The freeloader "problem" has always been so bizarre to me. Why would anyone assume that a coop worker with a say in how the business is run, and a stake in the results would be likely to shirk because profits are shared, but a worker in a capitalist firm, with no say and no stake at all, will just happily make a diligent effort to enrich his boss as much as possible? The argument is so clearly bollocks, especially if one assumes man is rationally self-interested. Which is why it's so weird that it is almost always propmoted by people who believe in "economic man"
Precieved job security would be the most reasonable explanation. You feel that you are more likely to lose your job in a capitalist firm. Not saying I necessarily agree, but it seems like good reasoning.
Well, you see my freeloading is the moral freeloading./s Corporate propaganda relies on fooling people into thinking that communal methods of organizing the economy is bad while minimizing or brushing away even more severe problems already proven to take hold in capital holding, dictatorship corporate structure. In simpler words, these people lie.
the biggest danger of worker coops is that they are self-financing which makes it very easy for them to set up a ponzi scheme. This actually happens a lot and it's how many crypto scams marketed themselves. Worker coops kind of require a state to crack down on fraud and scams.
@@breadquonda2863CEOs are just the highest paid worker in a company. a lot if not most of them have a salary. there are people who own stadiums, cities or entire multibillion dollar international companies and THOSE pay the CEOs
@@breadquonda2863 He's making a joke about how the danger is that they will act like CEO's, but...the CEO's are already in control, so there is no reason to not hand them over to the workers, it either gets better or has no effect.
Btw I have personal experience with this. After being promoted to production manager my first action was to restructure organisation to make it more accessible to every worker. I then made mandatory meetings every morning (15minutes max) where we discuss difficulties. Third whenever I give workloads to workers I make sure they have plenty different tasks which they can change between whenever as long as the work is done when it has to be. I reduced my own workload by sharing managerial load and increased worker well being to a point where efficiency and quality went up. All it cost was me sitting down a couple hours more to make some easy to read graphics
@@Overquoted You sound pretty cynical. I work in a hospital system with daily meetings and the place runs really efficiently and with very little managerial supervision. The daily meetings allow all time groups in our department to know what's happening with respect to patient care and wellness and helps drive continuing quality care. Prior to some structural changes that allowed for greater individual worker autonomy, the department was very stodgy and retention was awful as was patient care. Indeed, it was a dying department that is now vibrant, thriving, and exceeding revenue projections. Obviously that can't continue indefinitely because they're is a maximum level of disease to treat in our region beyond which we can't get additional revenue, but we are a much better facility for having implemented democratic workplace participation. It's not perfect by any means, but it's way better than top-down, draconian measures for damn sure. Until material conditions shift enough to make full anarchy a viable option, I think this is where it's at, personally.
Kinda hilarious that mainstream economists apply the free rider hypothesis to workers but neglect to turn than inside and apply that to the CEO’s and managers who have more incentive to do those things since they would be much less financially impacted if the company fails, whereas a avg worker would be put into a much more dicey situation if the company failed and they lost their job.
The amount of times CEO’s fuck over the companies they run just to make a quick buck before moving onto the next company that will hire them is far higher then they these economists think it is. Like just look at EA where the CEO tried to give himself a pay rise and just generally fuck over the company whilst all the shareholders kept saying “pls stop”. Shareholders have never had to do that because 1 or 2 low level programmers or whatever did the same thing
You see that a lot with the hypothetical nitpicking that's so common in defending the status quo. The imagined scenarios that people come up with are usually just as applicable, if not more so, to how things already are.
Just the ruling class and their minions acting in their own interest. "Business schools" are a hilarious joke! Professors and students mainly being cheats and frauds.
If workers could vote to not throw out entire warehouses full of food, clothing, electronics etc then that's a giant boon for worker coops. Or the increasing evidence that working 20-30 hour work weeks produces the same level of productivity as 40-50 hour work weeks. Like I deadass think the biggest benefit to worker coops over hierarchical companies is being able to vote against stupid and inefficient stuff done for the sake of profit or conservatism.
There is a lot of focus always on GDP but GDP isn't everything as making something and then throwing it away increases the GDP even if it doesn't accomplish anything. Worker coops won't produce as high a GDP but they will get much more out of the GDP that they have.
One thing that is often seen with people is that the more diverse a group is the more selfless it becomes. A lot of rich people, even if they don't mean to tend to see the lower classes as not really equal people to themselves. They are the 'other' who does not matter. The connection between capitalism and fascism is very well known and it's not by accident. I think trying to heavily encourage a diverse group of people on boards is important so as to avoid an "us vs them" mentality.
This makes me think of my experiences dumpster-diving at grocery stores. When I've been noticed by regular floor workers they always either don't give a shit or actively give permission - some even have agreements with local food pantries to sneak them whatever baked goods would otherwise be thrown away, they've risk their jobs to do this. But whenever I've been noticed by a manager or anyone else directly accountable for enforcing company policies, I've been met with hostility.
Im glad youve taken such a realistic angle to it, rather than parroting "sounds good doesnt work" or proclaiming that it is the best thing since sliced bread
Agreed. this is something The already left of center have needed for quite some time. It's rather dense so I don't blame other TH-camrs for only doing the "sound bite" or talking points of this topic. What they're doing is radicalization, which is The first step to making this objectively better organization structure a reality. I found that most normies have been so conditioned to the status quo that they don't even know something is wrong. Once they're motivated and radicalized then we can explain the heavy details and discuss different policies we would like to push to our politicians.
fact is, it has been demonstrated to not work. worker democracy has the same problems that profit sharing does, it builds resentment in workforces which usually results in inefficiencies or outright conflict, with the business usually slipping into the red and if they dont revert the policy quickly enough, going broke. if you paid attention to the video, you might notice how extremely widely he had to cherry pick to find single points from studies that in some way supported his claims.
I tend to advocate for worker cooperatives on an ethical level, but it's really nice to see them argued for economically as well. Personally I'd be willing to take a decrease in productivity if it meant having an empowered, happy workforce.
Yes, the results are promising and even though their benefits may not be stellar in this environment, I assume, the coops would shine in an international economy where the power of the capital owners is curbed in general.
"But to understand all this a bit better we're going to need to look at some more serious economic theory. You may have heard of the reality TV show Undercover Boss." This killed me lmao
Another thing about the free rider problem: If one person is obviously slacking, his co-workers will notice, and potentially kick him out. 'Free riders'- people who either slack off or are just inept- are pretty rampant in traditional workplaces because of the boss not paying attention.
The opposite can happen too, everyone starts slacking. I've seen that one, people get burned out, start slacking a little and gradually it gets worse over time.
And if you lose your job you lose certain privileges, which you don't want, so you work harder. Just like in a free market system except you don't have to lose your home and get addicted to heroin cause there are policies to help you.
@@GrendalTheBeasty yes but if maximum profit, and therefore productivity is not the goal anymore, there are suddenly far more solutions to solving that burnout and slack.
@@SolarFlareAmerica Do please tell why someone would go be a garbage collector, work at a sewer treatment plant, mow lawns in the burning sun... for any reason other than to simply get paid. The idea that you should enjoy your work is a fallacy. Work is a transaction, you are renting your time and skills to another in exchange for money.
Criticism of worker democracy - 1. Workers will line their pockets 2. People will be free riders Yeah....neither of these happen in current capitalist companies at all...
@@Money_FoxI have a great video you should watch by unlearning economics. I think it's called Worker Democracy or sth. He goes over this exact argument, and refers to a number of peer reviewed studies which empirically show that the freerider idea is absolutely false.
Worker co-ops are more productive because they solve the "not my job" problem that capitalist owners can't. "Why should I do that, it's not my job?" If it's also partly your company the answer to that is obvious.
I dont think it solves this problem. If you are 1 owner in a company with 1000 other people, your contribution in form of the work you put into the company will, in the end, only have a negligible effect on the value of the company. So i think it could still be perfectly reasonable to have such a mindset in a worker co-op. Unless its like a 10 people company.
Also want to play devil's advocate; even if it was a decently sized coop, there isn't anything stopping a worker from ignoring or disregarding issues. In fact, what's stopping each worker from saying it's someone else's problem and all of them refusing to do something? Especially true if it's out of their league.
8:50 "more prone to failure...as workers line their own pockets" Because as we know, in a conventional firm, absolutely no one in leadership considers running the firm as a way to line their own pockets
I really appreciate you talking about non-workers. As a disabled person, I feel like we're almost always an afterthought. I'm still 100% in support of worker democracy and socialism more broadly, but my problems don't really get solved by that. It's good hearing leftists talking about the limitations of leftist ideas. Also it's nice hearing voices I recognise in different videos, it's a good reminder that leftists do actually work together.
One of the sneaky things capitalism does is define work narrowly as "service you provide in exchange for money". Basically, work is only work when you're paid for it. But this leaves out the numerous daily tasks we do just to maintain ourselves and our society. Things like home maintenance, raising children, feeding ourselves, etc. Perhaps you are a worker without even realizing it. No one is truly nonproductive as capitalism would have you believe.
@@pencilonpaper1026 no problem. Remember the Marxist motto "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need". Socialism would recognize the work disabled people already do, and allow for even more disabled people to give to the community in a way that is both fulfilling for them and valuable to the community. Everyone is capable of something, and that something should be enough for anyone to live a life of dignity, respect and self-determination.
@@maxtarascio7850 Exactly. The lower stage of communism or Marxian socialism (in a broader sense since Marx used the words interchangeably, unlike Lenin) would have the motto of "from ability to contribution" so some work is valued over others but this mechanism is not meant for individual enrichment at the expense of exploitation.
@@maxtarascio7850 No, WORK is Service provided in exchange for money. Doing other forms of general activities, LIKE FUCKING FEEDING OURSELVES SO WE DON'T FUCKING DIE, isn't WORK, It's basic fucking common sense to want to stay alive. Raising kids isn't always easy, but it's a life choice, it's not work though, unless you're providing it as a service to others for exchange of money. Work is literally the expenditure of energy for an effect, in physics that is. But in Economics, it's what gets you paid. How that work is structured, differs. Some companies are more humane and care for their workers because happy workers work harder, it's common sense, you wouldn't want your workers to be miserable and fudge everything up. And Capitalism is the root of all things good in this world, but don't come here and claim socialism is good, IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT SOCIALISM DOES, JUST TAKE A LOOK AT THE SECOND WORLD WAR, With your favourite bloody Socialist, Adolf, or the other SOB Stalin, just because you can exploit others in a capitalist society, doesn't mean socialism is free from exploitation, fuck no, do you know how fun it is to stand in the bread line, and when it's your turn, the shop owner says, sorry bread is gone, come back maybe next week for bread. Ask anyone who actually lives in Socialist nations if Socialism is good, ask the Cubans, ask the Chileans, ask the Eastern Europeans, they'll kill you if you suggest that socialism is good, because to them, you would look like a bad man wanting them to be slaves. The ridiculousness of it all, and the OP who is disabled, right, as if disabled people can't find work, for fucks sake there's work for the mentally retarded, there's fucking work for the disabled, for fuck's sake, I live life in agonizing misery every bloody second, due to extreme constant unending pain, and I got a fucking job. He could clearly type that bloody comment, he can bloody work. Sure he might not be able to work in a fucking coal mine, but he could have some fucking office job, making fucking excel sheets or something, or a graphical designer, whatever. Bloody Socialists, always shunning away from work as if it was unhealthy for you. Let me tell you all about the only motto I live by, ARBEIT MACHT FREI, yes, that's what the concentration camps had as the entry sign, Work Makes Freedom, it was a lie to the Jews, but for me, working makes me free, because thinking is bad for you, activating yourself is good, if you don't think of work or self improvement, then you're thinking wrong. And sure some times you'll have to give up on a few aspects of life. Such as sports or something, I mean I gave up sports because I didn't like eating Morphine every bloody day just so that I could exist as a person, so I gave up sports, and walking on crutches. I've not taken a morphine pill in 10 years, it hurts like fuck to live, but I don't want to be addicted to it, nor would I want to ruin my liver because of popping pain killers like candy. Work is good, and anyone who doesn't work is bad and worthless. I'm not saying that those who have retired are worthless, they have worked their fair share already, they can enjoy other activities in life as well, but when you're young your main focus in life should be work and self improvement, live life to make yourself proud to be you, be able to look back at your life and be proud of your road, reaching your goals, etc. But if you guys want to remain socialists, and hope that everyone around you should give a flying fuck about you and your problems, and help you out, forget about it, if you don't put in effort, others won't either. Now excuse me, while I go cleanse my mind from all of this commie bullshit.
0:00 intro 2:21 what is worker democracy 8:45 myths and realities 17:37 a critical appraisal 29:08 good for workers 38:56 defending worker democracy 51:18 conclusion 52:05 policy bag
@@PoliticalEconomy101 Your points must be considered and discuss. In my opinion, workers coops are only one of the first passages from a capitalist economy to a truly democratic one
@@PoliticalEconomy101 Two main things. 13) the profit incentive is only against public interest in specific cases such as programmed obsolescence. However, most developed nations prior to the pandemic transitioned to mostly service work, not commodity production, which is not subject to programmed obsolescence. Profit incentives mostly work, and that's the reason most human societies have employed market mechanisms to meet their needs. There is no compelling evidence they always run contrary to public interest. 14) while this idea is fine on the abstract, it does not pan out as intended. This very video shows how different interests cause problems once a collective firm grows large enough, a society-wide coop would be just as disastrous, or be segregated into classes again (as happened in the USSR). Nowhere have we seen an effective and functioning dictatorship of the proletariat that isn't a plain dictatorship. Centralization brings about huge, undemocratic concentrations of power and a number of calculation problems. Not to mention that local needs often conflict with global needs, so central control undermines sovereignity. Your praise of it is backed by zero evidence to support any of your claims.
