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About 20 years ago I first heard about co-ops, and I thought it was a great idea. So I literally bought every book on the subject that I could find (spent many
by MrTonyD 9y ago
About 20 years ago I first heard about co-ops, and I thought it was a great idea. So I literally bought every book on the subject that I could find (spent many hundreds) and read all those books. There is a long and rich history of co-ops worldwide. My take away: Most co-ops end up either failing or replicating a power hierarchy - with workers on the losing end. Very few avoid that end, and those that do are those that either exist in markets where they don't have to execute perfectly (such as many successful businesses today) or those that figure out some way to cultivate leaders who make good business decisions (giving them a market advantage, and again letting them operate without exploiting their workers.) In other words, markets still operate as markets, and force business to operate in particular ways unless they can create what are sometimes called "effective monopolies" (based on regions or differentiation or some other advantage). I've become convinced that we need to change the way markets compete if we want any real change.
- TeMPOraL 9y agoAgreed. The root of the problem is that exploiting workers can - and usually does - give one a competitive advantage. If we can somehow fix this, the entire problem will solve itself.
- frubar 9y agoIsn't it more of a game theory situation? If your competitors exploit their workers and you don't then you will be too expensive?
- TeMPOraL 9y agoYes. That's exactly what I meant by referring to competitive advantage.
- aeorgnoieang 9y agoAre you accounting for the benefit to workers of not having (some) authority? Decision-making itself can be extremely stressful! Ceding authority to someone else also relieves you of the associated responsibility and that can and probably does have significant benefits e.g., psychologically, emotionally. Consider a pretty analogous industry – musicians, musical artists, etc. I've noticed that a lot of 'bands' I like are really 'dictatorships' run by a single highly-motivated artist that recruits other musicians to act as 'employees' to realize their, the dictator's, vision. It doesn't seem inherently bad to allow people to be employees. Regardless, it seems impossibly to perfectly negate any advantages (or disadvantages) of "exploiting workers". I think a better vision is to help and encourage everyone to become more 'powerful', e.g. more skilled, wealthier, open to more possibilities. But I also admit I don't have a plan to prevent the already-powerful from becoming more powerful themselves, and at a faster rate than everyone else. I'm still undecided whether that's generally good or bad. Perhaps it's (effectively) undecidable!
- TeMPOraL 9y agoI agree. IMO, the problem is not that companies aren't made of equals. Hierarchies serve a valuable function. The problem is that the lower bound of how much the bottom of the hierarchy can be abused is far too low. I don't think we need to abolish hierarchies - just raise the floor.