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Just to make sure, when you say traditional companies exploit workers, I presume that means that your coop would pay more than these "exploitive" companies? Or

Just to make sure, when you say traditional companies exploit workers, I presume that means that your coop would pay more than these "exploitive" companies? Or is this a thing where you use the "coop" selling point to vastly underpay your workers?

TaylorAlexander 12y ago
I mean... if I am concerned about exploitation of workers, do you think I'd be hoping to exploit my workers? You're basically just asking if I'm genuine or not, and the answer is yes - I actually care. I'd rather make much less than my potential pay if doing so lifted many others out of the harsh capitalist dystopia we've created in the US. I'm actually under the impression that everyone would get paid the same, as everyone would have an equal share of the company and profits. I honestly don't mind if the staff packing shipping boxes gets paid the same as I do designing new robots, though it is also possible to contract out nonessential parts of the operations so that the coop employees only form the core of the company. However that seems like cheating, since you're relying on exploited workers. I believe open source robotics and solar power can free us from the shackles of work we put on ourselves in the name of productivity. I have a lot of respect for Karl Marx, but I also appreciate why so many of the Marxist experiments failed in the 20th century, and I hope that 21st century tech can change things. I also believe food and housing should be made available at no cost to anyone who needs it. We can easily afford that in the US, we just have a near-religious aversion to it. So yes, I am genuine.
- poikniok 12y ago
  Sorry to be so confrontational about your intentions, however I just see way to often good businesspeople (like Elon Musk) talk about how they are changing the world, while using this to underpay their workers. Now as a theoretical worker at your company, I think I couldn't care less about what other people make, the question for me is would my pay be competitive with my other options. If however your company is based on the idea that normally I would be paid 100k and the janitor 20k, but in yours both of us will earn 60k, well I hope you can understand why I would be less than enthusiastic about this proposition.
  - FD3SA 12y ago
    A co-op is basically the default corporation. As in, everyone shares the profits and liabilities equally. This means that if you're making 1 million a year in profit, and you have 10 employees, everyone gets 100,000. But it also means that if you have to pay 1 million a year as interest service payments on your bank loan, and your profit is 2 million, you still only make 100,000 per person. To address your point, the salary is set by every current employee based upon the financial condition and strategy of the company in real time. If sales are down for a quarter, salaries will go down. If the company is saving for a big investment, salaries will be lower. It all depends on how the owner-employees decide to allocate the funds. As such, you wouldn't so much be an "employee" looking for a competitive market salary, as the 25th co-founder signing up for whatever the current compensation/investment package the present owner-employees have decided upon within the financial strategy of the company. Basically, expenses and costs are shared equally across the company. As in, every single worker is a co-founder. This is an ideal model and I'm surprised it hasn't taken off more in tech. We are rapidly approaching the point where talent and capital are the two fundamental bottlenecks to innovation, profits and progress. Offering Engineer #1 one percent compared to the co-founder's 30% seems absurd in this climate. The engineer will just go and co-found his own company, and charge for consulting services. The co-op is the natural end state of a capitalist society where the only means of progress is through hard innovation, research and optimization. This is the only solution when there is no more easy sweat-shop exploitable work which prints money. Personally, this future can't happen fast enough. Most talented people I know are fed up with the tyrannical power structure of startups and corporations in general.
    - SolarNet 12y ago
      You can also set it up like a small democracy as the company gets larger. Have the coop (that is all the people in it) evaluate different jobs and adjust salaries accordingly (or perhaps pay people based off of the jobs they could fill rather than the ones they are filling). Have steering committees make decisions about where to place manufacturing and design studios, etc. Keep it all very internally (and externally?) transparent.
  - TaylorAlexander 12y ago
- TulliusCicero 12y ago
  > I honestly don't mind if the staff packing shipping boxes gets paid the same as I do designing new robots You may not mind, but this sort of salary system would undoubtedly make it very difficult to attract people to more senior, in-demand positions. If the going rate for a highly experienced robotics engineer is 300k, and you can only offer 100k because you can't afford to pay everyone 300k, it will be nearly impossible to fill the position.
  - TaylorAlexander 12y ago
    Certainly this model makes some things more difficult. That is kind of unavoidable when you do things totally differently. There will be pros and cons any time you choose one approach over another. However, this problem isn't insurmountable. The members of the collective could all agree to pay certain bonuses to highly productive members, or everyone could agree to give more productive members more time off. Alternatively, we could only hire people like me. If you want to make the most money, go work for a traditional exploitative company with a lot of extra money. If you want to live with a clean conscience, take less pay. Teachers do this for example. They teach because they care even though the salary is less. A tech coop could offer better pay than teaching with similar non-monetary benefits. We will never end exploitation as long as everyone focuses solely on maximum profit, but if anyone out there wants something different we will find them. I am not saying this is guaranteed to succeed but that it is worth trying. Elon Musk didn't think SpaceX would succeed but he knew it was worth trying even if he lost all his money. Not trying the coop model means accepting the status quo of exploitation, and I'm not sure I can do that.
    - Meekro 12y ago
      Could you explain all this again, or link me to an explanation that goes over all this from start to finish? Because I'm still scratching my head. You say that a company that pays me what the market says I'm worth, is "exploitative." Your coop won't exploit me, and results in me earning less. So why are they the exploiters again, and not you?
      - 12y ago
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > I'm actually under the impression that everyone would get paid the same, as everyone would have an equal share of the company and profits. Real-world worker's cooperatives have equal voting shares for employees, but not necessarily equal pay (though generally not as unequal pay as is common in traditional corporations.) They feature democratic control, and its quite possible for a consensus to exist that some labor is more valuable to the coop than other labor.