@@fellinuxvi3541 they run irrespective to public interest I think is the most accurate term. However you seem to be under the illusion that individual economies in the modern day can be separated. The so called first world was deindustrialised as a direct result of the profit incentive. The capitalists used economic and military imperialism to export manufacturing to former colonies where the working class had fewer rights so they could exploit them more extremely this in turn let them break the power of organised labour in their home countries by literally sinking the industries that had the strongest labour organisation. Thatcher, Reagan and all the Mass unemployment and child slavery that ensued from their era and the increasing globalization that came there after. That was due to the capitalist class pursuing their profit incentives. More over in service industries capitalist enterprises are still incentivised to perform their services with as few employees as possible to save on wages. This means the service providing workers are more likely to be overworked and less likely to be as highly skilled at any one thing they do. They are also incentivised to perform services in such a way that will not preclude that they will be called upon again, as long as it is not so bad people will go without. The competition angle is not always good at preventing this as there are many more ways to force people to use your services than simply providing the best service you can. Pricing out competitors, being more wide spread and thus convenient despite sub par service, advertising, the barriers to market entry being too high, that sort of thing.
The strange thing is that this used to be the argument for capitalism against Soviet style communism. Right now it feels like many are using the Soviet argument that careful planning and large scale are more important than localized knowledge. Wallmarkt functions more like a Soviet style economic branch than a small business.
I have to say, it's fucking exemplary that you said about your conversation with RoseWrist: "Yeah, that's just how adults communicate" and Rose literally just turned 18. Rose is more mature than a vast majority of people.
The difference between me being employed by a factory that goes bankrupt and me owning a share in a factory that goes bankrupt is who gets the money when the factory is sold for parts.
I feel like every study is limited by examining co-ops within a capitalist economy. Most of the failings of these co-ops can be explained by their need to compete against other companies to maximize profits for themselves. Cooperatives aren't gonna end capitalism but if I'm gonna have my labor exploited, I'd rather it be done by a company that I at least have some marginal control over.
While this is a true statement by itself, it's not an unfair limitation. This is a real problem coops will continue to face, as capitalism won't be going away anytime soon (that we can confidently predict, anyways) so vaccum experiments might be more misleading than experiments within capitalism.
Sorry to break it to you. But you NEED capitalism in order for worker co ops to work. Otherwise you are just letting government nationalize everything. Which is not really a suitable alternative for anything.
@@cristianluna5568 Capitalism and worker democracy are fundamentally opposed, unless you're talking about markets (capitalism implies hierarchical organization within the market system, in other word private property/capital). Even then, central planning isn't the only alternative to a market system, you can have horizontal/participatory planning instead (Parecon is one example). You can probably find a lot more info here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_economics
The thing about cooperatives is, that they (together with programs (like helping against burn out or good planing for holidays as an example) which improve the Quality of life and the happiness of workers) would probably have a net position effect on the society at large, which would boost stability, happiness and in the end the efficiency of the economy. However because there is no country with mostly worker coops, it is currently impossible to verify this societal effect, so it's hard to make precise point because a lack of data
@@zerologic7912 I am a bit confused by you definitions^^` An economic system (in my books), that has markets with prices developing by the rules if supply and demand and with the ability to privately own property a capitalist economic system and I think a worker coop can work within the boundaries of such an society. The existence of a hierarchy isn't a thing I would only contribute to capitalism (except of course you don't think that the eastern block countries don't count as socialist/communist/marxist with your definitions, but than I would be keen to hear you def. Of those terms).
But in a coop that does not matter. That increase in efficienty can be distributed among workers trough a decrease in workhours while being just as or more productive justifying the same monthly pay. Which is the big issue here that is totally looked over by the video.
@@pacotaco1246 lol I wish. They are mostly decorative. Same for plush execs. Top level desk jockeys get paid the most for doing the least. Ugh what an inversion.
Having lived at a 100% income sharing commune that runs a peanut butter factory and hobby farm for four years (and very involved in the business) I found this video interesting and engaging, great job!
On the generalizeability of worker coops Id just like to point out something you missed. While coops only overperform in certain sectors, as you said, they don't underperform in the rest. Thus it seems unlikely that wide-spread adoption would have detrimental effects. And I also just dont buy that people would not understand or not care about such a system. Almost everyone benefits in some way from having a say, even if the company itaelf does not do any better.
@@thotslayer9914 Yes but it's under a different username because I prefer to keep youtube seperate from everything else. (And so no, to whatever question you were about to ask afterwards.)
Worker co-ops are very much still in an experimental phase because of how rare they are to see and how little they are discussed in mainstream culture. As they become a more popular concept, I'm sure it'll be easier to figure out how to resolve the common issues.
Been a member of a supermarket co-op in Montpellier, France for a while now. Mixture of a few full-time and part-time employees and the rest of members/customers volunteer 3hours a month pecking shelves, working the registers and cleaning. It's also only open to members, not the public. It's called La Cagette. Interesting model.
I am all for worker democracy, I would just like to point out that in Italy worker coops are often used more like a tax evasion enabling method to build an enterprise. Membership is often a ruse, wages are shit and especially in social services, municipalities use coops to externalise services to shady and incompetent groups of selected people who love to use the coop excuse to just underpay workers. The situation is better in the "red" regions of center Italy, but non that much. Source: am Italian, worked for coops in the past.
Kinda like worker unions,that were made to balance the power of the company,but are used to have a "controlled opposition" ,with the unionist selling the rights of the workers for personal gains.
Where there's a man there is always a possibiliy for corruption. Systems engineers have to stay vigilant and patch and impove the systems to be more corruption-proof. While there are fake co-ops it shouldn't stop the creation for real ones.
The weird thing about this for me is that in wisconsin, where I live, and which is a state that has been aggressively invaded and permanently damaged by conservatives and neoliberalism, they are nonetheless persists in extremely powerful and long-running tradition of people in food industry owning the place where they work and electing their own leadership. All of the Woodman's grocery stores, all of the Fox Brothers Piggly wiggly stores, and a surprising number of farms, restaurants, breweries, and other organizations are worker owned cooperatives, where the workers make all of the decisions concerning hiring and firing and the nature of business. As such, despite Wisconsin being a rather unpleasant place to live with infamously bad governance and an openly biased legal system that has now openly embraced fascism and white nationalism, there's still a belief among a lot of people that workplaces, at least those within certain industries, should be owned by the people who work there, because at the end of the day the prices, quality of service, selection, and quality of product are all much higher because of this. it's always weird to me that people don't feel this should extend to all industries instead of just your local grocery store or dairy farm, but it is a real and practical demonstration of the fact that workplace democracy cannot only be very effective but can become extremely normalized, even in a society and culture that has decided to so thoroughly embrace a lot of extremely toxic anti-worker right wing beliefs at the governmental and legal level. It will never not be weird to me that I see these anti-union anti-worker far right nativist politicians refusing to have the servants who buy food for them go to privately owned capitalist focused farms and restaurants while busting unions and decrying workplace democracy. It is 11 of cognitive dissonance and double think that I do not understand
it's almost like conservatives associate politics with culture and not economics... i wonder where they got that idea.....🤷♂️ most conservatives in my family and social group have no idea that they are parroting economic positions that directly hurt their bottom line, because they've been suckered into the idea that merit is actually a reality, that those people deserve more because they bring more to the economy than they do. many people who are conservatives because "favorite team who rah, muh religion" have no efing clue that working class economics is politics. and guess who likes it that way? you guessed it, the politician/CEO/clergyman/sergeant/racist apologist/sexist apologist/grifter/ and so much more.
It's clear you don't share the ideas of the people living there, so why not leave? I bet Chicago, New York or even Pennsylvania would gladly welcome you with open arms.
Just on the prospect of environmental harms by worker coops versus capitalist corporations, I think it's reasonable to assume that work a coop would be superior in this area. Worker coops are by definition carrying out operations where their owners and managers (the workers) live. This contrasts with capitalist corporations where the executive decisions are often been taken many miles away from where their environmental consequences will have most impact. It's very hard to imagine factory or mining operations carried out on the doorsteps of workers and controlled by those workers causing the same kind of environmental destruction that capitalist corporations routinely commit. It would be an obvious case of shitting on your own doorstep!
I actually don't know about this for sure. Rust belt republicans will regularly vote for the very politicians who create policy that allows for the pollution of their own communities. Education is critical here, too. If a workforce doesn't even believe climate change exists, for example, then they probably won't vote on policies to curtail it at the expense of their earnings.
@@ShazyShaze Sure but I am talking about pollution closer to home, like poisoning the water your family drinks or polluting the air with fly ash from a coal plant. I don't see workers choosing to do that kind of the thing to their own families and neighbors. Doing it "because the boss made me" is very different to being the people actually responsible for the decision. Pretty soon, such people wouldn't be able to show their faces in public.
While I agree that they would probably be less harmful to the local environment, since it directly threatens the living standards of the workers, I don't see that being a significant factor for CO2 emissions (or other non-local effects in general) as it potentially even increases living standards in the short to medium term through higher profits.
@@silphonym Sure, i agree that it won't directly impact environmental harms that are not solely in the workers' backyard but there is a wider impact to the power of capitalism itself. The main reason why people don't believe the science on climate is due to a massive and sophisticated misinformation campaign going back decades. That campaign was waged in spite of the knowledge of the damage climate change would cause to billions of lives. The reason why such a harmful decision was able to be taken was that the people making the decision saw the opportunity for huge profits to themselves (a tiny elite) and believed that that wealth would insulate them from the effects of the crisis. Only sociopaths can really keep up that kind of thinking for long. Groups of hundreds or thousands of workers with families would not fall into those traps. They would not have billions to gain. In the shoes of the fossil fuel execs, they would not feel safe from the effects of climate change and lastly, most people are NOT sociopaths while, in fact senior execs disproportionately are. Their vast privilege insulates them from caring about "ordinary" people. Soooo, no massive misinformation campaign, much less denial of the issue and a much more rational response to it. I am not saying it would be a panacea. But it would I think undoubtedly be much better than what we regularly see today from capitalists.
@@michaelrch I mostly agree. I just wanted to point out that at the stage we are now, just turning every business into a worker co-op (through legislation or magically overnight) probably won't solve climate change or similar issues of global scale.
On the "German Model": In Germany, we in fact have 3 "levels" of Board participation: The one mentioned above, for most companies between 500 and 2000 employees, one for Heavy industries and some other cases with parity between employer and employee representatives, and one for Companies over 2000 employees with parity of employer and employee representation, with the President of the Board having double votes in case of a stalemate. The companies that are exempt from employees on the board are those with under 500 Employees. The real deal about the Employee participation in Germany is the workers council, which has a lot more power (They have co-decision or veto rights on things like including, but not limited to: work time, measues controlling workers, worker protection, (Paid) time off rates, firing of employees...)
I really hope that this style of channel becomes more prominent. I love the fact that the hyperbole is curbed in this approach and the strong reliance on academic data with a reasonable dose of skepticism.
this is really specific, no matter how convincing, not many will be able or willing to invest the time you already have, i doubt it will, but i wish it did
The tax incentives also aren't actually that much of a problem since the higher pay of workers does a large part to compensate. The countries where worker co-ops exist get a large amount of their tax money from income taxes and property taxes and so higher wage workers also bring in more tax money from the individual workers. On top of that a lot of corporations have all kinds of legal, half-legal and illegal method to dodge taxation anyway. So from the perspective of the government giving tax incentives to coops actually brings in more tax money. Private megacorps are also something democratic government don't really like that much as they have the power to seriously interfere with the function of government institutions and the financial resources to facilitate massive amounts of corruption if governments aren't careful. As well from the macro perspective having many smaller worker corporations is much better than one megacorp because if they fail then it's not that big a deal, they don't present a single massive point of failure.
This is so incredibly refreshing. I've been searching for someone to give educated perspectives for both sides of the worker democracy issue. This is great! Thank you so much.
Great take on Worker Democracy, this is a subject I've always wanted to learn more about, being someone who is new to professional working life. I'm glad you're critical on Mondragon, as, at least in the US, reviews of the company aren't so great - my father nearly worked there, but was warned by many ex-employees that Mondragon has changed for the worse and treats contractors poorly, with insane working hours. Aside from that, coming out of a degree in AI, I'm aware that institutions profiting the most from AI are companies at the top (Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc), leaving the influence generated from using this technology left in the hands of the few and powerful. Take Facebook for instance, now the world leader in Computer Vision research. They are left to their own accord to decide the future of the technology. No one outside the company is capable of deciding if the technology is being used ethically. I'm personally interested in joining (or founding) a cooperative revolved around robotics, as I believe democratic influence of this technology is highly important for the future of equality. Your video has certainly been positively informative and inspirational in pursuing this goal.
I am also discouraged as someone with a degree in IT that the only places I can find a job are capitalist firms or freelancing. Wish there were some IT co-ops.
I've been wondering whether Mandragon will eventually follow the fate of USSR. It seems there are a lot of similarities in the structure. The 'managers' in USSR for a long time were also restricted in the weath and pay they received in the position, but by the end accumulated enough power to break free of those restriction and grab public owned property.
