4 ms·

Yes that is the implication. Starting something requires raising money and organizing things. Generally, at the start, only a small number of people care to do

by rcme 3y ago

Yes that is the implication. Starting something requires raising money and organizing things. Generally, at the start, only a small number of people care to do this work. And once they do it, why would they give their ownership stake away to their employees when they could just keep it for themselves?

deleted 3y ago
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salawat 3y ago
Boredom. (You have to be insane to whip something up and get it moving. Some thrive doing just that, but suffer under steady state stagnation.)
sam0x17 3y ago
Practically anyone already wanting to work at such a place would care to do it with the proper resources. Imagine if you could easily get a government grant to start such a co-op...
- rcme 3y ago
  Even if we're imaging a scenario with free government money, I'm not sure a co-op makes sense because of the financial incentives at the heart of capitalism. Imagine you could get government money to start a co-op or take private investment and maintain a large ownership stake in the business? Isn't the upside way higher for you if you go the private investment route? Of course, the government could subsidize co-ops to the degree that financial incentives of starting a co-op outweigh the financial incentives from starting a traditional business, and maybe they should do that, but it's not how our curent market is structured.
  - hnbad 3y ago
    This assumes all founders act as rational economic actors. Yes, it's hard to pivot from a traditional corporation to a co-op because of capitalism, but there are plenty of people who love the idea of a co-op but either don't have the capital or where the available capital is not evenly distributed among those interested to found the co-op with them. Amazingly, most humans do not do primarily what has the biggest economic advantages for them but what they think aligns best with who they think they are or want to be. Speaking from personal experience, as a founder who does not come from wealth the biggest reasons not to pivot to a co-op are that you're giving up control over something you created, you have a lot of money caught up in it that could have instead gone towards your personal life and that someone you hired as an employee is not necessarily interested in becoming a co-owner (e.g. if your country has workers rights they might be losing access to certain guarantees and benefits by doing so). Your wording is also needlessly abrasive. The government subsidies a large part of the economy like agriculture and fossil fuels (this is true in Germany and also seems to be the case in the US). Calling subsidies "free government money" suggests this is unheard of and unrealistic. If we want to go full utopia, the government could not simply subsidize co-ops, it could mandate them, e.g. by enacting a law that requires non-publicly traded businesses above a certain size to be worker-owned (with all liabilities to the founders being converted to standard loans) and prohibiting natural persons from holding more than a given percentage of any publicly traded company to shut down the potential loophole of just going public. It's the government. It's what allows corporations to exist so it could also restrict them.
    - rcme 3y ago
      I don’t think my words were abrasive. I was just pointing out that there exists financial incentives that disfavor co-op formation. If my argument, which is opposed to your argument, assumes “founders act as rational market participants” doesn’t that imply your argument assumes market participants act irrationally? Of course people act irrationally all the time, but what seems more likely on the whole, especially in regard to money?
      - hnbad 3y ago
        Friend, I have worked in advertising. The entire industry hinges on humans acting irrationally in regard to money. Humans are irrational actors. The rational homo economicus is an abstraction to give economists something to work with. Corporations act somewhat rationally in aggregate only because the people in charge of them are bound to do so by law. And even this breaks down when the corporation is directly run by one person who also owns it. "Market participants" is not what we're talking about. "Market participants" includes corporations and other forms of organizations that impose strict controls on their own behavior. We're talking about humans. And humans are very irrational. They're just also very good at rationalizing their irrational behavior and prefer doing things they can rationalize.
- JamesBarney 3y ago
  The problem isn't the number of people willing to risk someone else's money to start a company but their own. We could turn the government into a giant VC. I'm not bullish on the results.
berkes 3y ago
If that's true (I doubt it) the reverse has to be true too: that those great at starting (a restaurant) are bad at sustaining it. If there are distinct phases, and certain people or topologies are good at just one of those phases, then it follows that people starting restaurants must be bad at running them once they've established.
- ghiculescu 3y ago
  That doesn’t follow at all. There’s no reason you can’t be good at both.
  - berkes 3y ago
    Yes. Which is why the comment I replied to is nonsense.
    - ghiculescu 3y ago
      No it’s not. You haven’t refuted the claim that starting a restaurant requires momey. You just said having money makes you bad at running a restaurant. Which is silly.
      - deleted 3y ago
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- deleted 3y ago
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secretsatan 3y ago
It strikes me that an argument against that is that it is too expensive to setup a business
sdenton4 3y ago
As I recall, Arizmendi spun out of Cheeseboard... So, yes, we also have examples where worker coops beget other worker coops. http://www.arizmendi.coop/about-arizmendi-association.html http://www.arizmendi.coop/about-arizmendi-association.html IMO, the reason you don't see more is that us financing is quite conservative and unwilling to risk "unusual" business models. (Similarly, finding a mortgage for shared housing requires a lot of extra work, because the mortgage brokers only like nuclear families... Even when you show up with four incomes and no kids, it's still considered risky because unusual.) Which is to say... The smallish number of worker coops in the US has nothing to do with the rarity of magical founder people... I'll say that the folks I've known in housing and worker coops have a much higher rates creativity, grit, and organizational chops than anyone I've met from a business school. And, indeed, many of them are now run their own businesses in a wide range of endeavours.
deleted 3y ago
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by rcme 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

salawat 3y ago

Boredom. (You have to be insane to whip something up and get it moving. Some thrive doing just that, but suffer under steady state stagnation.)

