Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mondragon Corporation

en.wikipedia.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 291 posts

Re: Mondragon Corporation

#211

Post by alfromspace »

whatshisface wrote: post #148
spamizbad wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forcing profits is bad too. Just look at Boeing to see where the naked pursuit of profits can lead. It literally kills people.

If they had pursued profits harder and more effectively, they would not have had the accidents whose effect was to reduce their profits. Although there are some examples of outright malice or criminality out there, Boeing is closer to an example of an ineffective management culture than an evilly effective one.

No. Whatever effect the 737 MAX grounding has had on Boeing's profits pales in comparison to the benefit gained by rushing the plane out the door to get in front of Airbus and thus making billions in sales contracts. There has been virtually no effect on Boeing's stock price, and the plane will probably be back in service within the year.

All in all, putting lives at risk was a good move for Boeing, and they'll surely do it again.

Re: Mondragon Corporation

#212

Post by danharaj »

CountSessine wrote: post #202
tsimionescu wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chomsky is anti-centralization, he is an anarchist (anarcho-syndicalist). In general, his ideal end-goal world would include smaller states with more direct control by the populace, with worker-owned and worker-managed corporations, with free markets of goods and services between different corporations and different states, and of course freedom of movement. Strong environmental control would be almost implied if the…

I do wonder sometimes how different Chomsky's career and his academic work would have been if he'd been required to take a course in game theory while he was an undergraduate.

I guarantee you Chomsky knows more about game theory than you.

Re: Mondragon Corporation

#213

Post by dordoka »

antr wrote: post #56
thundergolfer wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got anything I can look at regarding the financing of terrorism? Wouldn’t that be extremely illegal and would absolutely need to be reported to the government?

We did. The Mondragon Group already had some history of financing terrorism(1), but we didn't know affiliates outside the Basque Country could be involved. Ecotecnia was based in Barcelona. (1): http://www.interior.gob.es/noticias/detalle/-/journal_conten...

That link describes how a MCC worker was taken into custody, being charged with some degree of terrorism collaboration. He got out on bail 2 days after. [1]

Caja Laboral was not involved and they even fired that worker sortly after his detention (next day). [2]

I fail to see how that link proofs that the "Mondragon Group already had some historry of financing terrorism".

[1]https://www.lavanguardia.com/politica/20020531/51262755730/l...

[2]https://www.lavanguardia.com/politica/20020530/51262755722/c...

Re: Mondragon Corporation

#214

Post by donmatito »

q3k wrote: post #87
donmatito wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it matters but not in the sense that everybody should aim for a super large corporation. It matters because it validates that cooperatives can grow very large, and refutes the claims such as "yes it's nice, but of course it works only for small ventures and could never grow)

But the answer to that shouldn't be "here's an example of a large one" but "why do you care so much for growth, it's fine to be small".

No it shouldn't (even if I agree with your sentiment about company, growth and probably life in general). People interested in coop model have a legitimate interest in proving that it can work for various business size

Re: Mondragon Corporation

#215

Post by chishaku »

pdonis wrote: post #186
H8crilA wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism itself cannot solve the problem of externalities. That's what the government is for. I don't understand why would anyone think that it can. This is not just my opinion but an opinion of famous capitalists (for example Buffett or Soros).

> Capitalism itself cannot solve the problem of externalities. True. > That's what the government is for. False. Government can't solve the problem of externalities either, because government is even more at the mercy of the perverse incentives that create them than free market participants are. There is no "solution" to the problem of externalities, if by "solution" you mean some system we can put in place that will…

> Government can't solve the problem of externalities

Do you enjoy the the benefits of the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act?

In your view, does government at least partially solve the problem of some negative externalities?

(Based on your bio, I assume you're in the US.)

Re: Mondragon Corporation

#216

Post by jungturk »

whatshisface wrote: post #148
spamizbad wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forcing profits is bad too. Just look at Boeing to see where the naked pursuit of profits can lead. It literally kills people.

If they had pursued profits harder and more effectively, they would not have had the accidents whose effect was to reduce their profits. Although there are some examples of outright malice or criminality out there, Boeing is closer to an example of an ineffective management culture than an evilly effective one.

I'm assuming by "more effectively" you mean "less shortsightedly"?

In any case, such judgement is only clear in hindsight (that is, calculating effectiveness implies a time window over which effects are to be tabulated).

Most charitably, the executives perhaps felt they were making judicious, acceptable tradeoffs that would maximize business outcomes over the time horizon they were concerned with - periods measured in quarters or years or even decades.

How would we incentivize people to only take profits over an arbitrarily long (and ever-widening) window? What happens when a black swan occurs and significantly drives down the effectiveness of prior decisions (which until then had been deemed quite effective)? Are profits clawed back?

Re: Mondragon Corporation

#217

Post by [deleted] »

pinkfoot wrote: post #124
nickbauman wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A union is not a coop, so the forces are not the same at all. Furthermore, it's not clear that "seniority" would trump "skill" in a co-op, either. Or that the opposite is true of a more "traditional" workplace. The job of each worker-owner is, in part, to help other worker owners developer their strengths to their fullest for the benefit of co-op. An employee-owned co-operative corporation (EOCC) governs as form of d…

> You don't have a boss. Unless everyone can make equally large payments on behalf of the company, you most certainly have bosses. Find those people. They are the bosses. Everything else is theatre.

[deleted]

Re: Mondragon Corporation

#218

Post by ianleeclark »

macspoofing wrote: post #207
ianleeclark wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you're making chairs but the cost of materials is larger than what you sell those chairs for, how are you going to provide for your family? This is the "self-referential" thing I was referring to. You're entering into this thought experiment with a pre-defined conception of how an economic mode of production must operate. You're presupposing the profit motive.

Feel free to suggest an alternative. The one that comes to mind is Communism (and its many flavours), and we've seen what a humanitarian and economic disaster that turns out to be.

Political economy is a wide field with something for everyone. Consider it a choose your own adventure.

Re: Mondragon Corporation

#219

Post by leto_ii »

zepto wrote: post #209
leto_ii wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to not agree with this line of thinking. This may be the case when you subject a company to financial market pressures by listing it on the stock exchange, but I don't think it's a natural imperative. Many companies do just fine without growing to enormous proportions, being acquired, acquiring others etc.

It has nothing to do with stock exchanges. There have been plenty of giant growth oriented corporations that are private. How do you account for that?

Well, there's nothing to say that private corporations can't behave in the same way. I'm just saying that once you list these pressures are almost guaranteed to appear.

I also strongly suspect that they're less present, on average, in unlisted companies.

Re: Mondragon Corporation

#220

Post by allworknoplay »

CountSessine wrote: post #202
tsimionescu wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chomsky is anti-centralization, he is an anarchist (anarcho-syndicalist). In general, his ideal end-goal world would include smaller states with more direct control by the populace, with worker-owned and worker-managed corporations, with free markets of goods and services between different corporations and different states, and of course freedom of movement. Strong environmental control would be almost implied if the…

I do wonder sometimes how different Chomsky's career and his academic work would have been if he'd been required to take a course in game theory while he was an undergraduate.

what is your point?
Post reply on HN