I work in a game development worker co-op. We all have our own equipment already, we're all working part-time (for now), and our membership fee is, quote, "The princely sum of $1!" Makes it a lot easier to get started than other industries where you need a lot of investment to get anything done. Oh, what, pay? Uh... just... hoping our first game will provide that. ^^;
@@alexxx4434 Well, we did end up having to close the co-op (life circumstances changing, it's a challenge when we need other jobs to keep us going, especially in my case as a disabled person), but this only happened after we finished and released a game. In that sense, we were successful. Many game dev startups don't get that far. I'm really proud of us. 😊 Further, the co-op closing was chosen for the benefit of the workers. Not as a result of, say, a parent company axing us, or a bankruptcy which leaves the workers out in the cold, as I'd expect (and have experienced) from companies. It was incredibly sad, and yet even then, I felt respected and valued as a person like I'd never experienced in any previous workplace. As a whole it was an overall fantastic experience, and I would 100% recommend co-operatives. I would absolutely do it again.
@@cardboardking577 An update? My last update (in the replies, if you missed it) mentioned the co-op having to close, so there's not a lot else to say. I would have done it again, but I'm trying to get more disability supports first, because I'm more disabled than I realise. 😅
This was a really insightful video, more than I had expected. I´m by no means well-versed in economy (one reason I find your channel so good), but I´m still slightly ashamed that the idea of worker democracy like this wasn´t something that had even crossed my mind before this. As such it was a really interesting topic and I´m happy you treated it with nuance. I was also happily surprised to hear Zoe´s voice during the readings. All the who read did a great job, and it meshed really well with your presentation.
I think providing a veto mechanism or referendum in conventional firms, would be a quick solution to firms that can't or won't transform into coops or other forms of worker democracy. It can atleast stop major layoffs or the notorious CEO bonuses if implemented effectively.
16:01 As a french, I am really proud to see my country's contribution to establish new economic models by displaying the contradiction of the oldest ones. 😏👌🥖🗼🇫🇷
Great Video! I really liked it. Some things I want to add: Worker democracy doesn't really make sense for very small firms (startups), since a) in those firms the importance of the agility an authocratic structure provides is so much more important. Most startups get successful by creating the vision of a few people, and this only really works with an authocratic structure. b) Since the company is so small there are little benefits for using a worker coop (things like workers being more in touch with company decisions don't apply, since if you're just like seven people everybody will be informed anyway). One of the downsides of workplace democracy not talked much about here is simply burocracy. One person making decisions is much faster than disccussing it over multiple management layers. For these reasons, I believe if worker democracy is ever politically enforced or made mandatory, influence of workers should always scale with the size of a coorporation.
Just wanted to say this was a very interesting and engaging essay about worker democracy; thank you to you and your team! It has given me a lot to consider about how to discuss these ideas with those in my life. And of course, plenty of fantastic resources to delve into.
Excellent video and worth the wait.....cooperatives (despite some minor drawbacks as outlined in the video) can ameliorate the negatives of capitalism and become an important part of any future post capitalist society
I kind of feel that in order to have a successful transition to socialism you'll need a good core of workers cooperatives to help support it. You cant make the switch if no one knows what democracy in the workplace looks like in the first place.
To be fair Second thought's videos are necessarily reductive. He has to effectively get leftist ideas across I'm a span of 10 mins of a video. Spending few minutes talking about it's drawbacks reduces the utility of his videos. His video's are also targets people who are not well versed in these ideas, as a intro. If people are rational as I hope they are they should think something along the lines of "there has to be more to it" and end up on this video to get a deeper analysis.
While this might be technically true, it's a poor excuse. Oversimplifying complex issues is just propaganda. It does not work any differently here in the left-wing of politics.
@@fellinuxvi3541 I don't mind propaganda towards a generally good idea. Propaganda is all about making people think a certain way. It's an amoral tool in politics. It doesn't mean it's lying necessarily, it means presenting information in a certain way. STs videos reach a lot more normies, if from his videos people come out thinking that worker democracy is generally a good thing then that has far more social utility than a well researched nuanced video that puts all the chips on the table, but gets very little views. So at the end of the day I don't mind. If however the ideas behind the propaganda is malignant or they use falsities, then I would have a problem. But yes I would like for ST to say something like "there's far more to this topic than I can cover in this video, so check out the links in the description for further reading", then provide links that take a more nuanced look at the topic. I think that's the best of both worlds.
@@justaguy6216 I don't normally think propaganda towards "a good idea", but we run into the old Socratic problem of rhetoric: who's to judge what is a good idea? If we don't develop these ideas properly, good ideas can turn bad pretty quickly. This video provides a very good example: creating a law that turns all companies into coops would not achieve the desired result. If the video that reaches more normies installs some false or misleading ideas by virtue of its simplicity, we may quickly reach wrong and even dangerous conclusions. Nuance shouldn't be taken lightly just because we're "right" and coops are a good idea. I get the strive for consequencialism. Politics is all about consequence, but it's the same problem with "free" markets: they depend on principles like respect for rights, which cannot be up to market mechanisms, otherwise the law is unequal and this in turn, undermines the freedom of the market. The same is true of consequencialism, if we apply consequencialist principles to the quest for truth, we undermine consequencialism, as we lose the ability to judge wether or not we're faced with good ideas and good consequences.
Wow! This video is incredibly educational. You've really sparked an interest for economics in me. Some parts of your videos can be a bit heavy, but that's me being new to much of this. I'm sure I will be able to get a better grasp of the subject in the future. It's really intersting. Thanks for making stuff like this:)
I think when discussing this topic it's worth it to mention regular labour unions as well. We have good data that workers earn a higher proportion of wage growth, when they negotiate with real leverage and form consensual resolutions in a union, than without one. I think when you mentioned boards with minority representation, I think strong unions have a history of stronger negotiating power. Maybe unions are only a stepping stone to worker co-ops, but maybe that only makes them more important. Also many unions are sector wide, where the entire sector can have a sense of standards. If co-ops are also in sector wide unions, they may not compete against each other as much. For instance no co-op is gonna enforce 60 hour work weeks to get an advantage over other co-ops, even if it's more profitable for each co-op individually. Also maybe co-ops in the same union as others not in a co-op may create less inequality between corporations, where people not in a co-op, can now use the benefits co-ops have as leverage. "Why do those guys work less than us? We won't work more than them" says the union members in the non-co-op even if the corporation is not a co-op, if both companies are in the same union.
worth noting that it can be argued that all the drawbacks you mention about worker cooperatives were not in their inherent structure but in the fact they currently exist within capitalism and a capitalist culture. - can't easily secure financing (capital is kind of very much restricted in . . . capitalism), - few people know what they are or know they work (socialism and democracy are still relatively rare in most places and hierarchies), - they choose the most profitable places to invest and start (literally what capitalists do. capitalism traps both the worker and the capitalist). it'd be foolish to think that a single federal-level law mandating cooperative structure would work. it's like if you just switched from feudalism to liberal democracy and expected the peasants to be completely acclimated to this new form of decision making. this is why socialists so often stress theory. additionally, considering that the benefits of non-hierarchical and non-tyrannical hierarchy are not restricted to industry, it seems likely that if cooperatives (or democratic institutions) were not put under additional stressors from outside the firm (outside stressors being the result of existing within capitalism), they would fair perfectly fine regardless of area. municipally owned and/or government run firms perform considerably better in terms of longevity, lower administrative cost as a percentage of total budget, lower prices for their product/service, and other measures. municipal utilities, mass transit orgs, medicare, social security, the USPS, etc. are all fantastically efficient operations when comparing to their capitalist peers and have no _internal_ democratic structure yet remain in some way accountable to the populous via the elected officials who oversee or appoint internal managers. not to mention they generally don't operate under a profit motive but a motive to provide a good or service. this is something else that is different and not captured in the democracy/dictatorship dichotomy between coops and capitalist enterprise. whether a firm is profitable has little bearing on whether it is productive or useful to society. telemarketing is profitable, housing the homeless is not. phishing is profitable, farming is not (largely).
Accountable at the macro level, rarely at the microlevel, and workers are still oppressed in government and municipal enterprises, because of hierarchical and bureaucratic structures. Your argument misses the whole point. This is about what power to influence the operation of the enterprises they work in. What service or benefit any enterprise offers to society is always up for debate, and isn't really relevant here. It is whether involving employees in a significant way in the decisions that impact their welfare and economic security in the workplace is actually possible in the here and now. It's the proposition whether workplace democracy as the means to give workers more is desirable and possible. So far, Cooperatives and worker representation on Executive Boards are the two major ways this has been tried. This video has examined the pros and cons of each, and has established that whilst workplace democracy as involving workers in the management of their enterprises is desirable but not always easy or possible without changing the structure of the enterprise. Where and how it could be done is determined by internal and external factors that limit its application under either model. The fact that any enterprise needs to function effectively with workplace democracy is a given.
I think it's a mistake to say that securing capital is only a problem because of capitalism. I would go so far as to say that securing capital is the central problem for any non capitalist approach to markets. There are theories about how one might go about this, such as sovereign wealth funds, but I am not sure we can say there is a clear answer to this.
Securing capital is not difficult because of capitalism. Securing capital under capitalism is broadly pretty easy because people and groups with money are usually keen to invest it. Its inherently more difficult with a worker co-op because whoever invests in them does not get to own the thing they are investing in.
Though remember, just because a business is not private doesn’t mean it won’t exploit workers. After having worked for the USPS for a little while, I can tell you that they still exert tyranny over workers. As a PSE I was expected to work ten or more hours a day starting at 3 AM, with my day off switching from week to week. I got payed a lot more than local market wages, but the boss still exerted total control
I've always thought that it is so insidious how the current system works. I save up money, so I put in the stock market so that blackrock can appoint boards of companies. These boards squeeze their workers to make profits to return my investment. Some of the workers in these companies own shares in my company, and some hedge fund appoints the board of my company on their behalf to squeeze me. Why don't I just help run my company and they run theirs?
I'm sure this video will be good and interesting, but I think the points you make in the first two minutes of this video are basically a slam dunk. Democracy is not and should never be made about efficiency; it's about the requirement of accountability of power that's necessary for people to live decent lives.
This video helped me really put together some of the thoughts I had before into words. I've always felt like one of the biggest problems with modern theories that are popular (and powerful) both in economics and psychology as well (yes, seriously) is that they tend to not really make any sense if you have real experience with the things they're discussing and require you to kind of assume that people are stupid and utterly irrational - they are irrational when the standards are unreasonable, but generally speaking organize themselves well enough, but crude theories always require you to believe that no, people need top-down control and authoritarian rule and are fundamentally untrustworthy in some way. It leads to a kind of cognitive dissonance for me where I feel like I can not learn in an organic manner but instead just have to implicitly trust what I'm receiving and by proxy, who I'm receiving it from. Kind of like some idea of the masses being stupid, and rationality being some robot-like efficiency maximization instead of complex. Thankfully at least psychology has moved away from this kind of hyper-rationality and is now at much more open to subjectivity, affect, implicit knowings, letting a person organize themselves, etc. At least it seems to be the case to me.. but I mostly read practicing clinicians so I'm biased ;p
I feel like the free rider hypothesis also assumes that workers aren't already able to put minimal effort into low wage jobs under capitalism which just isn't the case Edit: just to clarify what I mean many jobs you can get away with doing little work while still making about the same wage as your coworkers that have gotten raises for whatever reason because either way you're all still making way less than your labor is actually worth and raises are usually done in small increments that will never reach the actual worth of your labor. You can already potentially get a free ride at work you just can't live off of it but neither can anyone else working there
Fantastic summary of the evidence. Our views are largely aligned on this issue in just about every respect, and I am glad that you made sure to mention that worker democracy was not a silver bullet against the failings of capitalism, though I feel that even more common criticisms could have been addressed. For example, you mention a study in how worker co-operatives have similar success in acquiring finance via equity capital when compared with traditional firms, but it should also be worth nothing that this can be a minor concern, even for co-operatives that wish to have the entirely of the company solely owned by the workers. Analysis of the 500 fastest growing firms in the United States over the past 30 to 40 years have found that less than 4 percent of these firms utilize equity capital at all, and those that do tend to be larger firms using it as a tool of flexibility and/or firms that want to gain access to the resources and insights that venture capitalists and angel investors tend to be able to give. I am mildly disappointed you didn't list off some other potential factors (even more radical ones) in a distributive economy besides worker democracy that can aid in ensuring a good and moral standard of living among the populace. You mentioned welfare, but there's land redistribution, taking away some sectors from firms and delivering it to the commons, separating the role of creating money from that of creating credit (which even Friedman and the IMF have supported before), restructuring of intellectual property protections, and making considerations for equality in the global economy. This last point is something that is taking off even in mainstream economics as well. I'm currently reading Good Economics for Hard Times, and while I'm occasionally disappointed or frustrated that the authors aren't willing to take some of their findings to what I see as natural conclusions, they still raise excellent points. One of which is the need for wealth and income redistribution, or some form of targeted welfare, as a result of policies surrounding free trade, be they restrictions or a lack of them. If free trade with another country causes pains in one sector of a nation, the state should help alleviate those pains, though I'm concerned bickering over the best way to do so will result in no aid being given at all. Laws that allow employees to put their potential unemployment benefits towards buying back their failing company could be one tool in the toolbox for alleviating this, however. Similarly, if tariffs on a country (usually best reserved for ethical concerns) cause tariffs to be lobbied back, resulting in pains to certain sectors, they can be similarly aided. This is part of why I buy into Doughnut Economics so much, though I sometimes my enthusiasm for Raworth's model and normative conclusions leaves me blinded to potential downsides (the main issue being that I've been unable to find salient criticism of her work). Raworth steps away from much of the terminology used in the 20th century, because the labels used for economic models 1. are steeped in conventions and assumptions that might best be left in the 20th century and 2. because many of the terms used as rallying points or silver bullets cannot be seen as such. I think this is why she doesn't refer to herself as a market socialist, and rebukes people asking her if she is a capitalist or socialist, despite very explicitly calling for worker ownership of the means of production and empowering of the commons in her 2017 book. While I think that this might result in alienation from those already on board with socialism, it's a bold step in what's probably the right direction, because pinning all of our socioeconomic hopes on only or mainly the question of ownership of the means of production is exceptionally narrow-minded, and continuing to use that terminology as the main talking point loses out on the bigger picture of what economics must look like in the coming decades. Wait, wasn't this a comment supposed to be talking about worker co-operatives? I digress. Good video.
