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>If the model is a good one, detractors say it can’t be replicated outside of the Basque Country, and there’s some truth to that. The author doesn't speculate

>If the model is a good one, detractors say it can’t be replicated outside of the Basque Country, and there’s some truth to that. The author doesn't speculate why, but I'd guess it's partly due to Basque ethnic solidarity. Mondragon sounds a lot like the kind of late 1800s / early 1900s syndicalism that later evolved into Italian fascism and German National Socialism. Of course, another big "collectivist capitalism" success story is China, which is also fiercely nationalist. I don't see either of those models working in the West on a large scale any time soon.

prmoustache 2y ago
Now Basque country is not considered "the West"?
- intalentive 2y ago
  >"on a large scale"
kmeisthax 2y ago
I've heard this story ever since I was a shit-eating Ron Paul voting right-libertarian. The whole "collectivist success requires ethnic purity" argument. I don't buy it. It is, inevitably, either an excuse to destroy functional collective institutions, an excuse to advocate for ethnic cleansing, or both.
- intalentive 2y ago
  To elaborate on my previous comment: if you want people to be less individualistic and more community-minded, and especially if you want economic organization to be more cooperative, decentralized and bottom-up, then people are going to need to feel a deep sense of buy-in and belonging, and you don't really see that in an undifferentiated mass of atomized "consuming and producing units". But you do see it among the Amish, and the Basques, and the Boers, and in the kibbutzim, and in families generally, because kin relations are meaningful among humans and elsewhere in the animal world. And I'm not arguing that "collectivist success requires ethnic purity", just noticing a correlation. Where you see apparent altruism in economics -- including nepotism in hiring -- you tend to find kin relations. Probably the game theorists and evolutionary psychologists have it figured out.
  - harwoodjp 2y ago
    It's true that, in those groups, a shared ethnic identity enables economic cooperation. But the lack of solidarity you observe is the result of a regime of coercion. The official policy: leave your neighborhood, family, friends, and passions for 40+ hours a week to build a capitalist's business. You have to do it to survive. And the police are there to make sure revolts don't break out.
    - ertian 2y ago
      The claim that work is inherently coercive is crazy to me. In order to live, we need food, clothing, shelter, comforts. Those take labor to produce. We've abstracted labor using money, allowing for specialization, so you can perform some specialized labor to provide for all your needs. The needs aren't forced upon you. They're inherent. Labor is required to meet the needs you must meet in order to live (and live in comfort). They'd be needed even if no board of directors had ever sat in a meeting room. So who's coercing you? It's like a farmer hating his field: you're mad that companies 'make' you work to survive; a farmer might hate his field for 'making' him plant seeds to produce food. I don't get it. It seems delusional.
      - harwoodjp 2y ago
        Automation makes jobs unnecessary. We should build social infrastructure that allows people to pursue their passions with basic necessities guaranteed. This has been possible for awhile now.
        chongli 2y ago
        Nonsense. You can’t feed people with machines. You need raw materials and you need land to produce those materials from. That productive land is already owned by a bunch of people who currently use it to grow food and sell at market for profit. Are you proposing we seize their land? That’s what the Soviets did. Millions died. With the weaponry we have today it could be hundreds of millions or billions. All for what? So people don’t have to work? Now suppose we do collectivize all the farms, this time miraculously without killing everyone, and we successfully set up the automation to feed everyone (despite the fact that a lot of crops still need to be picked by hand due to a lack of robot technology). We still don’t eliminate the need for work. There’s tons of other stuff to be done. Building houses, computers, trains, planes, automobiles, and new factory robots. There’s still tons of research going into all this stuff, maintenance and repair. People still need to do all this work. Who is going to pay them? Who is going to own what they produce? If I build a robot in my garage to automate harvesting the peppers I grow in my backyard, do I own it?
mikojan 2y ago
The importance of "leftist" fascism is overplayed. "Socialism" back then, much like "Human Rights" today, was generally associated with what is morally right. It was not an ideology of extremist groups. Fascism "evolved" from socialism same as everybody and their mother evolved from it. And because of its dominance, everybody tried to exploit it, too. So you called your organisation "National Socialist Party" and your heads of propaganda copied the rhetoric. Also, libertarian socialism was nowhere as developed as in Spanish society at that time. This is not the most surprising society to generate Mondragon.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
mikrl 2y ago
>Of course, another big "collectivist capitalism" success story is China, which is also fiercely nationalist. Yugoslavia had a dynamic market socialist economy and was powerful enough to align against the USSR for decades, yet was multi ethnic. It suffered from the typical authoritarian weak succession and was ultimately destroyed by its resurgent ethnic nationalism.
cholantesh 2y ago
>Mondragon sounds a lot like the kind of late 1800s / early 1900s syndicalism that later evolved into Italian fascism and German National Socialism. Sure, if you dishonestly use their slogans rather than policy decisions as your barometer. What actually happened is that fascists co-opted the language of the left and deployed it in service of entirely different ends.

