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Mondragon Corporation

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Re: Mondragon Corporation

#221

Post by paulmd »

andreilys wrote: post #151
dbingham wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's not the alternative. The alternative is a system that isn't profit driven, where all the companies are worker cooperatives. In that system, there are no stock holders demanding ever greater returns, those doing the work are always completely in control. They can choose to do "just enough" to live a good life. Or they can choose to focus on the more fulfilling aspects of their work, and not on the profit. I…

“ The alternative is a system that isn't profit driven, where all the companies are worker cooperatives.” Enforced by a central top-down bureaucratic organization. In this hypothetical world would you let foreign companies motivated by profit compete in your country that only has worker co-ops? Or would you have a closed down market, similar to North Korea that only Approved Co-ops would be allowed to work in?

This is unnecessarily dismissive. The USG routinely enforces regulations and tariffs on companies and imports that fail to comply with US regulations. If this was extended to company structure or labor standards, so what?

Under your standard, all regulation is "top down bureaucratic driven". In practice this has not proven to be incompatible with market driven economics. Not that libertarians don't scream about it anyway.

Re: Mondragon Corporation

#222

Post by whatshisface »

jungturk wrote: post #216
whatshisface wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

>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).

If the judgment was really only clear in hindsight then no power structure could have altered it. What's clear only in hindsight to a CEO is clear only in hindsight to a union boss, or a collective, anyone else.

>How would we incentivize people to only take profits over an arbitrarily long (and ever-widening) window?

The corporation is already incentivized: in exchange for thinking about long-term profits, it is rewarded with long-term profits. However, executives often have different goals than the corporation they're supposed to represent. If you could figure out how to better align the interests of executives with their corporations, you would see more effective profit-seeking, which would include less killing due to blunders but more killing due to tobacco-industry style exploitation. Giving executives the freedom to put their own interests first (the source of next-quarterism and next-bonusism) is necessary if you want to give them the freedom to pursue ethical goals. You either trust them to make the right decisions or you don't.

>Are profits clawed back?

Yes! That's what happens when something causes you to lose money.

Re: Mondragon Corporation

#223

Post by cold_fact »

hooverlunch wrote: post #83

There are lots of small tech worker coops in the U.S. and Canada. See https://techworker.coop . I co-founded one, Sassafras Tech Collective, in Ann Arbor. It's been an amazing journey. I don't think I could ever go back to working in a non-democratic workplace.

hey fellow arborite

Re: Mondragon Corporation

#224

Post by shadowgovt »

allworknoplay wrote: post #220
CountSessine wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

That Chomsky's ideal end-goal is unrealistic because it is inherently dynamically unstable. Small worker-owned cooperatives plus a free market is an ecosystem ripe for larger worker-owned cooperatives to create incentive structures that let them dominate the market, which lets them grow, which is a positive feedback loop in that incentive structure.

Re: Mondragon Corporation

#225

Post by kiliantics »

wuliwong wrote: post #134
ianleeclark wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quote there seems to have issues with the profit motive, not market systems.

In my mind a "market systems" implicitly includes prices which means there would then be profit and loss. I could imagine a market of 100% barter and no generally accepted currency but I do not think that is what most people mean when they use the term "market systems." There is a lot I'm unaware of, possibly market systems without prices is one of those things?

Profit is what's left over after all costs are taken out from the price, including labour costs. Profit, by definition, is what the capitalist gets to keep for having done nothing but owning the capital that was used to generate the profit.

So like when Bezos makes $4M+ per hour, it's not a wage because he is not working for it, he could be sleeping or shitting and he would make the same money. He gets that just because it's his name on all of the capital that generates this profit. The actual work is being done by the many people working for amazon, peeing in bottles in fulfillment centres because of lack of breaks and whatnot. They get paid very little, so there are low costs, so there is great profit to line Bezos' pockets.

Since co-ops like Mondragon need to compete with companies that are run like Bezos' in order to survive, they are under pressure to do similar things in their management structure, even though they want to share all "profit" with all workers, since all workers are owners (which is why it's not really "profit" for co-ops, since there are no non-working capitalists that earn it). Therefore, it is the profit motive, rather than the market system, which forces co-ops to act in ways that are inconsistent with their mission statements (worker control, fair pay, etc.)