Not only was your comment supposed to be about worker democracy, that's also the supposed topic of the video. If you're disappointed that he didn't for instance talk about land redistribution, cancel that disappointment out by not only being thankful that the video stays on topic but also that it's not 7 hours long.
I really like your take on her. Although I might show my centrist biases here, I also believe it's the right move on her part. I think a significant number of socialists are too tightly fused with their own specific interpretation of the word (or "denomination") to see alternatives. One need only look at the problems that Bookchin complained about among fellow anarchists to see this is a pattern within many in the left. So I think their alienation is a small price to pay, if they won't be flexible here, they might as well not be fighting for a better world at all.
@@perfectlyfine1675 Fair, hah. I suppose I just wanted it given a mention, even without extrapolation, because people get tunnel vision on sole components of a distributive economy.
" _If free trade with another country causes pains in one sector of a nation_ " -- Here's another idea about how to prevent that kind of problem: trading blocs (such as the USMCA and the EU) could require each nation to mandate workplace democracy by law (as is done by Germany's _Mitbestimmungsgesetz_) as a prerequisite to membership in the trading bloc.
If working harder leads to only small gains, employees will rationally stop working. Also, under capitalism where working harder leads to nothing at all, those same workers will somehow maximize their productivity.
This work is critical, thank you for explaining the concepts so fluidly! I loved the format of the video. And your wonderful editors and producers and patrons got tons of love from a fan of your channel!! 🖤💜💙💚💙💜🖤 These are important issues, thank you for keeping the left honest and pedantic!! Much love!!!
They are more succesful, people working for them are happier, they are more socially responsible, they are at least as productive and innovative. And there are huge ones as well. They're a win in my book either way. They have few if any downsides.
cool vid, v much enjoyed it! one argument I was missing tho, was the potential of worker's democracy concerning social issues or climate change. for example was the Lucas Plan, where 20 percent of the work force were supposed to be fired, because the military products they were manufacturing weren't needed anymore. The workers then formulated a plan how to make socially useful products, like the Hobcart, a vehicle for kids with spina bifida. but ofc the were fired bc capitalism, we really need that revolution mate. also, what I would throw your way: racism, sexism, etc is cunningly used as a tool by employers, politicians, etc to divide the workers while simultaneously lowering the wage. But without the fear of getting fired or a random wage cut, there would be way less reason to be a bigot. ofc it wouldn't make sexism, racism, homophobia and all that crap disappear bz tomorrow, but the root cause would be eliminated and with the help of workers democracy one would work on bettering the culture. There are a few examples of companies introducing swear jar (eg if a worker would make a sexist joke) after Russian revolution from the bottom up (also to preface, this was in the first years, the soviets still intact, before the stalinist degeneration). this got quite long, im sorry about that, other than that thank you again for that educational content, never learned that much abt coops within a capitalist system. x
While I don't disagree with the way capitalists use bigotry, the mondragon corporation proves how co-ops can create their own class-division. Who's to say they won't follow the steps of modern capitalists?
@@romitkumar6272 Unfortunately I’ve been incredibly sick for most of the year, which is why I haven’t been able to make videos. Don’t worry, it wasn’t COVID
I'd love to see pilot programs of encouraging or forcing a large percentage of a localized industry being turned into worker coops. That way we could get data
The big thing that is not adressed in this video is that if workers own the business in a worker own cooperative is that workers are the owners of the means of production and thus are the benneficiaries of all increases in efficienty. Which can be payed either in monetary value or in reduced working hours. When robots are added to a factory which increase the efficienty of said factory, the increase in efficienty goes completely to the owners of the factory, work becomes more boring and repetitive for workers and the amount of workers is simply reduced and the ones that are left are payed the same as before. In a coop that invests in robots that increase in efficienty and reduced labour needed to accomplish the same job is then distributed to have workers simply work less. Go from 8 hour shifts to 4 hour shifts while keeping same pay and bennefits because your productivity stays the same. This is the big thing to solve the technological unemployment problem comming out of automation without the need for exploitative schemes like ubi and the like. The bottom line is all the wealth going to shareholders created in any business no longer is concentrated in the hands of the ones who contribute the least. In a coop workers/members are the shareholders and at the end of the day that wealth created IS distributed over the masses one way or another as it has nowhere else to go. THIS IS THE BIG TAKEAWAY OF WORKER COOPERATIVES. The rest are just side issues. And yes a corperation like shell would be a vastly different company as it is today. As it would reflect the norms and values of the vast amount of people working for them who do not want to live in a poluted world as they are the directly impacted of what shell does. Shell now reflects the norms and values of the handful of major shareholders who are solely driven by greed and maximising profits as they are not the the ones who are impacted (or can insulate themselves from it trough the massive wealth their less then moral behaviour gives them) by the impact the corperation has on the lives of society as a whole and thus thepeople working there. Worker cooperatives are about far far more then simple economics and have far reaching and deep impacts on behaviour of the industrial section because it no longer is a conflict between 2 opposing sides with 2 vastly different incentives. It becomes a situation where these 2 oposing sides with oposing incentives are unified in the same single person. Instead of conflict this forces compromise. If you in function of the shareholder wants to push workers harder to increase profit, you as the worker are directly impacted by that decision as well because you are both. Your decision as a worker to make life easier for workers directly impacts you as well as you are also the shareholder who loses income by that decision. This will transform the economy and society as a whole. And is something always completely ignored in discussions about this subject.
This is a well researched and well edited and scripted video that explains the topic in a way that's easy to understand. But what I find the most amazing is how you managed to keep me engaged and even laugh throughout such a long video on such a seemingly dry topic. Also love that you're collaborating with other small but great TH-camrs. Thoroughly enjoyed this!
the companies we work for are just basically feudal systems. democracy and capitalism are at odds with each other. best course of action is to band together with your coworkers and write a declaration of independence against your shareholders.
I'll be honest, I've never really liked economics; I've always found it boring and hard follow (which for me is weird because a love math and the such). However, this video was really well done and I learned a lot. Thanks for making it.
around 19:25 I'm Italian and I find necessary to clarify that a good percentage of Italian coops are such only on paper, with democracy beeing only a formal facade and, in practice, they are a cover up for tax avoidance and notorious for bad pay and condition.
One issue that is particularly bad in America are companies being run by the shareholders. It's so bad that the WEF is even recommending transitioning away from shareholder to stakeholder policies! Still, I would love to see some government policies regulating shareholder's influence on companies. It's crazy that some random rich dude can buy controlling stake in a company, cut the staff in half artificially boosting profits, then sell after what looks like a great quarter, screwing over everyone involved.
It's amazing that people like Mr. Beat talk so much about "Democracy VS Dictatorship", but it NEVER dawns on anyone the topic of ECONOMIC democracy and ECONOMIC dictatorship. Can you REALLY say you live in a "democracy" when the economy, the stuff everyone relies on to survive and be able to produce things, is controlled by a minority of owners? Do you NOT see what's wrong with this? A REAL democracy is a place where the ECONOMY is democratically controlled as well.
Even in massive workers cooperatives, such as the Mondragon Corporation of Spain still have divisions of labor, managerial positions, ect. That said, they offer a wildly different working experience than a traditional extractive service industry job as that shared ownership absolutely encourages direct investment in work affairs.
Regarding financing, perhaps the Government could use a (Georgist) land value tax to support worker co-ops' financial needs and (Abundantly) More* Affordable/Free Housing to house workers (including accessible homes for disabled people).
Thank you for a highly educational video on this subject. I appreciate your academic approach towards divisive political topics and I hope you will be continuing this in the future.
You have such a balanced approach to the topic that I’ve to say I want to hear you cover more topics. The animations where very good too. I wish we had shorter and shareable bits of this info cause not everyone is invested in the topic to go thru an hour of content
The idea that you'd put less effort in because you earn a share is really stupid for the simple reason that you get out the more you put in collectively. Apply this idea instead to standard capitalist firm. I work hard, I get standard pay. I work average, I get standard pay. I work badly, I get standard pay or fired. Me working hard in such a case only provides more for the owners, not for me and my co-workers.
Not much to say this time but just wanted to say how much I appreciate your video essays. I truly feel like these are some of the best reasoned and well spoken ones I listen to/watch (and I listen to/watch many), so thank you and please keep doing them. :)
I think I agree with worker Co-Ops not being perfect for every type of sector, for example in terms of banking a much more fair system are building societies, where the people who have money in the bank own it and can elect members, seen as the function of the bank is based off for their money, which is an advantage seen as Building societies are already very popular especially in the UK. Also in terms of public sector jobs these would inherently be non democratic workplaces.
banks should all be burned to the ground. and everyone who wants them to exist should be locked inside before the flames start lol (half joking, but i know most power addicts who enjoy the things banks do like mass discrimination and class warfare would rather die than not be able to harm others) in all seriousness, there is no practical and justifiable reason banks need to exist. they only make capitalism lose its credibility as a system imo
Imagine a bank that works for the community, without singular peaks in wealth distribution so obscene they warrant private control of the bank. There is more out there than private ownership/control and fire lmao And btw the capitalist gives justification for it: banks have systemic value and should not only be solved but treated like water supply. Essential.
@@saturationstation1446 what about for mortgages that's pretty helpful, without them most people would be renting for a majority of their lives, or living in substandard and inadequately sized housing
I find the "free rider problem" hilarious because that problem is actually far more common in typical capitalist ventures where you have an adversarial relationship with your boss.
The freeloader "problem" has always been so bizarre to me.
Why would anyone assume that a coop worker with a say in how the business is run, and a stake in the results would be likely to shirk because profits are shared, but a worker in a capitalist firm, with no say and no stake at all, will just happily make a diligent effort to enrich his boss as much as possible?
The argument is so clearly bollocks, especially if one assumes man is rationally self-interested. Which is why it's so weird that it is almost always propmoted by people who believe in "economic man"
It almost sounds like these economists do not understand economics or perhaps they purposely ignore the working class and hope we wont notice
It isn't really a problem, it's an imaginary objection that ignores the reality of peer pressure to not be a jackass
Precieved job security would be the most reasonable explanation. You feel that you are more likely to lose your job in a capitalist firm. Not saying I necessarily agree, but it seems like good reasoning.
Yeah, if anything, hourly wage workers are more likely to slack off since they get paid the same no matter how the company is doing.
Well, you see my freeloading is the moral freeloading./s
Corporate propaganda relies on fooling people into thinking that communal methods of organizing the economy is bad while minimizing or brushing away even more severe problems already proven to take hold in capital holding, dictatorship corporate structure.
In simpler words, these people lie.
I love that all the hypothetical dangers can be summed up as "workers might act like capitalists".
oh, you mean like the CEOs of these big multinational corporations.
the biggest danger of worker coops is that they are self-financing which makes it very easy for them to set up a ponzi scheme. This actually happens a lot and it's how many crypto scams marketed themselves. Worker coops kind of require a state to crack down on fraud and scams.
@@breadquonda2863CEOs are just the highest paid worker in a company. a lot if not most of them have a salary. there are people who own stadiums, cities or entire multibillion dollar international companies and THOSE pay the CEOs
The worst thing they have ever been able to threaten us with is the conditions they already create.
@@breadquonda2863 He's making a joke about how the danger is that they will act like CEO's, but...the CEO's are already in control, so there is no reason to not hand them over to the workers, it either gets better or has no effect.
Btw I have personal experience with this. After being promoted to production manager my first action was to restructure organisation to make it more accessible to every worker. I then made mandatory meetings every morning (15minutes max) where we discuss difficulties. Third whenever I give workloads to workers I make sure they have plenty different tasks which they can change between whenever as long as the work is done when it has to be. I reduced my own workload by sharing managerial load and increased worker well being to a point where efficiency and quality went up. All it cost was me sitting down a couple hours more to make some easy to read graphics
@@super8mmo r/nothingeverhappens
How many people have complained about the mandatory or daily part of these meetings? XD
@@Overquoted You sound pretty cynical. I work in a hospital system with daily meetings and the place runs really efficiently and with very little managerial supervision. The daily meetings allow all time groups in our department to know what's happening with respect to patient care and wellness and helps drive continuing quality care. Prior to some structural changes that allowed for greater individual worker autonomy, the department was very stodgy and retention was awful as was patient care. Indeed, it was a dying department that is now vibrant, thriving, and exceeding revenue projections. Obviously that can't continue indefinitely because they're is a maximum level of disease to treat in our region beyond which we can't get additional revenue, but we are a much better facility for having implemented democratic workplace participation. It's not perfect by any means, but it's way better than top-down, draconian measures for damn sure. Until material conditions shift enough to make full anarchy a viable option, I think this is where it's at, personally.
@@Overquoted in the beginning they dragged their feet but the socialising kinda helped build community so it's fine now
@@super8mmo not a Reddit guy I promise xD
Kinda hilarious that mainstream economists apply the free rider hypothesis to workers but neglect to turn than inside and apply that to the CEO’s and managers who have more incentive to do those things since they would be much less financially impacted if the company fails, whereas a avg worker would be put into a much more dicey situation if the company failed and they lost their job.
