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The Basque Country’s Mondragón Corporation is the largest industrial co-op

theguardian.com

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Re: The Basque Country’s Mondragón Corporation is the largest industrial co-op

#131

Post by dh2022 »

skciva wrote: post #56
Workaccount2 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You end up with ~$2300 more per employee, assuming they all get paid the same and there are 20 of them. Which still isn't much.

Ask the average American worker if they'd like an extra $2300 a year. And yes I understand thats pre-tax. But even so, thats a non-negligible amount for a lot of people.

For whom $2,300 / year is meaningful is, dare I say, hard to answer question. Most of the people for whom an additional $2,300 / year is meaningful pay little to no taxes. However, a large chunk of these people also get Earning Income Credit. These people would lose at least part of this credit if their income increases. This question I believe can be answered by the bi-partisan U.S. Government Accountability Office or U.S Treasury- they certainly have the income returns for all Americans.

Re: The Basque Country’s Mondragón Corporation is the largest industrial co-op

#132

Post by jmyeet »

SSJPython wrote: post #101
jmyeet wrote: post #20

For all the fearmongering of the Red Scare, this is what socialism looks like. Socialism is an industrial co-op like this where workers are fairly paid for their labor. Capitalism is Walmart where all profits are captured by a handful of shareholders and executives, being subsidized by the Federal government through food stamps to employees and decimating local economies to the point where they're left with dollar st…

> Socialism is an industrial co-op like this where workers are fairly paid for their labor. What is "fair pay" for labor in your eyes? Is it the entire surplus being generated? Why is that considered fair?

> Is it the entire surplus being generated?

Yes.

> Why is that considered fair?

Because there is no value without labor.

Re: The Basque Country’s Mondragón Corporation is the largest industrial co-op

#133

Post by _mlbt »

sokoloff wrote: post #126
asimpletune wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, for what it's worth democracy doesn't scale without force either. Somebody, i.e. the state, has a monopoly on violence, to protect our property. In any case, you're just talking about state based socialism, like marxism. But there are other forms of socialism that do just fine and are alive today, like syndicalism. They work because they don't rely on a government to exist, correctly recognizing their power in…

There was a time when paying for US-made products was paying for better quality products (among other properties). As offshore manufacturing got better, buying American became much higher percentage “feel good” and much lower percentage “get better product”. Right now, there are some product categories where the highest-quality product in the world is not capable of being produced in the US.

Sadly true. There are also major product categories that are literally impossible to buy US made goods in even if you're willing to pay the premium for it. Additionally, many of the "US made" products are merely assembled here from foreign made components.

Re: The Basque Country’s Mondragón Corporation is the largest industrial co-op

#134

Post by Arkhaine_kupo »

greenie_beans wrote: post #123
Arkhaine_kupo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I do wonder how much of its workability hinges on Basque nationalism rechanneled into something more useful than nationalism usually is. Basically none, it does not hinge on that. If anything basque nationalism hurts the proyect more than it helps. Many of the workers in the basque country came "to disrupt" basque nationalism. So many of the old workforce in Mondragon is not basque born. there was a civil war i…

are there any books you'd recommend to learn more about this history?

Any part you would be interested in particularly?

I just grew up there, so most of it was less books and more just personal experience. But there are no few resources, books, shows or documentaries about the area.

Re: The Basque Country’s Mondragón Corporation is the largest industrial co-op

#135

Post by Quarrel »

burkaman wrote: post #88
xhkkffbf wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it be fair to say that companies like AMZN or GOOG have "employee ownership" because of the stock options? If so, it means many tech companies meet this definition.

No it wouldn't, see here for example: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/011516/top-5-g... . All Google employees combined own probably less than 1% of the company. They would need to own at least 50% to accurately call it employee-owned.

.. to be too pedantic, but it's only less than 1% if you exclude the founders, who are still employees.

(and possibly Sundar?)

Re: The Basque Country’s Mondragón Corporation is the largest industrial co-op

#136

Post by Quarrel »

eatonphil wrote: post #78
Quarrel wrote: post #25

The co-op structure is less used in the US, but there are quite a lot of significant employee owned corporations (which come with the limited liability benefits to shareholders). There are also quite a few with mixed founder / employee ownership. Publix for instance employ 250,000 people across their supermarkets and are employee / founder owned. A recent list of the largest from Oct 2023: https://www.nceo.org/articl…

Co-ops in the US seems to be particularly popular in agriculture.