TaylorAlexander 12y ago

I mean... if I am concerned about exploitation of workers, do you think I'd be hoping to exploit my workers? You're basically just asking if I'm genuine or not, and the answer is yes - I actually care. I'd rather make much less than my potential pay if doing so lifted many others out of the harsh capitalist dystopia we've created in the US. I'm actually under the impression that everyone would get paid the same, as everyone would have an equal share of the company and profits. I honestly don't mind if the staff packing shipping boxes gets paid the same as I do designing new robots, though it is also possible to contract out nonessential parts of the operations so that the coop employees only form the core of the company. However that seems like cheating, since you're relying on exploited workers. I believe open source robotics and solar power can free us from the shackles of work we put on ourselves in the name of productivity. I have a lot of respect for Karl Marx, but I also appreciate why so many of the Marxist experiments failed in the 20th century, and I hope that 21st century tech can change things. I also believe food and housing should be made available at no cost to anyone who needs it. We can easily afford that in the US, we just have a near-religious aversion to it. So yes, I am genuine.

poikniok 12y ago
Sorry to be so confrontational about your intentions, however I just see way to often good businesspeople (like Elon Musk) talk about how they are changing the world, while using this to underpay their workers. Now as a theoretical worker at your company, I think I couldn't care less about what other people make, the question for me is would my pay be competitive with my other options. If however your company is based on the idea that normally I would be paid 100k and the janitor 20k, but in yours both of us will earn 60k, well I hope you can understand why I would be less than enthusiastic about this proposition.
- FD3SA 12y ago
  A co-op is basically the default corporation. As in, everyone shares the profits and liabilities equally. This means that if you're making 1 million a year in profit, and you have 10 employees, everyone gets 100,000. But it also means that if you have to pay 1 million a year as interest service payments on your bank loan, and your profit is 2 million, you still only make 100,000 per person. To address your point, the salary is set by every current employee based upon the financial condition and strategy of the company in real time. If sales are down for a quarter, salaries will go down. If the company is saving for a big investment, salaries will be lower. It all depends on how the owner-employees decide to allocate the funds. As such, you wouldn't so much be an "employee" looking for a competitive market salary, as the 25th co-founder signing up for whatever the current compensation/investment package the present owner-employees have decided upon within the financial strategy of the company. Basically, expenses and costs are shared equally across the company. As in, every single worker is a co-founder. This is an ideal model and I'm surprised it hasn't taken off more in tech. We are rapidly approaching the point where talent and capital are the two fundamental bottlenecks to innovation, profits and progress. Offering Engineer #1 one percent compared to the co-founder's 30% seems absurd in this climate. The engineer will just go and co-found his own company, and charge for consulting services. The co-op is the natural end state of a capitalist society where the only means of progress is through hard innovation, research and optimization. This is the only solution when there is no more easy sweat-shop exploitable work which prints money. Personally, this future can't happen fast enough. Most talented people I know are fed up with the tyrannical power structure of startups and corporations in general.
  - SolarNet 12y ago
    You can also set it up like a small democracy as the company gets larger. Have the coop (that is all the people in it) evaluate different jobs and adjust salaries accordingly (or perhaps pay people based off of the jobs they could fill rather than the ones they are filling). Have steering committees make decisions about where to place manufacturing and design studios, etc. Keep it all very internally (and externally?) transparent.
- TaylorAlexander 12y ago
TulliusCicero 12y ago
> I honestly don't mind if the staff packing shipping boxes gets paid the same as I do designing new robots You may not mind, but this sort of salary system would undoubtedly make it very difficult to attract people to more senior, in-demand positions. If the going rate for a highly experienced robotics engineer is 300k, and you can only offer 100k because you can't afford to pay everyone 300k, it will be nearly impossible to fill the position.
- TaylorAlexander 12y ago
  Certainly this model makes some things more difficult. That is kind of unavoidable when you do things totally differently. There will be pros and cons any time you choose one approach over another. However, this problem isn't insurmountable. The members of the collective could all agree to pay certain bonuses to highly productive members, or everyone could agree to give more productive members more time off. Alternatively, we could only hire people like me. If you want to make the most money, go work for a traditional exploitative company with a lot of extra money. If you want to live with a clean conscience, take less pay. Teachers do this for example. They teach because they care even though the salary is less. A tech coop could offer better pay than teaching with similar non-monetary benefits. We will never end exploitation as long as everyone focuses solely on maximum profit, but if anyone out there wants something different we will find them. I am not saying this is guaranteed to succeed but that it is worth trying. Elon Musk didn't think SpaceX would succeed but he knew it was worth trying even if he lost all his money. Not trying the coop model means accepting the status quo of exploitation, and I'm not sure I can do that.
  - Meekro 12y ago
    Could you explain all this again, or link me to an explanation that goes over all this from start to finish? Because I'm still scratching my head. You say that a company that pays me what the market says I'm worth, is "exploitative." Your coop won't exploit me, and results in me earning less. So why are they the exploiters again, and not you?
    - 12y ago
dragonwriter 12y ago
> I'm actually under the impression that everyone would get paid the same, as everyone would have an equal share of the company and profits. Real-world worker's cooperatives have equal voting shares for employees, but not necessarily equal pay (though generally not as unequal pay as is common in traditional corporations.) They feature democratic control, and its quite possible for a consensus to exist that some labor is more valuable to the coop than other labor.