The amount of times CEO’s fuck over the companies they run just to make a quick buck before moving onto the next company that will hire them is far higher then they these economists think it is.
Like just look at EA where the CEO tried to give himself a pay rise and just generally fuck over the company whilst all the shareholders kept saying “pls stop”. Shareholders have never had to do that because 1 or 2 low level programmers or whatever did the same thing
It also ignores psychic profits like respect in the worplace or self fulfillment through work
You see that a lot with the hypothetical nitpicking that's so common in defending the status quo. The imagined scenarios that people come up with are usually just as applicable, if not more so, to how things already are.
Just the ruling class and their minions acting in their own interest. "Business schools" are a hilarious joke! Professors and students mainly being cheats and frauds.
Hi la ri ous
If workers could vote to not throw out entire warehouses full of food, clothing, electronics etc then that's a giant boon for worker coops. Or the increasing evidence that working 20-30 hour work weeks produces the same level of productivity as 40-50 hour work weeks. Like I deadass think the biggest benefit to worker coops over hierarchical companies is being able to vote against stupid and inefficient stuff done for the sake of profit or conservatism.
Well said
Personally I don't think it's about conservatism or even profit, it's about maintaining the class structure.
There is a lot of focus always on GDP but GDP isn't everything as making something and then throwing it away increases the GDP even if it doesn't accomplish anything. Worker coops won't produce as high a GDP but they will get much more out of the GDP that they have.
One thing that is often seen with people is that the more diverse a group is the more selfless it becomes. A lot of rich people, even if they don't mean to tend to see the lower classes as not really equal people to themselves. They are the 'other' who does not matter. The connection between capitalism and fascism is very well known and it's not by accident.
I think trying to heavily encourage a diverse group of people on boards is important so as to avoid an "us vs them" mentality.
This makes me think of my experiences dumpster-diving at grocery stores. When I've been noticed by regular floor workers they always either don't give a shit or actively give permission - some even have agreements with local food pantries to sneak them whatever baked goods would otherwise be thrown away, they've risk their jobs to do this. But whenever I've been noticed by a manager or anyone else directly accountable for enforcing company policies, I've been met with hostility.
Im glad youve taken such a realistic angle to it, rather than parroting "sounds good doesnt work" or proclaiming that it is the best thing since sliced bread
Agreed. this is something The already left of center have needed for quite some time. It's rather dense so I don't blame other TH-camrs for only doing the "sound bite" or talking points of this topic. What they're doing is radicalization, which is The first step to making this objectively better organization structure a reality. I found that most normies have been so conditioned to the status quo that they don't even know something is wrong. Once they're motivated and radicalized then we can explain the heavy details and discuss different policies we would like to push to our politicians.
Sliced bread sucks anyway.
@@LPVince94 Hard disagree
@@LPVince94 just stuff the whole thing into your mouth then
fact is, it has been demonstrated to not work.
worker democracy has the same problems that profit sharing does, it builds resentment in workforces which usually results in inefficiencies or outright conflict, with the business usually slipping into the red and if they dont revert the policy quickly enough, going broke.
if you paid attention to the video, you might notice how extremely widely he had to cherry pick to find single points from studies that in some way supported his claims.
I tend to advocate for worker cooperatives on an ethical level, but it's really nice to see them argued for economically as well. Personally I'd be willing to take a decrease in productivity if it meant having an empowered, happy workforce.
"productivity" is a cult
Yes, the results are promising and even though their benefits may not be stellar in this environment, I assume, the coops would shine in an international economy where the power of the capital owners is curbed in general.
I mean aswell we overproduce most things meaning you generally need to work less if you were only to produce as much as people need.
@ BINGO! That's Communism.
Productivity is usually increased in worker co-operatives not decreased. Take a look at the studies on EOFs
"But to understand all this a bit better we're going to need to look at some more serious economic theory. You may have heard of the reality TV show Undercover Boss."
This killed me lmao
Another thing about the free rider problem: If one person is obviously slacking, his co-workers will notice, and potentially kick him out. 'Free riders'- people who either slack off or are just inept- are pretty rampant in traditional workplaces because of the boss not paying attention.
I'm kind of suprised that wasn't mentioned in the video.
The opposite can happen too, everyone starts slacking. I've seen that one, people get burned out, start slacking a little and gradually it gets worse over time.
And if you lose your job you lose certain privileges, which you don't want, so you work harder. Just like in a free market system except you don't have to lose your home and get addicted to heroin cause there are policies to help you.
@@GrendalTheBeasty yes but if maximum profit, and therefore productivity is not the goal anymore, there are suddenly far more solutions to solving that burnout and slack.
@@SolarFlareAmerica Do please tell why someone would go be a garbage collector, work at a sewer treatment plant, mow lawns in the burning sun... for any reason other than to simply get paid. The idea that you should enjoy your work is a fallacy. Work is a transaction, you are renting your time and skills to another in exchange for money.
being french-uruguayan i wasnt ready for this level of representation
im so fucking sorry.
@@phoneticalballsack what
@@QuandaleDingle-ji2tjColonialism or something.
Criticism of worker democracy -
1. Workers will line their pockets
2. People will be free riders
Yeah....neither of these happen in current capitalist companies at all...
those aren't the only flaws and they would still happen
@@Money_Fox source that says they do? If not then it's bullshit. This happens literally I'm any conventional firm
@@Money_FoxI have a great video you should watch by unlearning economics. I think it's called Worker Democracy or sth. He goes over this exact argument, and refers to a number of peer reviewed studies which empirically show that the freerider idea is absolutely false.
@@wesselbindt re watched it those were average quality inconsistent small number studies
@@Money_Foxeven if was one stuty of case with a single person it's still infinetly more empirical proofs than it was presented to defend the opposite
Worker co-ops are more productive because they solve the "not my job" problem that capitalist owners can't. "Why should I do that, it's not my job?" If it's also partly your company the answer to that is obvious.
division of labour is important, thats not my job is actually a fair thing to say sometimes
I dont think it solves this problem. If you are 1 owner in a company with 1000 other people, your contribution in form of the work you put into the company will, in the end, only have a negligible effect on the value of the company. So i think it could still be perfectly reasonable to have such a mindset in a worker co-op. Unless its like a 10 people company.
How is it different to workers owning shares in the company they work for?
Also want to play devil's advocate; even if it was a decently sized coop, there isn't anything stopping a worker from ignoring or disregarding issues. In fact, what's stopping each worker from saying it's someone else's problem and all of them refusing to do something? Especially true if it's out of their league.
you should only do your job
8:50
"more prone to failure...as workers line their own pockets"
Because as we know, in a conventional firm, absolutely no one in leadership considers running the firm as a way to line their own pockets
I really appreciate you talking about non-workers. As a disabled person, I feel like we're almost always an afterthought. I'm still 100% in support of worker democracy and socialism more broadly, but my problems don't really get solved by that. It's good hearing leftists talking about the limitations of leftist ideas. Also it's nice hearing voices I recognise in different videos, it's a good reminder that leftists do actually work together.
One of the sneaky things capitalism does is define work narrowly as "service you provide in exchange for money". Basically, work is only work when you're paid for it. But this leaves out the numerous daily tasks we do just to maintain ourselves and our society. Things like home maintenance, raising children, feeding ourselves, etc. Perhaps you are a worker without even realizing it. No one is truly nonproductive as capitalism would have you believe.
@@maxtarascio7850 Thank you for this comment 💕 it made me feel better
@@pencilonpaper1026 no problem. Remember the Marxist motto "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need". Socialism would recognize the work disabled people already do, and allow for even more disabled people to give to the community in a way that is both fulfilling for them and valuable to the community. Everyone is capable of something, and that something should be enough for anyone to live a life of dignity, respect and self-determination.
@@maxtarascio7850 Exactly. The lower stage of communism or Marxian socialism (in a broader sense since Marx used the words interchangeably, unlike Lenin) would have the motto of "from ability to contribution" so some work is valued over others but this mechanism is not meant for individual enrichment at the expense of exploitation.
@@maxtarascio7850 No, WORK is Service provided in exchange for money. Doing other forms of general activities, LIKE FUCKING FEEDING OURSELVES SO WE DON'T FUCKING DIE, isn't WORK, It's basic fucking common sense to want to stay alive. Raising kids isn't always easy, but it's a life choice, it's not work though, unless you're providing it as a service to others for exchange of money. Work is literally the expenditure of energy for an effect, in physics that is. But in Economics, it's what gets you paid.
How that work is structured, differs. Some companies are more humane and care for their workers because happy workers work harder, it's common sense, you wouldn't want your workers to be miserable and fudge everything up.
And Capitalism is the root of all things good in this world, but don't come here and claim socialism is good, IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT SOCIALISM DOES, JUST TAKE A LOOK AT THE SECOND WORLD WAR, With your favourite bloody Socialist, Adolf, or the other SOB Stalin, just because you can exploit others in a capitalist society, doesn't mean socialism is free from exploitation, fuck no, do you know how fun it is to stand in the bread line, and when it's your turn, the shop owner says, sorry bread is gone, come back maybe next week for bread. Ask anyone who actually lives in Socialist nations if Socialism is good, ask the Cubans, ask the Chileans, ask the Eastern Europeans, they'll kill you if you suggest that socialism is good, because to them, you would look like a bad man wanting them to be slaves.
The ridiculousness of it all, and the OP who is disabled, right, as if disabled people can't find work, for fucks sake there's work for the mentally retarded, there's fucking work for the disabled, for fuck's sake, I live life in agonizing misery every bloody second, due to extreme constant unending pain, and I got a fucking job.
He could clearly type that bloody comment, he can bloody work. Sure he might not be able to work in a fucking coal mine, but he could have some fucking office job, making fucking excel sheets or something, or a graphical designer, whatever. Bloody Socialists, always shunning away from work as if it was unhealthy for you.
Let me tell you all about the only motto I live by, ARBEIT MACHT FREI, yes, that's what the concentration camps had as the entry sign, Work Makes Freedom, it was a lie to the Jews, but for me, working makes me free, because thinking is bad for you, activating yourself is good, if you don't think of work or self improvement, then you're thinking wrong. And sure some times you'll have to give up on a few aspects of life. Such as sports or something, I mean I gave up sports because I didn't like eating Morphine every bloody day just so that I could exist as a person, so I gave up sports, and walking on crutches. I've not taken a morphine pill in 10 years, it hurts like fuck to live, but I don't want to be addicted to it, nor would I want to ruin my liver because of popping pain killers like candy.
Work is good, and anyone who doesn't work is bad and worthless. I'm not saying that those who have retired are worthless, they have worked their fair share already, they can enjoy other activities in life as well, but when you're young your main focus in life should be work and self improvement, live life to make yourself proud to be you, be able to look back at your life and be proud of your road, reaching your goals, etc.
But if you guys want to remain socialists, and hope that everyone around you should give a flying fuck about you and your problems, and help you out, forget about it, if you don't put in effort, others won't either. Now excuse me, while I go cleanse my mind from all of this commie bullshit.
0:00 intro
2:21 what is worker democracy
8:45 myths and realities
17:37 a critical appraisal
29:08 good for workers
38:56 defending worker democracy
51:18 conclusion
52:05 policy bag
Saved me a job, thanks so much
Division of labor
@@PoliticalEconomy101 Your points must be considered and discuss. In my opinion, workers coops are only one of the first passages from a capitalist economy to a truly democratic one
@@PoliticalEconomy101 Two main things.
13) the profit incentive is only against public interest in specific cases such as programmed obsolescence. However, most developed nations prior to the pandemic transitioned to mostly service work, not commodity production, which is not subject to programmed obsolescence. Profit incentives mostly work, and that's the reason most human societies have employed market mechanisms to meet their needs. There is no compelling evidence they always run contrary to public interest.
14) while this idea is fine on the abstract, it does not pan out as intended. This very video shows how different interests cause problems once a collective firm grows large enough, a society-wide coop would be just as disastrous, or be segregated into classes again (as happened in the USSR). Nowhere have we seen an effective and functioning dictatorship of the proletariat that isn't a plain dictatorship. Centralization brings about huge, undemocratic concentrations of power and a number of calculation problems. Not to mention that local needs often conflict with global needs, so central control undermines sovereignity. Your praise of it is backed by zero evidence to support any of your claims.
@@fellinuxvi3541 they run irrespective to public interest I think is the most accurate term. However you seem to be under the illusion that individual economies in the modern day can be separated. The so called first world was deindustrialised as a direct result of the profit incentive. The capitalists used economic and military imperialism to export manufacturing to former colonies where the working class had fewer rights so they could exploit them more extremely this in turn let them break the power of organised labour in their home countries by literally sinking the industries that had the strongest labour organisation. Thatcher, Reagan and all the Mass unemployment and child slavery that ensued from their era and the increasing globalization that came there after. That was due to the capitalist class pursuing their profit incentives. More over in service industries capitalist enterprises are still incentivised to perform their services with as few employees as possible to save on wages. This means the service providing workers are more likely to be overworked and less likely to be as highly skilled at any one thing they do. They are also incentivised to perform services in such a way that will not preclude that they will be called upon again, as long as it is not so bad people will go without. The competition angle is not always good at preventing this as there are many more ways to force people to use your services than simply providing the best service you can. Pricing out competitors, being more wide spread and thus convenient despite sub par service, advertising, the barriers to market entry being too high, that sort of thing.
I’ve been using the Hayek “Localised Knowledge” argument against market fundamentalists for years - none of whom seem to understand! Great work
People get confused when I cite Hayek as a leftist lmao It's always fun
It's because in their minds, the only form of leftism that exists (and can only exist) is Stalinism. Which of course is insane to believe.
