5 ms·

Just to point out a demonstrated, viable, successful reality achieved under different values and assumptions, the Mondragon Corporation/cooperative produces car

by abeppu 3y ago

Just to point out a demonstrated, viable, successful reality achieved under different values and assumptions, the Mondragon Corporation/cooperative produces car parts, among many other things, and has pre-agreed ratios for wages for executives relative to the lowest wages paid to workers, and this tops out at 9:1. Studies have found that worker-owned coops have a greater survival rate than conventional businesses, and that they have higher productivity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation#Wage_regulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation#Wage_reg... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative#Longevity_and_resilience https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative#Longevity_a...

reddozen 3y ago
Mondragon is not a worker cooperative. They have a three-tiered worked system[0] with clear hierarchical structures and differences in voting power. The temporary worker tier (largest) having no voting power whatsoever. [0] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/290978631_The_Mondragon_Co-operatives_and_Global_Capitalism_A_Critical_Analysis https://www.researchgate.net/publication/290978631_The_Mondr...
- thelastgallon 3y ago
  "cooperatives don't have to treat everyone exactly the same. You can have different "classes" of members. some ideas about how to offer "founder incentives" in workers cooperatives." From a recent HN comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37304911 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37304911
  - reddozen 3y ago
    If you want to come up with a different word sure, I would just call whatever you defined there as traditional a corporation. But worker cooperatives is known as "one worker, one vote" and anarcho syndicalists like Richard Wolff wouldn't consider that a worker cooperative anymore.
    - abeppu 3y ago
      I think this the least constructive kind of unhinged purity-based framing. You're right about one thing -- Mondragon isn't a cooperative; it's a federation of cooperatives. I note that the paper you linked to by Kasmir points out what the author sees as failings, but from my quick reading it does not say that Mondragon co-ops are not co-ops. I think you're on that branch alone. But also, Kasmir seems to be faulting co-op members for some lack of ideological purity, and frankly, for failing to live up to the aspirations that others have built around them, which aren't their responsibility. > Many academics and social justice activists alike — maintain that co-ops promise a more democratic and just form of capitalism and even sow the seeds of socialism within capitalist society. > Co-op members voted to pursue an international strategy to open these firms, and, thus, to employ low-wage laborers. Hence, we are confronted with a complicated permutation of a familiar state of affairs whereby the privilege of one strata of workers depends upon the exploitation of another. > Compared with workers in the standard firm, co-op members were less involved in and showed less solidarity with the Basque labor movement, which at the time was part of an active leftist coalition for socialism and independence for the Basque country. But the point of a co-op is not to further the goals of academics and activists, nor is it the responsibility of any co-op to maintain allegiance to whatever movements or institutions that the author admires. If Richard Wolff wants people to vote in the workplace, and wants those votes to mean something, doesn't that power and autonomy also necessarily mean they have the power to disagree with his views and pursue their own success and flourishing? And its success should be measured by the degree to which co-op members benefit, not by the extent that they're an ideological tool for outsiders. Yes, one might have wanted Mondragon co-ops to create other worker-run co-ops in other countries, rather than subsidiaries. But it's hard to see how that would have actually worked. Frankly, starting factories in China by talking to workers about how important democracy is could have gotten people hurt. And these firms do still need to be able to compete and succeed in a global marketplace in which most of their peers are operating from a purely capitalist playbook. If you draw your ultra-orthodox definition of what a co-op too narrowly, you risk adopting a definition which excludes successful firms of any significant scale.
    - Turskarama 3y ago
      I don't think that's a sensible line to draw really. Permanent employees get to vote, that seems obviously more a cooperative than a classic organisation, where votes are based on the quantity of shares bought.
boppo1 3y ago
How is equity comp factored in?
nataliste 3y ago
The paradox of worker-coops is that workers capable of successfully running businesses together are also capable of running businesses independently, so why create more failure points?
- r00fus 3y ago
  This comment seems ignorant of basic economics - you might as well ask why mergers/acquisitions happen at all.
  - nataliste 3y ago
    Corporations under a board and a CEO staffed by hired labor have very little in common with worker-co-ops and workplace democracy. My point is that a person competent enough to successfully run a business will almost certainly do so solo. The value-add of worker co-ops is moot if you already have the knowledge and capacity to run and staff a business, whereas the drawbacks and risk are monumental. I've been in and started several worker cooperative businesses. I don't try to do it anymore because of what I perceive as a fundamental issue: the people that are the most explicitly attracted to worker co-ops are also the least business saavy or willing to put the business's existence ahead of ideological values. In my experience, it is a recipe for almost certain failure. In the same way that anarchists point to Revolutionary Catalonia, workplace socialists point toward Mondragon, ignoring that these are both statistical aberrations rather than the normal state of affairs. The normal state of affairs is a bunch of naive ideologues that hand-wave away planning critical details. This isn't unique to worker co-ops; founders do it all the time, but the difference is that new ventures require flexibility and leanness, but worker-co-ops are exceptionally rigid and fragile. Generally if worker co-ops "succeed" it's directly because they are being subsidized by similar ideologues rather than business efficiency. The actual product they sell is good feelings rather than products or services.
    - throwaway14356 3y ago
      people are more annoying than anyone. you need a good set of rules for the game. My funniest attempt involved 2 friends of mine who are both in a league of their own in their field. both of them kept sticking their nose in what the other was doing endlessly moaning that it couldn't be done. Eventually they just got angry that some noob would question their expertise.

