I think cooperatives are very important. Open source development is a kind of cooperative effort ... without the formality. Having said that, human organizati

I think cooperatives are very important. Open source development is a kind of cooperative effort ... without the formality. Having said that, human organization issues are often the downfall of cooperatives for highly compensated and highly skilled labor. One of the reasons programmer cooperatives don't last more than 2-4 years is because the best ones bring in the best clients, and the other programmers start to free ride. Apart from this, the best programmers also often get poached by other organizations ... either through employment or through direct contracts. In practice, I think the biggest value cooperatives bring in a country like the US is that they can provide healthcare and retirement plans through scale, which would not be available to an independent freelancer. The explosion of online communities and meetups in the last decade has made the other benefits of cooperatives (like camaraderie, reputation management, client sourcing, and knowledge sharing) less valuable.