The strange thing is that this used to be the argument for capitalism against Soviet style communism. Right now it feels like many are using the Soviet argument that careful planning and large scale are more important than localized knowledge. Wallmarkt functions more like a Soviet style economic branch than a small business.
I have to say, it's fucking exemplary that you said about your conversation with RoseWrist: "Yeah, that's just how adults communicate" and Rose literally just turned 18. Rose is more mature than a vast majority of people.
The difference between me being employed by a factory that goes bankrupt and me owning a share in a factory that goes bankrupt is who gets the money when the factory is sold for parts.
you
I feel like every study is limited by examining co-ops within a capitalist economy. Most of the failings of these co-ops can be explained by their need to compete against other companies to maximize profits for themselves. Cooperatives aren't gonna end capitalism but if I'm gonna have my labor exploited, I'd rather it be done by a company that I at least have some marginal control over.
While this is a true statement by itself, it's not an unfair limitation. This is a real problem coops will continue to face, as capitalism won't be going away anytime soon (that we can confidently predict, anyways) so vaccum experiments might be more misleading than experiments within capitalism.
Sorry to break it to you. But you NEED capitalism in order for worker co ops to work. Otherwise you are just letting government nationalize everything. Which is not really a suitable alternative for anything.
@@cristianluna5568 Capitalism and worker democracy are fundamentally opposed, unless you're talking about markets (capitalism implies hierarchical organization within the market system, in other word private property/capital). Even then, central planning isn't the only alternative to a market system, you can have horizontal/participatory planning instead (Parecon is one example). You can probably find a lot more info here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_economics
The thing about cooperatives is, that they (together with programs (like helping against burn out or good planing for holidays as an example) which improve the Quality of life and the happiness of workers) would probably have a net position effect on the society at large, which would boost stability, happiness and in the end the efficiency of the economy. However because there is no country with mostly worker coops, it is currently impossible to verify this societal effect, so it's hard to make precise point because a lack of data
@@zerologic7912 I am a bit confused by you definitions^^`
An economic system (in my books), that has markets with prices developing by the rules if supply and demand and with the ability to privately own property a capitalist economic system and I think a worker coop can work within the boundaries of such an society.
The existence of a hierarchy isn't a thing I would only contribute to capitalism (except of course you don't think that the eastern block countries don't count as socialist/communist/marxist with your definitions, but than I would be keen to hear you def. Of those terms).
CEO after working on the line: "I'm surprised it's still so... MANUAL"
The robots are coming my friends.
CEO's cost too much money. Solution - Automate CEO's
Nah, slaves cost less.
But in a coop that does not matter. That increase in efficienty can be distributed among workers trough a decrease in workhours while being just as or more productive justifying the same monthly pay.
Which is the big issue here that is totally looked over by the video.
@@baronvonlimbourgh1716 agreed
@@pacotaco1246 lol I wish. They are mostly decorative. Same for plush execs. Top level desk jockeys get paid the most for doing the least. Ugh what an inversion.
Having lived at a 100% income sharing commune that runs a peanut butter factory and hobby farm for four years (and very involved in the business) I found this video interesting and engaging, great job!
How does one go about signing up for that?
Where is that?
I myself would love to here more about this
Omg I love peanut butter.
How do i start one of these?
On the generalizeability of worker coops Id just like to point out something you missed.
While coops only overperform in certain sectors, as you said, they don't underperform in the rest. Thus it seems unlikely that wide-spread adoption would have detrimental effects. And I also just dont buy that people would not understand or not care about such a system. Almost everyone benefits in some way from having a say, even if the company itaelf does not do any better.
Mondragon's issues is it wanting to stay a single cohesive whole despite the contradictions of it's various co-ops wanting to do their own thing.
@@thotslayer9914 Yes but it's under a different username because I prefer to keep youtube seperate from everything else. (And so no, to whatever question you were about to ask afterwards.)
@@thotslayer9914 No? I just said I keep my youtube seperate to everything else.
@@000Dragon50000 Can I have your phone number?
@@THEKING1300 I'm a lesbian, WTF, stop.
@@000Dragon50000 Sorry if it wasn't obvious but I'm 100% joking and making fun of the person asking for your Discord
Worker co-ops are very much still in an experimental phase because of how rare they are to see and how little they are discussed in mainstream culture. As they become a more popular concept, I'm sure it'll be easier to figure out how to resolve the common issues.
Been a member of a supermarket co-op in Montpellier, France for a while now. Mixture of a few full-time and part-time employees and the rest of members/customers volunteer 3hours a month pecking shelves, working the registers and cleaning. It's also only open to members, not the public. It's called La Cagette. Interesting model.
I am all for worker democracy, I would just like to point out that in Italy worker coops are often used more like a tax evasion enabling method to build an enterprise. Membership is often a ruse, wages are shit and especially in social services, municipalities use coops to externalise services to shady and incompetent groups of selected people who love to use the coop excuse to just underpay workers. The situation is better in the "red" regions of center Italy, but non that much. Source: am Italian, worked for coops in the past.
Damn, you can't just win at this game, can you? :(
@@ixian_technocrat it's not all of them; there needs to be a stronger strive towards socialism tho
Kinda like worker unions,that were made to balance the power of the company,but are used to have a "controlled opposition" ,with the unionist selling the rights of the workers for personal gains.
Where there's a man there is always a possibiliy for corruption. Systems engineers have to stay vigilant and patch and impove the systems to be more corruption-proof.
While there are fake co-ops it shouldn't stop the creation for real ones.
Thanks for sharing this. Yeah no doubt, no system is perfect. Hopefully in time this improves somewhat.
The weird thing about this for me is that in wisconsin, where I live, and which is a state that has been aggressively invaded and permanently damaged by conservatives and neoliberalism, they are nonetheless persists in extremely powerful and long-running tradition of people in food industry owning the place where they work and electing their own leadership. All of the Woodman's grocery stores, all of the Fox Brothers Piggly wiggly stores, and a surprising number of farms, restaurants, breweries, and other organizations are worker owned cooperatives, where the workers make all of the decisions concerning hiring and firing and the nature of business.
As such, despite Wisconsin being a rather unpleasant place to live with infamously bad governance and an openly biased legal system that has now openly embraced fascism and white nationalism, there's still a belief among a lot of people that workplaces, at least those within certain industries, should be owned by the people who work there, because at the end of the day the prices, quality of service, selection, and quality of product are all much higher because of this. it's always weird to me that people don't feel this should extend to all industries instead of just your local grocery store or dairy farm, but it is a real and practical demonstration of the fact that workplace democracy cannot only be very effective but can become extremely normalized, even in a society and culture that has decided to so thoroughly embrace a lot of extremely toxic anti-worker right wing beliefs at the governmental and legal level.
It will never not be weird to me that I see these anti-union anti-worker far right nativist politicians refusing to have the servants who buy food for them go to privately owned capitalist focused farms and restaurants while busting unions and decrying workplace democracy. It is 11 of cognitive dissonance and double think that I do not understand
I feel like Wisconsin is more divided than openly white supremacist.
it's almost like conservatives associate politics with culture and not economics... i wonder where they got that idea.....🤷♂️ most conservatives in my family and social group have no idea that they are parroting economic positions that directly hurt their bottom line, because they've been suckered into the idea that merit is actually a reality, that those people deserve more because they bring more to the economy than they do. many people who are conservatives because "favorite team who rah, muh religion" have no efing clue that working class economics is politics. and guess who likes it that way? you guessed it, the politician/CEO/clergyman/sergeant/racist apologist/sexist apologist/grifter/ and so much more.
"It is 11 of cognitive dissonance..." speech-to-text detected!
It's clear you don't share the ideas of the people living there, so why not leave?
I bet Chicago, New York or even Pennsylvania would gladly welcome you with open arms.
@@ghoulbuster1 tyrants don't do that. They want workers to own stuff they didn't build
Just on the prospect of environmental harms by worker coops versus capitalist corporations, I think it's reasonable to assume that work a coop would be superior in this area.
Worker coops are by definition carrying out operations where their owners and managers (the workers) live.
This contrasts with capitalist corporations where the executive decisions are often been taken many miles away from where their environmental consequences will have most impact.
It's very hard to imagine factory or mining operations carried out on the doorsteps of workers and controlled by those workers causing the same kind of environmental destruction that capitalist corporations routinely commit.
It would be an obvious case of shitting on your own doorstep!
I actually don't know about this for sure. Rust belt republicans will regularly vote for the very politicians who create policy that allows for the pollution of their own communities.
Education is critical here, too. If a workforce doesn't even believe climate change exists, for example, then they probably won't vote on policies to curtail it at the expense of their earnings.
@@ShazyShaze
Sure but I am talking about pollution closer to home, like poisoning the water your family drinks or polluting the air with fly ash from a coal plant.
I don't see workers choosing to do that kind of the thing to their own families and neighbors. Doing it "because the boss made me" is very different to being the people actually responsible for the decision. Pretty soon, such people wouldn't be able to show their faces in public.
While I agree that they would probably be less harmful to the local environment, since it directly threatens the living standards of the workers, I don't see that being a significant factor for CO2 emissions (or other non-local effects in general) as it potentially even increases living standards in the short to medium term through higher profits.
@@silphonym
Sure, i agree that it won't directly impact environmental harms that are not solely in the workers' backyard but there is a wider impact to the power of capitalism itself.
The main reason why people don't believe the science on climate is due to a massive and sophisticated misinformation campaign going back decades. That campaign was waged in spite of the knowledge of the damage climate change would cause to billions of lives.
The reason why such a harmful decision was able to be taken was that the people making the decision saw the opportunity for huge profits to themselves (a tiny elite) and believed that that wealth would insulate them from the effects of the crisis.
Only sociopaths can really keep up that kind of thinking for long. Groups of hundreds or thousands of workers with families would not fall into those traps. They would not have billions to gain. In the shoes of the fossil fuel execs, they would not feel safe from the effects of climate change and lastly, most people are NOT sociopaths while, in fact senior execs disproportionately are. Their vast privilege insulates them from caring about "ordinary" people.
Soooo, no massive misinformation campaign, much less denial of the issue and a much more rational response to it.
I am not saying it would be a panacea. But it would I think undoubtedly be much better than what we regularly see today from capitalists.
@@michaelrch I mostly agree. I just wanted to point out that at the stage we are now, just turning every business into a worker co-op (through legislation or magically overnight) probably won't solve climate change or similar issues of global scale.
On the "German Model": In Germany, we in fact have 3 "levels" of Board participation: The one mentioned above, for most companies between 500 and 2000 employees, one for Heavy industries and some other cases with parity between employer and employee representatives, and one for Companies over 2000 employees with parity of employer and employee representation, with the President of the Board having double votes in case of a stalemate.
The companies that are exempt from employees on the board are those with under 500 Employees.
The real deal about the Employee participation in Germany is the workers council, which has a lot more power (They have co-decision or veto rights on things like including, but not limited to: work time, measues controlling workers, worker protection, (Paid) time off rates, firing of employees...)
I hear that some football clubs in Germany are actually worker co-op, is it true?
I really hope that this style of channel becomes more prominent. I love the fact that the hyperbole is curbed in this approach and the strong reliance on academic data with a reasonable dose of skepticism.
this is really specific, no matter how convincing, not many will be able or willing to invest the time you already have, i doubt it will, but i wish it did
The tax incentives also aren't actually that much of a problem since the higher pay of workers does a large part to compensate. The countries where worker co-ops exist get a large amount of their tax money from income taxes and property taxes and so higher wage workers also bring in more tax money from the individual workers.
On top of that a lot of corporations have all kinds of legal, half-legal and illegal method to dodge taxation anyway. So from the perspective of the government giving tax incentives to coops actually brings in more tax money. Private megacorps are also something democratic government don't really like that much as they have the power to seriously interfere with the function of government institutions and the financial resources to facilitate massive amounts of corruption if governments aren't careful.
As well from the macro perspective having many smaller worker corporations is much better than one megacorp because if they fail then it's not that big a deal, they don't present a single massive point of failure.
As a cooperator and workplace democracy innovator, I am very thankful for this video! Very inspiring.
This is so incredibly refreshing. I've been searching for someone to give educated perspectives for both sides of the worker democracy issue. This is great! Thank you so much.
Anyone else always plays the game of "guess the voice reading the quotes"? Always fun to recognize other creators in each others' work
@@WS-dd8ow then you should check out Saint Andrewism. He reads one of the quotes.
i usually either recognize them instantly or can't at all, but sometimes they do a fake accent which throws me off
He sped up Second Thoughts voice lol. By that I mean he raised the pitch. And I could instantly recognize Andrewism's voice lol.
Great take on Worker Democracy, this is a subject I've always wanted to learn more about, being someone who is new to professional working life.
I'm glad you're critical on Mondragon, as, at least in the US, reviews of the company aren't so great - my father nearly worked there, but was warned by
many ex-employees that Mondragon has changed for the worse and treats contractors poorly, with insane working hours.
Aside from that, coming out of a degree in AI, I'm aware that institutions profiting the most from AI are companies at the top (Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc), leaving the influence generated from using this technology left in the hands of the few and powerful. Take Facebook for instance, now the world leader in Computer Vision research. They are left to their own accord to decide the future of the technology. No one outside the company is capable of deciding if the technology is being used ethically.
I'm personally interested in joining (or founding) a cooperative revolved around robotics, as I believe democratic influence of this technology is highly important for the future of equality.
Your video has certainly been positively informative and inspirational in pursuing this goal.
I am also discouraged as someone with a degree in IT that the only places I can find a job are capitalist firms or freelancing. Wish there were some IT co-ops.