by abeppu 3y ago

reddozen 3y ago

Mondragon is not a worker cooperative. They have a three-tiered worked system[0] with clear hierarchical structures and differences in voting power. The temporary worker tier (largest) having no voting power whatsoever. [0] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/290978631_The_Mondragon_Co-operatives_and_Global_Capitalism_A_Critical_Analysis https://www.researchgate.net/publication/290978631_The_Mondr...

thelastgallon 3y ago
"cooperatives don't have to treat everyone exactly the same. You can have different "classes" of members. some ideas about how to offer "founder incentives" in workers cooperatives." From a recent HN comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37304911 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37304911
- reddozen 3y ago
  If you want to come up with a different word sure, I would just call whatever you defined there as traditional a corporation. But worker cooperatives is known as "one worker, one vote" and anarcho syndicalists like Richard Wolff wouldn't consider that a worker cooperative anymore.
  - abeppu 3y ago
    I think this the least constructive kind of unhinged purity-based framing. You're right about one thing -- Mondragon isn't a cooperative; it's a federation of cooperatives. I note that the paper you linked to by Kasmir points out what the author sees as failings, but from my quick reading it does not say that Mondragon co-ops are not co-ops. I think you're on that branch alone. But also, Kasmir seems to be faulting co-op members for some lack of ideological purity, and frankly, for failing to live up to the aspirations that others have built around them, which aren't their responsibility. > Many academics and social justice activists alike — maintain that co-ops promise a more democratic and just form of capitalism and even sow the seeds of socialism within capitalist society. > Co-op members voted to pursue an international strategy to open these firms, and, thus, to employ low-wage laborers. Hence, we are confronted with a complicated permutation of a familiar state of affairs whereby the privilege of one strata of workers depends upon the exploitation of another. > Compared with workers in the standard firm, co-op members were less involved in and showed less solidarity with the Basque labor movement, which at the time was part of an active leftist coalition for socialism and independence for the Basque country. But the point of a co-op is not to further the goals of academics and activists, nor is it the responsibility of any co-op to maintain allegiance to whatever movements or institutions that the author admires. If Richard Wolff wants people to vote in the workplace, and wants those votes to mean something, doesn't that power and autonomy also necessarily mean they have the power to disagree with his views and pursue their own success and flourishing? And its success should be measured by the degree to which co-op members benefit, not by the extent that they're an ideological tool for outsiders. Yes, one might have wanted Mondragon co-ops to create other worker-run co-ops in other countries, rather than subsidiaries. But it's hard to see how that would have actually worked. Frankly, starting factories in China by talking to workers about how important democracy is could have gotten people hurt. And these firms do still need to be able to compete and succeed in a global marketplace in which most of their peers are operating from a purely capitalist playbook. If you draw your ultra-orthodox definition of what a co-op too narrowly, you risk adopting a definition which excludes successful firms of any significant scale.
  - Turskarama 3y ago
    I don't think that's a sensible line to draw really. Permanent employees get to vote, that seems obviously more a cooperative than a classic organisation, where votes are based on the quantity of shares bought.

boppo1 3y ago

How is equity comp factored in?

nataliste 3y ago

The paradox of worker-coops is that workers capable of successfully running businesses together are also capable of running businesses independently, so why create more failure points?

r00fus 3y ago
This comment seems ignorant of basic economics - you might as well ask why mergers/acquisitions happen at all.
- nataliste 3y ago
  Corporations under a board and a CEO staffed by hired labor have very little in common with worker-co-ops and workplace democracy. My point is that a person competent enough to successfully run a business will almost certainly do so solo. The value-add of worker co-ops is moot if you already have the knowledge and capacity to run and staff a business, whereas the drawbacks and risk are monumental. I've been in and started several worker cooperative businesses. I don't try to do it anymore because of what I perceive as a fundamental issue: the people that are the most explicitly attracted to worker co-ops are also the least business saavy or willing to put the business's existence ahead of ideological values. In my experience, it is a recipe for almost certain failure. In the same way that anarchists point to Revolutionary Catalonia, workplace socialists point toward Mondragon, ignoring that these are both statistical aberrations rather than the normal state of affairs. The normal state of affairs is a bunch of naive ideologues that hand-wave away planning critical details. This isn't unique to worker co-ops; founders do it all the time, but the difference is that new ventures require flexibility and leanness, but worker-co-ops are exceptionally rigid and fragile. Generally if worker co-ops "succeed" it's directly because they are being subsidized by similar ideologues rather than business efficiency. The actual product they sell is good feelings rather than products or services.
  - throwaway14356 3y ago
    people are more annoying than anyone. you need a good set of rules for the game. My funniest attempt involved 2 friends of mine who are both in a league of their own in their field. both of them kept sticking their nose in what the other was doing endlessly moaning that it couldn't be done. Eventually they just got angry that some noob would question their expertise.