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> Which explains so many of the comments here. It's hard to imagine something you've never really experienced. Or... they just disagree with the assumption th

by jonahx 4y ago

> Which explains so many of the comments here. It's hard to imagine something you've never really experienced. Or... they just disagree with the assumption that it's even possible for such "egalitarian structures" to exist at scale. In fact, their position might be based on a preponderance of experience. The "lack of experience" / "you just haven’t seen a good one yet" framing strikes me as a rhetorical strategy to establish the thing you need to show.

zozbot234 4y ago
> Or... they just disagree with the assumption that it's even possible for such "egalitarian structures" to exist at scale. Of course it's possible. Market structures (including "smart markets", with elaborate and perhaps quasi-arbitrary rulesets driving desired outcomes) are quite egalitarian, and can easily scale up to thousands or perhaps millions of participants. The relevant question is when and why quasi-hierarchical organizations might become desirable compared to a market or agoric structure made up of arms-length, strictly codified interactions.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago
  > Market structures (including "smart markets", with elaborate and perhaps quasi-arbitrary rulesets driving desired outcomes) are quite egalitarian Even smart markets aren’t egalitarian. See for example the response to the DAO hack. And real markets aren’t egalitarian, see the bailouts.
  - lliamander 4y ago
    > And real markets aren’t egalitarian, see the bailouts A market as heavily regulated, subsidized, and insured by the government as banking is hardly a central example of a "real market". That being said, I'm not even sure what people mean by "egalitarian" in this context, and so I don't know whether the term should be applied to markets or not.
djokkataja 4y ago
> Or... they just disagree with the assumption that it's even possible for such "egalitarian structures" to exist at scale. As the gp said: > And there is proof in the many worker cooperatives that have been successful. We would do well to not simply write that off. The Japanese Consumers' Co-operative Union has 314 member societies with 30 million members (https://jccu.coop/eng/jccu/who-we-are.html https://jccu.coop/eng/jccu/who-we-are.html). But from the About Us / Profile page, it says they only have 1440 employees, so that doesn't seem like that big of a company. The Mondragon Corporation had 81,507 employees in 2019 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation). But that's only the 7th-largest company in Spain by asset turnover. How about Crédit Agricole Group? > Crédit Agricole Group is the largest financial sponsor of the French economy (10th largest bank in the world by total assets, 48 countries covered, 142 000 employees, 52 million customers worldwide). https://international.groupecreditagricole.com/en/credit-agricole-group https://international.groupecreditagricole.com/en/credit-agr...
dbingham 4y ago
Yes, as djokkataja points out, and as I pretty clearly alluded to in my post - it's not an assumption. These structures exist and are successful. They are successfully competing in the global markets against more traditional hierarchical corporations. Mondragon is the canonical example of this working at scale, but there are many others. A more familiar name, if you're in the United States, is Equal Exchange - you may have come across their coffee and chocolate at Whole Foods. There are many, many, many smaller ones (housing cooperatives, small cooperative cafes, collectives, and so on). They are more common than most people realize, but still rare enough that the vast majority of people probably won't have had experience with successful ones.

by jonahx 4y ago

zozbot234 4y ago

> Or... they just disagree with the assumption that it's even possible for such "egalitarian structures" to exist at scale. Of course it's possible. Market structures (including "smart markets", with elaborate and perhaps quasi-arbitrary rulesets driving desired outcomes) are quite egalitarian, and can easily scale up to thousands or perhaps millions of participants. The relevant question is when and why quasi-hierarchical organizations might become desirable compared to a market or agoric structure made up of arms-length, strictly codified interactions.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago
> Market structures (including "smart markets", with elaborate and perhaps quasi-arbitrary rulesets driving desired outcomes) are quite egalitarian Even smart markets aren’t egalitarian. See for example the response to the DAO hack. And real markets aren’t egalitarian, see the bailouts.
- lliamander 4y ago
  > And real markets aren’t egalitarian, see the bailouts A market as heavily regulated, subsidized, and insured by the government as banking is hardly a central example of a "real market". That being said, I'm not even sure what people mean by "egalitarian" in this context, and so I don't know whether the term should be applied to markets or not.

djokkataja 4y ago

> Or... they just disagree with the assumption that it's even possible for such "egalitarian structures" to exist at scale. As the gp said: > And there is proof in the many worker cooperatives that have been successful. We would do well to not simply write that off. The Japanese Consumers' Co-operative Union has 314 member societies with 30 million members (https://jccu.coop/eng/jccu/who-we-are.html https://jccu.coop/eng/jccu/who-we-are.html). But from the About Us / Profile page, it says they only have 1440 employees, so that doesn't seem like that big of a company. The Mondragon Corporation had 81,507 employees in 2019 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation). But that's only the 7th-largest company in Spain by asset turnover. How about Crédit Agricole Group? > Crédit Agricole Group is the largest financial sponsor of the French economy (10th largest bank in the world by total assets, 48 countries covered, 142 000 employees, 52 million customers worldwide). https://international.groupecreditagricole.com/en/credit-agricole-group https://international.groupecreditagricole.com/en/credit-agr...

dbingham 4y ago

Yes, as djokkataja points out, and as I pretty clearly alluded to in my post - it's not an assumption. These structures exist and are successful. They are successfully competing in the global markets against more traditional hierarchical corporations. Mondragon is the canonical example of this working at scale, but there are many others. A more familiar name, if you're in the United States, is Equal Exchange - you may have come across their coffee and chocolate at Whole Foods. There are many, many, many smaller ones (housing cooperatives, small cooperative cafes, collectives, and so on). They are more common than most people realize, but still rare enough that the vast majority of people probably won't have had experience with successful ones.