I've heard an opinion that worker co-ops do easily fit in the service sector, they have managment difficulties in creative and invention sector.
I've been wondering whether Mandragon will eventually follow the fate of USSR. It seems there are a lot of similarities in the structure. The 'managers' in USSR for a long time were also restricted in the weath and pay they received in the position, but by the end accumulated enough power to break free of those restriction and grab public owned property.
I work in a game development worker co-op. We all have our own equipment already, we're all working part-time (for now), and our membership fee is, quote, "The princely sum of $1!" Makes it a lot easier to get started than other industries where you need a lot of investment to get anything done.
Oh, what, pay? Uh... just... hoping our first game will provide that. ^^;
Hope it works out. Getting somthing out like a game is scary bro.
How it has been for so far?
@@alexxx4434 Well, we did end up having to close the co-op (life circumstances changing, it's a challenge when we need other jobs to keep us going, especially in my case as a disabled person), but this only happened after we finished and released a game. In that sense, we were successful. Many game dev startups don't get that far. I'm really proud of us. 😊
Further, the co-op closing was chosen for the benefit of the workers. Not as a result of, say, a parent company axing us, or a bankruptcy which leaves the workers out in the cold, as I'd expect (and have experienced) from companies. It was incredibly sad, and yet even then, I felt respected and valued as a person like I'd never experienced in any previous workplace. As a whole it was an overall fantastic experience, and I would 100% recommend co-operatives. I would absolutely do it again.
We need an update desperately
@@cardboardking577 An update? My last update (in the replies, if you missed it) mentioned the co-op having to close, so there's not a lot else to say. I would have done it again, but I'm trying to get more disability supports first, because I'm more disabled than I realise. 😅
Ah, its so good to see that nice list of referenced!
As well as hearing the voices of Saint Andrewism, Zoe Bee, and JohnTheDuncan!
This was a really insightful video, more than I had expected. I´m by no means well-versed in economy (one reason I find your channel so good), but I´m still slightly ashamed that the idea of worker democracy like this wasn´t something that had even crossed my mind before this.
As such it was a really interesting topic and I´m happy you treated it with nuance.
I was also happily surprised to hear Zoe´s voice during the readings. All the who read did a great job, and it meshed really well with your presentation.
Thank you for this work, it was very interesting to listen to.
Uhhh, can state enterprise that controlled by Leninist party reorganized like this too?
FINALLY. HE HAS RETURNED.
Did we clear pronouns kek
Thanks to everyone who helped you proof this. It's a complicated set of topics, but you organized it in a way that was easy to follow.
I think providing a veto mechanism or referendum in conventional firms, would be a quick solution to firms that can't or won't transform into coops or other forms of worker democracy. It can atleast stop major layoffs or the notorious CEO bonuses if implemented effectively.
Wow, the YT recommendations did their job for once. I'm thrilled.
First time in an Unlearning Economics video? They're all good, though not all as well produced as this one.
I would prefer not being issued genocide apologia disguised as "economics education", but you do you.
@@XetXetable Which part do you mean?
@@pepi7404 dude probably found this video after a string of FEE vids and doesn't trust any "connected" channel
Because YT.
16:01
As a french, I am really proud to see my country's contribution to establish new economic models by displaying the contradiction of the oldest ones.
😏👌🥖🗼🇫🇷
Co-ops aren't really new, they just remained niche for a long time.
That's the truer democracy. There must be democracy at the workplace.
I think the free rider hypothesis is a nice example of projection. Free riding is usually reserved for managers, CEO's and regular owners...
Great Video! I really liked it.
Some things I want to add:
Worker democracy doesn't really make sense for very small firms (startups), since a) in those firms the importance of the agility an authocratic structure provides is so much more important. Most startups get successful by creating the vision of a few people, and this only really works with an authocratic structure. b) Since the company is so small there are little benefits for using a worker coop (things like workers being more in touch with company decisions don't apply, since if you're just like seven people everybody will be informed anyway).
One of the downsides of workplace democracy not talked much about here is simply burocracy. One person making decisions is much faster than disccussing it over multiple management layers. For these reasons, I believe if worker democracy is ever politically enforced or made mandatory, influence of workers should always scale with the size of a coorporation.
Just wanted to say this was a very interesting and engaging essay about worker democracy; thank you to you and your team!
It has given me a lot to consider about how to discuss these ideas with those in my life. And of course, plenty of fantastic resources to delve into.
Excellent video and worth the wait.....cooperatives (despite some minor drawbacks as outlined in the video) can ameliorate the negatives of capitalism and become an important part of any future post capitalist society
Renewed my enthusiasm for enacting change. Thank you!
I kind of feel that in order to have a successful transition to socialism you'll need a good core of workers cooperatives to help support it. You cant make the switch if no one knows what democracy in the workplace looks like in the first place.
To be fair Second thought's videos are necessarily reductive. He has to effectively get leftist ideas across I'm a span of 10 mins of a video. Spending few minutes talking about it's drawbacks reduces the utility of his videos. His video's are also targets people who are not well versed in these ideas, as a intro.
If people are rational as I hope they are they should think something along the lines of "there has to be more to it" and end up on this video to get a deeper analysis.
While this might be technically true, it's a poor excuse. Oversimplifying complex issues is just propaganda. It does not work any differently here in the left-wing of politics.
@@fellinuxvi3541 I don't mind propaganda towards a generally good idea. Propaganda is all about making people think a certain way. It's an amoral tool in politics. It doesn't mean it's lying necessarily, it means presenting information in a certain way.
STs videos reach a lot more normies, if from his videos people come out thinking that worker democracy is generally a good thing then that has far more social utility than a well researched nuanced video that puts all the chips on the table, but gets very little views. So at the end of the day I don't mind. If however the ideas behind the propaganda is malignant or they use falsities, then I would have a problem.
But yes I would like for ST to say something like "there's far more to this topic than I can cover in this video, so check out the links in the description for further reading", then provide links that take a more nuanced look at the topic. I think that's the best of both worlds.
@@justaguy6216 I don't normally think propaganda towards "a good idea", but we run into the old Socratic problem of rhetoric: who's to judge what is a good idea?
If we don't develop these ideas properly, good ideas can turn bad pretty quickly. This video provides a very good example: creating a law that turns all companies into coops would not achieve the desired result. If the video that reaches more normies installs some false or misleading ideas by virtue of its simplicity, we may quickly reach wrong and even dangerous conclusions. Nuance shouldn't be taken lightly just because we're "right" and coops are a good idea.
I get the strive for consequencialism. Politics is all about consequence, but it's the same problem with "free" markets: they depend on principles like respect for rights, which cannot be up to market mechanisms, otherwise the law is unequal and this in turn, undermines the freedom of the market. The same is true of consequencialism, if we apply consequencialist principles to the quest for truth, we undermine consequencialism, as we lose the ability to judge wether or not we're faced with good ideas and good consequences.
Wow! This video is incredibly educational. You've really sparked an interest for economics in me. Some parts of your videos can be a bit heavy, but that's me being new to much of this. I'm sure I will be able to get a better grasp of the subject in the future.
It's really intersting.
Thanks for making stuff like this:)
Man the animations really bring your videos to another level. I see this channel becoming very big in the future!
Hearing Saint Andrewism's voice genuinely brought a smile to my face 😊
I think when discussing this topic it's worth it to mention regular labour unions as well. We have good data that workers earn a higher proportion of wage growth, when they negotiate with real leverage and form consensual resolutions in a union, than without one. I think when you mentioned boards with minority representation, I think strong unions have a history of stronger negotiating power. Maybe unions are only a stepping stone to worker co-ops, but maybe that only makes them more important. Also many unions are sector wide, where the entire sector can have a sense of standards. If co-ops are also in sector wide unions, they may not compete against each other as much. For instance no co-op is gonna enforce 60 hour work weeks to get an advantage over other co-ops, even if it's more profitable for each co-op individually. Also maybe co-ops in the same union as others not in a co-op may create less inequality between corporations, where people not in a co-op, can now use the benefits co-ops have as leverage. "Why do those guys work less than us? We won't work more than them" says the union members in the non-co-op even if the corporation is not a co-op, if both companies are in the same union.
Good timing, I'm reading Richard Wolfe's Democracy at Work, right now!
worth noting that it can be argued that all the drawbacks you mention about worker cooperatives were not in their inherent structure but in the fact they currently exist within capitalism and a capitalist culture.
- can't easily secure financing (capital is kind of very much restricted in . . . capitalism),
- few people know what they are or know they work (socialism and democracy are still relatively rare in most places and hierarchies),
- they choose the most profitable places to invest and start (literally what capitalists do. capitalism traps both the worker and the capitalist).
it'd be foolish to think that a single federal-level law mandating cooperative structure would work. it's like if you just switched from feudalism to liberal democracy and expected the peasants to be completely acclimated to this new form of decision making. this is why socialists so often stress theory.
additionally, considering that the benefits of non-hierarchical and non-tyrannical hierarchy are not restricted to industry, it seems likely that if cooperatives (or democratic institutions) were not put under additional stressors from outside the firm (outside stressors being the result of existing within capitalism), they would fair perfectly fine regardless of area.
municipally owned and/or government run firms perform considerably better in terms of longevity, lower administrative cost as a percentage of total budget, lower prices for their product/service, and other measures. municipal utilities, mass transit orgs, medicare, social security, the USPS, etc. are all fantastically efficient operations when comparing to their capitalist peers and have no _internal_ democratic structure yet remain in some way accountable to the populous via the elected officials who oversee or appoint internal managers. not to mention they generally don't operate under a profit motive but a motive to provide a good or service. this is something else that is different and not captured in the democracy/dictatorship dichotomy between coops and capitalist enterprise.
whether a firm is profitable has little bearing on whether it is productive or useful to society. telemarketing is profitable, housing the homeless is not. phishing is profitable, farming is not (largely).
Thanks for the food for thought.
Accountable at the macro level, rarely at the microlevel, and workers are still oppressed in government and municipal enterprises, because of hierarchical and bureaucratic structures. Your argument misses the whole point. This is about what power to influence the operation of the enterprises they work in. What service or benefit any enterprise offers to society is always up for debate, and isn't really relevant here. It is whether involving employees in a significant way in the decisions that impact their welfare and economic security in the workplace is actually possible in the here and now. It's the proposition whether workplace democracy as the means to give workers more is desirable and possible. So far, Cooperatives and worker representation on Executive Boards are the two major ways this has been tried. This video has examined the pros and cons of each, and has established that whilst workplace democracy as involving workers in the management of their enterprises is desirable but not always easy or possible without changing the structure of the enterprise. Where and how it could be done is determined by internal and external factors that limit its application under either model. The fact that any enterprise needs to function effectively with workplace democracy is a given.
I think it's a mistake to say that securing capital is only a problem because of capitalism. I would go so far as to say that securing capital is the central problem for any non capitalist approach to markets. There are theories about how one might go about this, such as sovereign wealth funds, but I am not sure we can say there is a clear answer to this.
Securing capital is not difficult because of capitalism. Securing capital under capitalism is broadly pretty easy because people and groups with money are usually keen to invest it. Its inherently more difficult with a worker co-op because whoever invests in them does not get to own the thing they are investing in.
Though remember, just because a business is not private doesn’t mean it won’t exploit workers. After having worked for the USPS for a little while, I can tell you that they still exert tyranny over workers. As a PSE I was expected to work ten or more hours a day starting at 3 AM, with my day off switching from week to week. I got payed a lot more than local market wages, but the boss still exerted total control
I've always thought that it is so insidious how the current system works. I save up money, so I put in the stock market so that blackrock can appoint boards of companies. These boards squeeze their workers to make profits to return my investment. Some of the workers in these companies own shares in my company, and some hedge fund appoints the board of my company on their behalf to squeeze me. Why don't I just help run my company and they run theirs?
Just found your channel and I'm absolutely loving it so far. Keep up the great work!
Honestly if it's of this quality, I could watch a 10 hour video. Keep up the great work man!
I'm sure this video will be good and interesting, but I think the points you make in the first two minutes of this video are basically a slam dunk. Democracy is not and should never be made about efficiency; it's about the requirement of accountability of power that's necessary for people to live decent lives.
This video helped me really put together some of the thoughts I had before into words. I've always felt like one of the biggest problems with modern theories that are popular (and powerful) both in economics and psychology as well (yes, seriously) is that they tend to not really make any sense if you have real experience with the things they're discussing and require you to kind of assume that people are stupid and utterly irrational - they are irrational when the standards are unreasonable, but generally speaking organize themselves well enough, but crude theories always require you to believe that no, people need top-down control and authoritarian rule and are fundamentally untrustworthy in some way. It leads to a kind of cognitive dissonance for me where I feel like I can not learn in an organic manner but instead just have to implicitly trust what I'm receiving and by proxy, who I'm receiving it from. Kind of like some idea of the masses being stupid, and rationality being some robot-like efficiency maximization instead of complex. Thankfully at least psychology has moved away from this kind of hyper-rationality and is now at much more open to subjectivity, affect, implicit knowings, letting a person organize themselves, etc. At least it seems to be the case to me.. but I mostly read practicing clinicians so I'm biased ;p
I feel like the free rider hypothesis also assumes that workers aren't already able to put minimal effort into low wage jobs under capitalism which just isn't the case
Edit: just to clarify what I mean many jobs you can get away with doing little work while still making about the same wage as your coworkers that have gotten raises for whatever reason because either way you're all still making way less than your labor is actually worth and raises are usually done in small increments that will never reach the actual worth of your labor. You can already potentially get a free ride at work you just can't live off of it but neither can anyone else working there
Fantastic summary of the evidence. Our views are largely aligned on this issue in just about every respect, and I am glad that you made sure to mention that worker democracy was not a silver bullet against the failings of capitalism, though I feel that even more common criticisms could have been addressed. For example, you mention a study in how worker co-operatives have similar success in acquiring finance via equity capital when compared with traditional firms, but it should also be worth nothing that this can be a minor concern, even for co-operatives that wish to have the entirely of the company solely owned by the workers. Analysis of the 500 fastest growing firms in the United States over the past 30 to 40 years have found that less than 4 percent of these firms utilize equity capital at all, and those that do tend to be larger firms using it as a tool of flexibility and/or firms that want to gain access to the resources and insights that venture capitalists and angel investors tend to be able to give.