prmoustache 2y ago

Now Basque country is not considered "the West"?

intalentive 2y ago
>"on a large scale"

kmeisthax 2y ago

I've heard this story ever since I was a shit-eating Ron Paul voting right-libertarian. The whole "collectivist success requires ethnic purity" argument. I don't buy it. It is, inevitably, either an excuse to destroy functional collective institutions, an excuse to advocate for ethnic cleansing, or both.

intalentive 2y ago
To elaborate on my previous comment: if you want people to be less individualistic and more community-minded, and especially if you want economic organization to be more cooperative, decentralized and bottom-up, then people are going to need to feel a deep sense of buy-in and belonging, and you don't really see that in an undifferentiated mass of atomized "consuming and producing units". But you do see it among the Amish, and the Basques, and the Boers, and in the kibbutzim, and in families generally, because kin relations are meaningful among humans and elsewhere in the animal world. And I'm not arguing that "collectivist success requires ethnic purity", just noticing a correlation. Where you see apparent altruism in economics -- including nepotism in hiring -- you tend to find kin relations. Probably the game theorists and evolutionary psychologists have it figured out.
- harwoodjp 2y ago
  It's true that, in those groups, a shared ethnic identity enables economic cooperation. But the lack of solidarity you observe is the result of a regime of coercion. The official policy: leave your neighborhood, family, friends, and passions for 40+ hours a week to build a capitalist's business. You have to do it to survive. And the police are there to make sure revolts don't break out.
  - ertian 2y ago
    The claim that work is inherently coercive is crazy to me. In order to live, we need food, clothing, shelter, comforts. Those take labor to produce. We've abstracted labor using money, allowing for specialization, so you can perform some specialized labor to provide for all your needs. The needs aren't forced upon you. They're inherent. Labor is required to meet the needs you must meet in order to live (and live in comfort). They'd be needed even if no board of directors had ever sat in a meeting room. So who's coercing you? It's like a farmer hating his field: you're mad that companies 'make' you work to survive; a farmer might hate his field for 'making' him plant seeds to produce food. I don't get it. It seems delusional.
    - harwoodjp 2y ago
      Automation makes jobs unnecessary. We should build social infrastructure that allows people to pursue their passions with basic necessities guaranteed. This has been possible for awhile now.
      - chongli 2y ago
        Nonsense. You can’t feed people with machines. You need raw materials and you need land to produce those materials from. That productive land is already owned by a bunch of people who currently use it to grow food and sell at market for profit. Are you proposing we seize their land? That’s what the Soviets did. Millions died. With the weaponry we have today it could be hundreds of millions or billions. All for what? So people don’t have to work? Now suppose we do collectivize all the farms, this time miraculously without killing everyone, and we successfully set up the automation to feed everyone (despite the fact that a lot of crops still need to be picked by hand due to a lack of robot technology). We still don’t eliminate the need for work. There’s tons of other stuff to be done. Building houses, computers, trains, planes, automobiles, and new factory robots. There’s still tons of research going into all this stuff, maintenance and repair. People still need to do all this work. Who is going to pay them? Who is going to own what they produce? If I build a robot in my garage to automate harvesting the peppers I grow in my backyard, do I own it?

mikojan 2y ago

The importance of "leftist" fascism is overplayed. "Socialism" back then, much like "Human Rights" today, was generally associated with what is morally right. It was not an ideology of extremist groups. Fascism "evolved" from socialism same as everybody and their mother evolved from it. And because of its dominance, everybody tried to exploit it, too. So you called your organisation "National Socialist Party" and your heads of propaganda copied the rhetoric. Also, libertarian socialism was nowhere as developed as in Spanish society at that time. This is not the most surprising society to generate Mondragon.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

mikrl 2y ago

>Of course, another big "collectivist capitalism" success story is China, which is also fiercely nationalist. Yugoslavia had a dynamic market socialist economy and was powerful enough to align against the USSR for decades, yet was multi ethnic. It suffered from the typical authoritarian weak succession and was ultimately destroyed by its resurgent ethnic nationalism.

cholantesh 2y ago

>Mondragon sounds a lot like the kind of late 1800s / early 1900s syndicalism that later evolved into Italian fascism and German National Socialism. Sure, if you dishonestly use their slogans rather than policy decisions as your barometer. What actually happened is that fascists co-opted the language of the left and deployed it in service of entirely different ends.