker co-op situation. Indeed, there are limitations around capital especially within the current capitalist context. But here's the catch: Since the co-ops ecosystem (not just worker co-ops but all kinds of service co-ops and autonmous bodies) is so much better compared to the profit-centric private enterprise - as a society we can have a lot more of that spirit in the economy! And just like the capitalist corporation has benefited from cronyism, the co-op 'ecosystem' can be intentionally nurtured in the economy! And yes, that may mean that certain essential goods/services sectors of the economy are relegated to coops only [with competition among themselves to promote efficiencies!].
The Brazilian state oil company, Petrobas, is pretty successful. Also, many French car manufacturers are still partially government owned.
urgh.
+BadMouseProductions What? I was disputing that first guy's claim. I'm not saying that these companies are socialist.
Dara Rohan oh right
Is petrobas only successful because it has a monopoly?
Yay, another Badmouse vid!