Quite a few construction companies too.

Re: The Basque Country’s Mondragón Corporation is the largest industrial co-op

#137

Post by jandrewrogers »

dbingham wrote: post #130
Anon1096 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many tech companies like Microsoft and Netflix, there is only 1 stock class and SWE employees get stock grants that aren't restricted on vest. You just conveniently picked the FAANG company where most of its workforce are warehouse employees.

But the employees don't own a controlling share. For it to be a worker cooperative it really needs to be entirely owned and governed by the people working there.

The tradeoff is that requiring all shares be worker-owned devalues the shares owned by workers, due to massively reduced liquidity. This situation does not necessarily benefit the workers since they have an interest in maximizing the value of their share.

Re: The Basque Country’s Mondragón Corporation is the largest industrial co-op

#138

Post by s1artibartfast »

teaearlgraycold wrote: post #33
mgaunard wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, people would rather be employees paid in cash whose amount is agreed ahead of time than partners where they're paid depending on the company's profits.

I have been wondering if you could make it work in Silicon Valley for a small firm. Take 2-10 people that could be founders and give them the alternative of being the Nth partner. They’d need to bring in 1/N of the profit to earn their keep. I think it’s doable.

They already exist, but aren't especially common.

As you point out, the challenge is always around revenue sharing. From what I have seen, they last maybe 5 years and then break up when people feel like they are putting in more than they are getting out.

The productive difference between the top and bottom half of the N needs to be less than the extra efficiency the coop provides the top half of N. This isn't easy.

Eg top performer brings in 150k revenue, receives 100k salary, but can only make <100k without the coop.

Re: The Basque Country’s Mondragón Corporation is the largest industrial co-op

#139

Post by FrustratedMonky »

losvedir wrote: post #98
jmyeet wrote: post #20

For all the fearmongering of the Red Scare, this is what socialism looks like. Socialism is an industrial co-op like this where workers are fairly paid for their labor. Capitalism is Walmart where all profits are captured by a handful of shareholders and executives, being subsidized by the Federal government through food stamps to employees and decimating local economies to the point where they're left with dollar st…

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's nothing actually legally preventing a Mondragon-type industrial co-op like this from existing in the US, right? That it's not so common is an interesting question: does it get outcompeted by your standard corporation? Would people rather generally work as employees than take on risk as owners? Something else? I think in a co-op like this, employees would still be eligible for food…

The Barrier to entry is probably capital costs.

Probably difficult at this point for enough lowly workers to pull their money and form a company, open stores, and compete with a Whole Foods.

The mega corps already dominate and can undercut anything that is starting up.

Amazon is kind of like a fiefdom where if they see someone building a castle in the distance, they can send some knights out to attack before it gets too big.

Re: The Basque Country’s Mondragón Corporation is the largest industrial co-op

#140

Post by jmyeet »

mamonster wrote: post #83
jmyeet wrote: post #20

For all the fearmongering of the Red Scare, this is what socialism looks like. Socialism is an industrial co-op like this where workers are fairly paid for their labor. Capitalism is Walmart where all profits are captured by a handful of shareholders and executives, being subsidized by the Federal government through food stamps to employees and decimating local economies to the point where they're left with dollar st…

This reminds me of the yearly complaint in French politics that CAC40 companies are paying monstrous dividends, to which the answer is always: If they are so monstrous then surely you should simply buy the shares yourself? You could just be an Amazon or a Walmart shareholder by logging into your Robinhood account, unlike the feudal regime where to become an aristocrat you would need to be some sort of famous knight,…

First, intended or not there is an incredible amount of privilege in the idea that “everyone can be a shareholder”. An awful lot of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck and struggle to afford housing and food. Increasing homelessness is, first and foremost, a consequence of housing unaffordability.

Second, owning 10 shares of Amazon doesn’t make you a capital owner. If you still need your paycheck to survive, you’re a worker, subject to the whims of your employer.

The really damaging thing about retirement accounts, for example, is that it has convinced people that they are current or future capital owners. It makes workers advocate against their own best interests.

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