sam0x17 3y ago

Practically anyone already wanting to work at such a place would care to do it with the proper resources. Imagine if you could easily get a government grant to start such a co-op...

rcme 3y ago
Even if we're imaging a scenario with free government money, I'm not sure a co-op makes sense because of the financial incentives at the heart of capitalism. Imagine you could get government money to start a co-op or take private investment and maintain a large ownership stake in the business? Isn't the upside way higher for you if you go the private investment route? Of course, the government could subsidize co-ops to the degree that financial incentives of starting a co-op outweigh the financial incentives from starting a traditional business, and maybe they should do that, but it's not how our curent market is structured.
- hnbad 3y ago
  This assumes all founders act as rational economic actors. Yes, it's hard to pivot from a traditional corporation to a co-op because of capitalism, but there are plenty of people who love the idea of a co-op but either don't have the capital or where the available capital is not evenly distributed among those interested to found the co-op with them. Amazingly, most humans do not do primarily what has the biggest economic advantages for them but what they think aligns best with who they think they are or want to be. Speaking from personal experience, as a founder who does not come from wealth the biggest reasons not to pivot to a co-op are that you're giving up control over something you created, you have a lot of money caught up in it that could have instead gone towards your personal life and that someone you hired as an employee is not necessarily interested in becoming a co-owner (e.g. if your country has workers rights they might be losing access to certain guarantees and benefits by doing so). Your wording is also needlessly abrasive. The government subsidies a large part of the economy like agriculture and fossil fuels (this is true in Germany and also seems to be the case in the US). Calling subsidies "free government money" suggests this is unheard of and unrealistic. If we want to go full utopia, the government could not simply subsidize co-ops, it could mandate them, e.g. by enacting a law that requires non-publicly traded businesses above a certain size to be worker-owned (with all liabilities to the founders being converted to standard loans) and prohibiting natural persons from holding more than a given percentage of any publicly traded company to shut down the potential loophole of just going public. It's the government. It's what allows corporations to exist so it could also restrict them.
  - rcme 3y ago
    I don’t think my words were abrasive. I was just pointing out that there exists financial incentives that disfavor co-op formation. If my argument, which is opposed to your argument, assumes “founders act as rational market participants” doesn’t that imply your argument assumes market participants act irrationally? Of course people act irrationally all the time, but what seems more likely on the whole, especially in regard to money?
    - hnbad 3y ago
      Friend, I have worked in advertising. The entire industry hinges on humans acting irrationally in regard to money. Humans are irrational actors. The rational homo economicus is an abstraction to give economists something to work with. Corporations act somewhat rationally in aggregate only because the people in charge of them are bound to do so by law. And even this breaks down when the corporation is directly run by one person who also owns it. "Market participants" is not what we're talking about. "Market participants" includes corporations and other forms of organizations that impose strict controls on their own behavior. We're talking about humans. And humans are very irrational. They're just also very good at rationalizing their irrational behavior and prefer doing things they can rationalize.
JamesBarney 3y ago
The problem isn't the number of people willing to risk someone else's money to start a company but their own. We could turn the government into a giant VC. I'm not bullish on the results.

berkes 3y ago

If that's true (I doubt it) the reverse has to be true too: that those great at starting (a restaurant) are bad at sustaining it. If there are distinct phases, and certain people or topologies are good at just one of those phases, then it follows that people starting restaurants must be bad at running them once they've established.

ghiculescu 3y ago
That doesn’t follow at all. There’s no reason you can’t be good at both.
- berkes 3y ago
  Yes. Which is why the comment I replied to is nonsense.
  - ghiculescu 3y ago
    No it’s not. You haven’t refuted the claim that starting a restaurant requires momey. You just said having money makes you bad at running a restaurant. Which is silly.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
deleted 3y ago
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secretsatan 3y ago

It strikes me that an argument against that is that it is too expensive to setup a business

sdenton4 3y ago

As I recall, Arizmendi spun out of Cheeseboard... So, yes, we also have examples where worker coops beget other worker coops. http://www.arizmendi.coop/about-arizmendi-association.html http://www.arizmendi.coop/about-arizmendi-association.html IMO, the reason you don't see more is that us financing is quite conservative and unwilling to risk "unusual" business models. (Similarly, finding a mortgage for shared housing requires a lot of extra work, because the mortgage brokers only like nuclear families... Even when you show up with four incomes and no kids, it's still considered risky because unusual.) Which is to say... The smallish number of worker coops in the US has nothing to do with the rarity of magical founder people... I'll say that the folks I've known in housing and worker coops have a much higher rates creativity, grit, and organizational chops than anyone I've met from a business school. And, indeed, many of them are now run their own businesses in a wide range of endeavours.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]