Everything you own is an investment in your portfolio. It's just that some things have shitty returns or lose value. Some don't have any value to resell. In an

Everything you own is an investment in your portfolio. It's just that some things have shitty returns or lose value. Some don't have any value to resell. In any case, joining a coop usually means you have to buy some shares in the "company". This may be disguised in some form or another, maybe through withholding some wage initially. But in order to get a share of the profit you need to own a share in the coop. This is what "employee-owned" means. So the employees do have their own capital involved in the company with all the implications: A risk of the shares devaluing and loss of opportunity to do something else with that capital. And if the wages are higher than somewhere else, than they are part of the return on investment. If none of that is the case, it's not a coop but rather a not-for-profit.