I am mildly disappointed you didn't list off some other potential factors (even more radical ones) in a distributive economy besides worker democracy that can aid in ensuring a good and moral standard of living among the populace. You mentioned welfare, but there's land redistribution, taking away some sectors from firms and delivering it to the commons, separating the role of creating money from that of creating credit (which even Friedman and the IMF have supported before), restructuring of intellectual property protections, and making considerations for equality in the global economy.
This last point is something that is taking off even in mainstream economics as well. I'm currently reading Good Economics for Hard Times, and while I'm occasionally disappointed or frustrated that the authors aren't willing to take some of their findings to what I see as natural conclusions, they still raise excellent points. One of which is the need for wealth and income redistribution, or some form of targeted welfare, as a result of policies surrounding free trade, be they restrictions or a lack of them. If free trade with another country causes pains in one sector of a nation, the state should help alleviate those pains, though I'm concerned bickering over the best way to do so will result in no aid being given at all. Laws that allow employees to put their potential unemployment benefits towards buying back their failing company could be one tool in the toolbox for alleviating this, however. Similarly, if tariffs on a country (usually best reserved for ethical concerns) cause tariffs to be lobbied back, resulting in pains to certain sectors, they can be similarly aided.
This is part of why I buy into Doughnut Economics so much, though I sometimes my enthusiasm for Raworth's model and normative conclusions leaves me blinded to potential downsides (the main issue being that I've been unable to find salient criticism of her work). Raworth steps away from much of the terminology used in the 20th century, because the labels used for economic models 1. are steeped in conventions and assumptions that might best be left in the 20th century and 2. because many of the terms used as rallying points or silver bullets cannot be seen as such. I think this is why she doesn't refer to herself as a market socialist, and rebukes people asking her if she is a capitalist or socialist, despite very explicitly calling for worker ownership of the means of production and empowering of the commons in her 2017 book. While I think that this might result in alienation from those already on board with socialism, it's a bold step in what's probably the right direction, because pinning all of our socioeconomic hopes on only or mainly the question of ownership of the means of production is exceptionally narrow-minded, and continuing to use that terminology as the main talking point loses out on the bigger picture of what economics must look like in the coming decades.
Wait, wasn't this a comment supposed to be talking about worker co-operatives? I digress. Good video.
Not only was your comment supposed to be about worker democracy, that's also the supposed topic of the video. If you're disappointed that he didn't for instance talk about land redistribution, cancel that disappointment out by not only being thankful that the video stays on topic but also that it's not 7 hours long.
@@perfectlyfine1675 7 hours long would be better.
I really like your take on her. Although I might show my centrist biases here, I also believe it's the right move on her part. I think a significant number of socialists are too tightly fused with their own specific interpretation of the word (or "denomination") to see alternatives. One need only look at the problems that Bookchin complained about among fellow anarchists to see this is a pattern within many in the left. So I think their alienation is a small price to pay, if they won't be flexible here, they might as well not be fighting for a better world at all.
@@perfectlyfine1675 Fair, hah. I suppose I just wanted it given a mention, even without extrapolation, because people get tunnel vision on sole components of a distributive economy.
" _If free trade with another country causes pains in one sector of a nation_ " -- Here's another idea about how to prevent that kind of problem: trading blocs (such as the USMCA and the EU) could require each nation to mandate workplace democracy by law (as is done by Germany's _Mitbestimmungsgesetz_) as a prerequisite to membership in the trading bloc.
If working harder leads to only small gains, employees will rationally stop working. Also, under capitalism where working harder leads to nothing at all, those same workers will somehow maximize their productivity.
This work is critical, thank you for explaining the concepts so fluidly! I loved the format of the video. And your wonderful editors and producers and patrons got tons of love from a fan of your channel!!
🖤💜💙💚💙💜🖤
These are important issues, thank you for keeping the left honest and pedantic!! Much love!!!
Thank you for this video. Important work, rad insights mixed w brilliant humor.
What a great work! Loving the critical perspective and analysis.
Insightful and well researched :) Thanks for the vid & looking forward to the next one.
They are more succesful, people working for them are happier, they are more socially responsible, they are at least as productive and innovative. And there are huge ones as well.
They're a win in my book either way. They have few if any downsides.
Thank you for making these videos that make very difficult ideas and research more accessible
cool vid, v much enjoyed it!
one argument I was missing tho, was the potential of worker's democracy concerning social issues or climate change. for example was the Lucas Plan, where 20 percent of the work force were supposed to be fired, because the military products they were manufacturing weren't needed anymore. The workers then formulated a plan how to make socially useful products, like the Hobcart, a vehicle for kids with spina bifida. but ofc the were fired bc capitalism, we really need that revolution mate.
also, what I would throw your way: racism, sexism, etc is cunningly used as a tool by employers, politicians, etc to divide the workers while simultaneously lowering the wage. But without the fear of getting fired or a random wage cut, there would be way less reason to be a bigot. ofc it wouldn't make sexism, racism, homophobia and all that crap disappear bz tomorrow, but the root cause would be eliminated and with the help of workers democracy one would work on bettering the culture. There are a few examples of companies introducing swear jar (eg if a worker would make a sexist joke) after Russian revolution from the bottom up (also to preface, this was in the first years, the soviets still intact, before the stalinist degeneration).
this got quite long, im sorry about that, other than that thank you again for that educational content, never learned that much abt coops within a capitalist system. x
While I don't disagree with the way capitalists use bigotry, the mondragon corporation proves how co-ops can create their own class-division. Who's to say they won't follow the steps of modern capitalists?
Thanks for the breakdown of a complicated topic. Your work is appreciated
@@romitkumar6272 Unfortunately I’ve been incredibly sick for most of the year, which is why I haven’t been able to make videos. Don’t worry, it wasn’t COVID
This was fascinating to listen to, as always. Thank you.
Whenever I'm anxious and stressed thinking about the future, watching your videos always calms my mind. Great video!
Hyped you’re covering this
I'd love to see pilot programs of encouraging or forcing a large percentage of a localized industry being turned into worker coops. That way we could get data
The big thing that is not adressed in this video is that if workers own the business in a worker own cooperative is that workers are the owners of the means of production and thus are the benneficiaries of all increases in efficienty.
Which can be payed either in monetary value or in reduced working hours.
When robots are added to a factory which increase the efficienty of said factory, the increase in efficienty goes completely to the owners of the factory, work becomes more boring and repetitive for workers and the amount of workers is simply reduced and the ones that are left are payed the same as before.
In a coop that invests in robots that increase in efficienty and reduced labour needed to accomplish the same job is then distributed to have workers simply work less. Go from 8 hour shifts to 4 hour shifts while keeping same pay and bennefits because your productivity stays the same.
This is the big thing to solve the technological unemployment problem comming out of automation without the need for exploitative schemes like ubi and the like.
The bottom line is all the wealth going to shareholders created in any business no longer is concentrated in the hands of the ones who contribute the least. In a coop workers/members are the shareholders and at the end of the day that wealth created IS distributed over the masses one way or another as it has nowhere else to go.
THIS IS THE BIG TAKEAWAY OF WORKER COOPERATIVES. The rest are just side issues.
And yes a corperation like shell would be a vastly different company as it is today. As it would reflect the norms and values of the vast amount of people working for them who do not want to live in a poluted world as they are the directly impacted of what shell does.
Shell now reflects the norms and values of the handful of major shareholders who are solely driven by greed and maximising profits as they are not the the ones who are impacted (or can insulate themselves from it trough the massive wealth their less then moral behaviour gives them) by the impact the corperation has on the lives of society as a whole and thus thepeople working there.
Worker cooperatives are about far far more then simple economics and have far reaching and deep impacts on behaviour of the industrial section because it no longer is a conflict between 2 opposing sides with 2 vastly different incentives.
It becomes a situation where these 2 oposing sides with oposing incentives are unified in the same single person. Instead of conflict this forces compromise. If you in function of the shareholder wants to push workers harder to increase profit, you as the worker are directly impacted by that decision as well because you are both.
Your decision as a worker to make life easier for workers directly impacts you as well as you are also the shareholder who loses income by that decision.
This will transform the economy and society as a whole. And is something always completely ignored in discussions about this subject.
This is a well researched and well edited and scripted video that explains the topic in a way that's easy to understand. But what I find the most amazing is how you managed to keep me engaged and even laugh throughout such a long video on such a seemingly dry topic. Also love that you're collaborating with other small but great TH-camrs. Thoroughly enjoyed this!
the companies we work for are just basically feudal systems. democracy and capitalism are at odds with each other. best course of action is to band together with your coworkers and write a declaration of independence against your shareholders.
I love your channel man. Thank you very much for your hard work.
I'll be honest, I've never really liked economics; I've always found it boring and hard follow (which for me is weird because a love math and the such). However, this video was really well done and I learned a lot. Thanks for making it.
Economics isn't half as beautiful of a field of study as mathematics is. I completely get that you'd be into maths over econ.
around 19:25 I'm Italian and I find necessary to clarify that a good percentage of Italian coops are such only on paper, with democracy beeing only a formal facade and, in practice, they are a cover up for tax avoidance and notorious for bad pay and condition.
Wonderful review of the economics and sociology of worker co-ops!
I'm always happy when I recognize a voice from one of the read-out-loud parts.
One issue that is particularly bad in America are companies being run by the shareholders. It's so bad that the WEF is even recommending transitioning away from shareholder to stakeholder policies! Still, I would love to see some government policies regulating shareholder's influence on companies. It's crazy that some random rich dude can buy controlling stake in a company, cut the staff in half artificially boosting profits, then sell after what looks like a great quarter, screwing over everyone involved.
Marcora Law, that's brilliant, we should all really do that, I can't even see bootstrapping conservatives being against that!
It's amazing that people like Mr. Beat talk so much about "Democracy VS Dictatorship", but it NEVER dawns on anyone the topic of ECONOMIC democracy and ECONOMIC dictatorship.
Can you REALLY say you live in a "democracy" when the economy, the stuff everyone relies on to survive and be able to produce things, is controlled by a minority of owners? Do you NOT see what's wrong with this?
A REAL democracy is a place where the ECONOMY is democratically controlled as well.
An hour of detailed analysis of worker coops?! Excellent.
Even in massive workers cooperatives, such as the Mondragon Corporation of Spain still have divisions of labor, managerial positions, ect. That said, they offer a wildly different working experience than a traditional extractive service industry job as that shared ownership absolutely encourages direct investment in work affairs.
Regarding financing, perhaps the Government could use a (Georgist) land value tax to support worker co-ops' financial needs and (Abundantly) More* Affordable/Free Housing to house workers (including accessible homes for disabled people).
Thank you for a highly educational video on this subject. I appreciate your academic approach towards divisive political topics and I hope you will be continuing this in the future.
This is why you're one of my favorite people to send Patreon money to. Keep up the good work dude.
You have such a balanced approach to the topic that I’ve to say I want to hear you cover more topics. The animations where very good too.
I wish we had shorter and shareable bits of this info cause not everyone is invested in the topic to go thru an hour of content
The idea that you'd put less effort in because you earn a share is really stupid for the simple reason that you get out the more you put in collectively.
Apply this idea instead to standard capitalist firm.
I work hard, I get standard pay. I work average, I get standard pay. I work badly, I get standard pay or fired. Me working hard in such a case only provides more for the owners, not for me and my co-workers.
Now this is quality content. Thank you for your hard work. It shows
Frances “developed” worker coop sector employs less than .2% of the country’s 27m plus workers
Not much to say this time but just wanted to say how much I appreciate your video essays. I truly feel like these are some of the best reasoned and well spoken ones I listen to/watch (and I listen to/watch many), so thank you and please keep doing them. :)
I think I agree with worker Co-Ops not being perfect for every type of sector, for example in terms of banking a much more fair system are building societies, where the people who have money in the bank own it and can elect members, seen as the function of the bank is based off for their money, which is an advantage seen as Building societies are already very popular especially in the UK. Also in terms of public sector jobs these would inherently be non democratic workplaces.
banks should all be burned to the ground. and everyone who wants them to exist should be locked inside before the flames start lol (half joking, but i know most power addicts who enjoy the things banks do like mass discrimination and class warfare would rather die than not be able to harm others) in all seriousness, there is no practical and justifiable reason banks need to exist. they only make capitalism lose its credibility as a system imo
@@saturationstation1446 found the anarchist:D
Imagine a bank that works for the community, without singular peaks in wealth distribution so obscene they warrant private control of the bank.
There is more out there than private ownership/control and fire lmao
And btw the capitalist gives justification for it: banks have systemic value and should not only be solved but treated like water supply. Essential.
@@saturationstation1446 what about for mortgages that's pretty helpful, without them most people would be renting for a majority of their lives, or living in substandard and inadequately sized housing
Worker participation in public institutions can actually also give many benefits, because they know more about what they are doing than bureaucrats.
I find the "free rider problem" hilarious because that problem is actually far more common in typical capitalist ventures where you have an adversarial relationship with your boss.