Re: Mondragon Corporation

#226

Post by tathougies »

pdonis wrote: post #210
Ericson2314 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if by "solution", you mean some system we can put in place that will magically prevent them Only a distributed system like capitalism rises to your bar of "magically prevent[ing]". Centralization is not magic, but when it works, it works. I prefer distributed systems too, but when it's hard to make the right incentivizes, we shouldn't throw in the towel. Surely the parent post doesn't use a definition of "solution"…

> a distributed system like capitalism How is capitalism a distributed system? It concentrates capital in the hands of a small minority. A free market is a distributed system, but "free market" is not a synonym for "capitalism". > Centralization is not magic, but when it works, it works. I guess we have very different definitions of "works".

Revenue is dictated by the various consumer demands of mainly individuals and families.

Re: Mondragon Corporation

#227

Post by paulmd »

naravara wrote: post #160
dls2016 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the alternative to bank robbing a top-down central-managed solution? No, we simply penalize the behavior. We could do the same and penalize exploitation by corporations. Hold individuals accountable. Extreme fines. You may argue this would be complicated, but so is a lot of existing legislation surrounding international trade.

>Is the alternative to bank robbing a top-down central-managed solution? No, we simply penalize the behavior. Penalizing the behavior sounds like a top-down solution to me. Government decides it's bad, then government sends the police to come get you if you do it.

Then that describes all regulation and "top down" is a meaningless standard.

I dump some chromium waste on my property, pretty soon this "government" is saying it's bad and sending police to come get me saying that "the green goo is making people sick". I hate that top-down big gubmint telling me what I can and can't do!

I refuse to employ black people, pretty soon there's a top-down big gubmint telling me that's "discriminatory" and "violates labor laws"! What's next, telling a man what he can and can't do with his own business!?

Re: Mondragon Corporation

#228

Post by TremendousJudge »

leto_ii wrote: post #196
golemotron wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's where it falls apart. Systems tend to aggregate to seek efficiencies of scale.

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.

Nations don't just aggregate like free market corporations. If there are many large bellicose empires in history, it's because taking things by force of arms is a successful strategy. In a world of many micro states, it only takes one to begin expanding aggressively for everything to fall apart

Re: Mondragon Corporation

#229

Post by whatshisface »

leto_ii wrote: post #204
whatshisface wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> If they had pursued profits harder and more effectively, they would not have had the accidents I think this is a bit simplistic or at least too optimistic. The pressures of being listed on the stock market are such that management is more or less compelled to pursue short-term goals. Indeed in the very long run a lot of corporations are harming themselves by harming the environment, impeding innovation etc. but in…

If you buy a stock and then use your influence to destroy its value, you're punishing yourself for your own bad decision. A lot of real human tragedy is caused by self-destructive behavior.

Now, here's an interesting thing to consider. You bring up coal and oil - both industries that are on the way out in the long term. Would it be wise for shareholders to push these companies to invest in R&D to improve their long-term capabilities? No, if coal and oil are on the way out, then the best financial strategy would be to run the companies into the ground as you slowly liquidate them, ideally so that there's nothing left on the very day that fossil fuels are no longer needed. In that case, short-termism is the best strategy.

Re: Mondragon Corporation

#230

Post by tathougies »

kiliantics wrote: post #225
wuliwong wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my mind a "market systems" implicitly includes prices which means there would then be profit and loss. I could imagine a market of 100% barter and no generally accepted currency but I do not think that is what most people mean when they use the term "market systems." There is a lot I'm unaware of, possibly market systems without prices is one of those things?

Profit is what's left over after all costs are taken out from the price, including labour costs. Profit, by definition, is what the capitalist gets to keep for having done nothing but owning the capital that was used to generate the profit. So like when Bezos makes $4M+ per hour, it's not a wage because he is not working for it, he could be sleeping or shitting and he would make the same money. He gets that just beca…

And laborers generate a profit when their cost of living is below their total wage. At that point the cost of producing their labor (food, water, shelter) is below their revenue.
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