4 ms·

I think the article does a poor job of explaining why factories are generally not coop. When you have 1 employee = 1 vote, you can't sell (a significant amount

I think the article does a poor job of explaining why factories are generally not coop. When you have 1 employee = 1 vote, you can't sell (a significant amount of) capital to external entities. This leaves you with borrowing money, for which you can't use a significant amount of capital as a collateral. That leaves the coops mostly to sectors that are not capital intensive (mostly service and retail). There is a bit of a trend currently in France around employee-owned companies. One of the most visible is a restaurant in Paris ("le Temps des Cerises", we know we're in dangerous communist territory just by the name). I know a coop where the employees/owners take personal credits to buy the headquarters.

tomrod 12y ago
Your analysis seems spot on to me.
walshemj 12y ago
Well you can how poptel did it was sell some equity in the company. coop structures can be complex Normally the coop owns the company that employs the members - as long as the members have 50%+1 of the votes they control the company.
- nraynaud 12y ago
  From wikipedia, it looks like they where not in a capital intensive market. (Also I can't be sure, did they have their own network?).
  - walshemj 12y ago
    Try working with ICANT without capital ;-) effectively the coop did a deal and sold 40%. It in the end didn't work out the first dot com crash an the lack of forward thinking by the coop movement did for us. You right poptel was an ISP and I think was a small ADMD. I think originally it was in the business of doing software for foundry's Still at on point all of the members where worth over 1 Mil on paper :-)
deleted 12y ago
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asgard1024 12y ago
Yes, that's a big problem. The owners of capital want to have a say about what the company does, because their money are at stake. Perhaps this is just a cultural thing though. Take money lending - although a bank gives capital to someone else in exchange for profit, it doesn't require strict controls over the actual use of the money; it relies on contract law to get the money back. Similarly, the executives of the publicly traded companies have responsibility to shareholders. Perhaps a similar agreement could be institutionalized with the coops too (yet preserve their democratic nature).
- nraynaud 12y ago
  For the lending, there will often be a collateral, for a company it will often be shares. That limits the leverage to 50% since a default will make the bank an investor and external investors can't have control. The collateral will not always be shares, sometimes it could be the acquired physical good, then it's accessible to coops (too bad if you want to borrow for service or immaterial goods). Using real estate or company planes as a collateral suggests that you already got a credit to acquire them in the first place.

tomrod 12y ago

Your analysis seems spot on to me.

walshemj 12y ago

Well you can how poptel did it was sell some equity in the company. coop structures can be complex Normally the coop owns the company that employs the members - as long as the members have 50%+1 of the votes they control the company.

nraynaud 12y ago
From wikipedia, it looks like they where not in a capital intensive market. (Also I can't be sure, did they have their own network?).
- walshemj 12y ago
  Try working with ICANT without capital ;-) effectively the coop did a deal and sold 40%. It in the end didn't work out the first dot com crash an the lack of forward thinking by the coop movement did for us. You right poptel was an ISP and I think was a small ADMD. I think originally it was in the business of doing software for foundry's Still at on point all of the members where worth over 1 Mil on paper :-)

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

asgard1024 12y ago

Yes, that's a big problem. The owners of capital want to have a say about what the company does, because their money are at stake. Perhaps this is just a cultural thing though. Take money lending - although a bank gives capital to someone else in exchange for profit, it doesn't require strict controls over the actual use of the money; it relies on contract law to get the money back. Similarly, the executives of the publicly traded companies have responsibility to shareholders. Perhaps a similar agreement could be institutionalized with the coops too (yet preserve their democratic nature).

nraynaud 12y ago
For the lending, there will often be a collateral, for a company it will often be shares. That limits the leverage to 50% since a default will make the bank an investor and external investors can't have control. The collateral will not always be shares, sometimes it could be the acquired physical good, then it's accessible to coops (too bad if you want to borrow for service or immaterial goods). Using real estate or company planes as a collateral suggests that you already got a credit to acquire them in the first place.