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Im from that region. Coop are anti-meritocracy. Many times the coops is a way to bypass tax and rules and do unfair concurrency. Coops give low pay to workers a
by fbn79 9y ago
Im from that region. Coop are anti-meritocracy. Many times the coops is a way to bypass tax and rules and do unfair concurrency. Coops give low pay to workers and they can because workers are considered company members. Coops are very politically connected and many time implied in corruption cases.
- luckydata 9y agoconcurrency = I think you mean "competition". source: My native language is also Italian
- theseatoms 9y agoInteresting. What Italian word best maps to "concurrency"?
- usrusr 9y agoProbably something that is close to the German "Konkurrenz" (edit: which "maps" to concurrency, by the unwritten rules of how English and German map their respective loan words from Latin, but translates perfectly to competition, but not at all to concurrency)
- toyg 9y agoThe correct translation is "parallellismo", which has an obvious etymology.
- DeusExMachina 9y agoThe original mistake derives from the fact that the word for "competition" is "concorrenza" in Italian. That is the most common meaning, but "concorrenza" also has a very uncommon one, which is indeed "concurrency". This is not much of a surprise though. The Latin origin of both words is "cum currere" which means "run together. Why it got to mean competition in Italian I don't know. (It must be noted though that the verb "concorrere" keeps the meaning of running together and does not mean to compete. For that the verb is "competere") But no one would use "concorrenza" for "concurrency" in Italy. The best substitutes that come to mind are "parallelismo", or, less common "concomitanza". (Yes, I'm Italian too)
- davidw 9y agoCompetere then goes off to do duty as something like 'be responsible for': https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/italian-english/non-mi-compete https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/italian-engl... Languages don't line up 1-to-1 (I'm from Oregon)
- DeusExMachina 9y agoIndeed, that's another meaning. The noun "competenza" (competence) comes from this meaning. Laungages are fun, aren't they? But notice that in the example you linked, there is the pronoun "mi" (to me). A pronoun that indicates the recipient is required for that meaning (it would be a dative case in Latin or other langage with cases). "To compete with someone" instead requires the preposition "con" (with)
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- mseebach 9y ago> which means "run together. Why it got to mean competition in Italian I don't know That seems obvious? To compete, you have to "run" (perform whatever activity you compete in) "together" (same activity, same time) with the other guy? Most literal example is a (running) race, which is a competition, literally featuring people running together.
- jbn 9y agoFunny, the same confusion exists in French "concurrence" can mean either "concurrency" or "competition". Here the meaning one aimed for was indeed "competition".
- kiliantics 9y agoGerman too: competition is "Konkurrenz", though concurrency would be "Gleichzeitigkeit" - literally, same-time-ness
- CaptainZapp 9y agoWhile we're onto German, I always thought that eventually is the most confusing English word for a German speaker; an evil twin, so to speak. While the German eventuell means possibly, the English word means that something will happen definitely, but at a later, unspecified time. This can be confusing even to people who are well versed in both languages.
- kiliantics 9y agoThat one definitely confused me for far too long. If you've never read it, Mark Twain has an excellent little piece on German: https://www.cs.utah.edu/~gback/awfgrmlg.html https://www.cs.utah.edu/~gback/awfgrmlg.html
- azernik 9y agoIn Spanish, I believe it's only used to mean competition.
- wahern 9y agoAll of those things could be true and coops still be preferable to the alternatives.
- kiliantics 9y agoI think so too. In principle, the workers still have democratic decision-making power in the operation of the co-operative. So a functioning co-op is still better than any hierarchical corporations, which usually suffer from the same problems anyway.
- hueving 9y agoWhy do you think democratic decision making in a corporation is a good thing?
- andrepd 9y agoPrevents the grave unequal power balance between workers and owners, by doing away with the concept of "owner" entirely.
- hueving 9y agoBut that has nothing to do with optimal outcomes for a business or the optimal utility for society. Also, it doesn't dispose of the concept of owner. It's exactly like a publicly traded company with shareholders. The only difference is that the shareholders are restricted.
- kiliantics 9y agoif "optimal" outcome for a business comes at the expense of conditions for workers, then I wouldn't consider it optimal
- skookumchuck 9y agoIn America, at least, any group of workers are free to form a coop. It's perfectly legal. Why not give it a try, and report back to us how it worked out?
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago>Coops give low pay to workers and they can because workers are considered company members. How is this the case? I was under the impression that since workers were company members they would exert more pressure to increase wages.
- qubex 9y agoNo, insofar as they are cooperative members, they're assumed to have fringe benefits (of some intangible, prospective nature) that compensate for the lower pay. The assumption, I suppose (hackneyed though it may be) is that if people are willing to work for lower pay, they must have some other benefit that brings them up to par with other employment opportunities. And no, Italian law makes desperately little sense.
- ryanbrunner 9y agoSo is this a case of the co-ops just not making enough to pay everyone a decent amount, or is a higher-up still taking a significant chunk of the profits? If the latter, what's preventing the workers from voting against that?
- Nomentatus 9y agoI've been an employee of a Canadian Co-op, and the union and the company were really the same thing (a captured union)... so where will you vote? Nearly the worst working conditions I've ever encountered.
- fallingfrog 9y agoI believe you, but that's just a bizarre situation because a) in a coop do you not just vote on who the management is and how salaries and working conditions are set? And b) your coop needs a union??? Representing the workers against who? We must not have the same definition of coop. Again I'm not saying you're making anything up, that's just quite astonishing.
- coliveira 9y ago> Coops are very politically connected and many time implied in corruption cases. I don't see how this is any different from non-cooperative companies.
- mc32 9y agoThat's the point. They are no better, but we may have the romantic expectation they would be better than that.
- coliveira 9y agoI thought your point was to make coops to look worse than standard companies. If they are the same, then I prefer coops because you have more social control, rather than a company that is only interested in delivering profits to their shareholders.
- tomcooks 9y agoThe difference is that italian non-coops avoid talking about themselves as saviours of the proletariat
- TomK32 9y agoThe problem isn't coops, the problem is individuals.
- Nomentatus 9y agoIt's hard to have co-ops without involving at least some individuals, of course, and my experience is that sooner or later the wrong individuals get ahold of every co-op I've been a part of - perhaps because the wicked are willing to put in the time, to capture it.
- DeusExMachina 9y agoThose damn, pesky humans. They tend to ruin every utopia that works great on paper.
- throwawaymanbot 9y agowow.. if you think Italian coops are low paying and corrupt politicians... wait till you hear about American Corporatism!!!!!
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- walshemj 9y agoWell yes you might pay lower wages but make it up in more tax efficient dividends. - certainly being a member of a UK coop does have some advantages. It is true that coops ae inherently political as all the members should be taking part in the internal democracy.
- toyg 9y agoThat’s one of the things that work well at small scale (no real boss! Democacy! Sensible decisions!) but tends to fail at scale: i am a coop member (UK) and even a building society member (which is basically the same thing, just dedicated to real estate and banking), but I just can’t get myself to vote, because I don’t know anything about the candidates or the dynamics. I think co-ops are great for actual workers (i witnessed myself the best side of this), but once they grow they inevitably onboard a lot of other people and the whole concept goes a bit out of the window. There is also the pathology of a cooperative that needs to change to survive, but it’s forbidden doing so by members. E.g. a transport coop with a lot of buggy-whip technicians will find it hard to switch to a car-based model, because “buggy-whippers” are not going to vote themselves out of a job.
- znpy 9y agoAs a fellow italian, I am glad to see people from Emilia Romagna pointing out that there are downsides too.