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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

#211

Post by Vegenoid »

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,…

> You could just be an Amazon or a Walmart shareholder by logging into your Robinhood account

Many Walmart and Amazon employees could not, due to lack of capital.

Even if they did buy stock in their company, I think it's pretty clear that is very different from being in a co-op as described in the article.

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

#212

Post by office_drone »

oersted wrote: post #174
JTbane wrote: post #18

C-suite salaries are so high in America I'm wondering if these sort of co-ops could be more competitive on that cost saving alone.

They actually have a lot of difficulty in hiring good directors for this exact reason, they have widened the gap several times and are planning to keep widening it.

Coops have a hard time hiring directors because they can get paid more in standard corporations?

What a heartwarming story of employees knowing their worth and not settling for less.

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

#213

Post by office_drone »

zbyforgotp wrote: post #81
JTbane wrote: post #18

C-suite salaries are so high in America I'm wondering if these sort of co-ops could be more competitive on that cost saving alone.

It is an interesting question why they don’t outcompete other businesses.

The simple explanation is that the actions of C-suite executives add value, even after factoring in their compensation

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

#214

Post by pineaux »

lsaferite wrote: post #203
sokoloff wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose I own 0.01% of the company I work at. If that company is publicly traded, I can sell those shares to anyone. If that company is a co-op in which only employees are allowed to own shares, the only people I can sell my shares to are other employees. In general, more willing buyers (who in turn know they can they sell those shares unrestricted in the future to any buyer), increases the people willing to bid on t…

Are you even allowed to buy/sell shares in an employee owned co-op? I understood that share ownership was part of employment with the company. It entitles you to a share in the profits and a share in the decision making, but I didn't think it was a tradable instrument itself.

This is the answer to all the above. These shares give you a right to part of the profit, but cannot be sold.

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

#215

Post by dmoy »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #93
dmoy wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The percentage of ownership is relevant, as is where the profit goes.

Board control is probably more important than profit on this one, I'd say

Right, percentage of ownership (since board control stems from that?)

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

#216

Post by vkou »

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.

Customer co-ops are nothing like employee co-ops.

REI is a customer co-op, and in the past few years, hasn't exactly been a model employer.

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

#217

Post by rybosworld »

greenie_beans wrote: post #204
rybosworld wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no semantics. > every socialist i know and have read agree that a coop is a socialist organization Every unicorn I know thinks leprechauns are real. A coop protects and upholds private ownership and distribution of profits to their shareholders. That's not semantics. Socialism does not protect private ownership. Socialism does not distribute profits to shareholders (because there are none). That's also not se…

ok, well you have no idea what you're talking about, so if you think that a coop is capitalism, then i'm gonna use that ignorance to my advantage, and convince everybody that coops are capitalism. psyop coops on the capitalists. thanks for the great strategic idea!

My guess is that someone who thinks private, for-profit businesses are socialist, will not gain much traction convincing anyone of anything.

But best of luck!

If you can explain to me how a co-op, which is a privately owned, and for-profit business structure, is not capitalist, I am all ears.

P.s. Definitions are important. Hand waving them away as "semantics" is a common trick of the ignorant.

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

#218

Post by eatonphil »

vkou wrote: post #216
eatonphil wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Customer co-ops are nothing like employee co-ops. REI is a customer co-op, and in the past few years, hasn't exactly been a model employer.

That's not what I'm taking about.

https://www.agweb.com/news/business/technology/almost-half-l...

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

#219

Post by dllthomas »

vkou wrote: post #216
eatonphil wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Customer co-ops are nothing like employee co-ops. REI is a customer co-op, and in the past few years, hasn't exactly been a model employer.

> Customer co-ops are nothing like employee co-ops.

And agricultural co-ops are neither.

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

#220

Post by Optimal_Persona »

com2kid wrote: post #195
dredmorbius wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite, and encouraged by the USDA, see e.g., https://www.usda.gov/topics/rural/co-ops-key-part-fabric-rur... >. Producer co-ops generally are at least somewhat prevalent. Two notable former examples are Visa and Mastercard (they've since reverted to publicly-traded corporations, in the aughts). Both were originally formed as co-operative ventures among member banks, effectively a producer co-op. I've looked into work…

> Consumer co-ops saw popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, but have largely faded from view. A niche they had occupied, "natural food store" is now dominated by Amazon through its Whole Foods subsidiary, though there are some independent co-ops still extant, You missed a chance to mention PCC Community Markets, the USA's largest grocery store co-op, who are also located in Seattle! (And just like Amazon, PCC was recent…

In the '90s/'00s I worked at the Davis Food Co-Op in Davis, CA which was one of the largest full-service (meaning not just hippie health food) consumer-owned grocery co-ops at the time. After working in the bakery I was on the Board for 3 years, a fascinating experience (we followed the Carver Policy Governance model, where the board is basically the legislative/judicial branch and the CEO is executive).

When a Whole Foods opened across town, they shut down in less than a year largely because of the strength/quality/loyalty of the Davis Food Co-Op.

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