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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

#231

Post by FrustratedMonky »

anon291 wrote: post #40
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 as practiced also implies heavy centralized planning to mandate these arrangements and then set price floors and ceilings to set production capacity. The Amish tend to reject social ownership of land so they are not socialist or communist by any means. Distributist would probably be the best description with any mention in the literature.

What large corporation doesn't have central planning? Do you think every factory just makes up their own schedule and makes what they want?

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

#232

Post by sangnoir »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #229
sangnoir wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For whom $2,300 / year is meaningful is, dare I say, hard to answer question There were many articles written on the impact of the 2021 Advance Child Tax Credit (up to $1,800 per child over a 6 month period). The impact was very significant on lower-income families - which makes sense because for those earning less than $40,000 per year, that amount is more than the amount in one's paystub.

And how many JPmorgan employees fall into that category?

Glassdoor tells me the salaries of JPMorgan tellers ranges from $38,000 - $62,000 with a median of $42,000. So without digging into salary distribution at the entire company, I can yell you with certainty that it's a non-zero fraction.

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

#233

Post by jltsiren »

Collisteru wrote: post #224

I wonder why co-ops are so comparatively rare in the US, even though everybody seems to like them (customers and employees). It could just be tradition and the effects of history. But then why did US history create more shareholder corps while European history created more co-ops? It could be that US investors are less willing to invest in co-ops. But then, why? Is there something about them that makes them less comp…

I guess it's because American culture is more focused on property and ownership.

The co-op movement arose as a reaction to industrialization and capitalism, which threatened many workers. You could understand it as capitalism based on membership rather than ownership, or as a third way that's neither capitalism nor socialism. But just like socialism never really took root in the US, other alternatives to capitalism didn't fare that well either.

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

#234

Post by jampekka »

Collisteru wrote: post #224

I wonder why co-ops are so comparatively rare in the US, even though everybody seems to like them (customers and employees). It could just be tradition and the effects of history. But then why did US history create more shareholder corps while European history created more co-ops? It could be that US investors are less willing to invest in co-ops. But then, why? Is there something about them that makes them less comp…

Co-ops are of course worse for investors. There are no voting stock in co-ops, so the stockholders can't squeeze maximum profits off workers and consumers.

Europe had very strong socialist/non-capitalist political movements in the 19th century. Co-ops were seen as one alternative to capitalism, and were a huge movement.

For example in Finland the largest bank and largest retail chain are (consumer) co-ops, and in general co-ops are big players in the economy.

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

#235

Post by sokoloff »

pineaux wrote: post #214
lsaferite wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What does it mean to own something that you cannot sell/assign?

That sounds like plain old profit sharing, not ownership.

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

#236

Post by Arkhaine_kupo »

greenie_beans wrote: post #223
Arkhaine_kupo wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

most curious to learn more about the civil war.

There are a number of famous english speaking authors that have done pretty good work around it.

On non fiction you have "The spanish civil war" by Thomas Hugh.

On the fiction side you have "For whom the bell tolls" by Ernst hemingway and "Homage to Catalonia" by George Orwell

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

#237

Post by jampekka »

jltsiren wrote: post #233
Collisteru wrote: post #224

I wonder why co-ops are so comparatively rare in the US, even though everybody seems to like them (customers and employees). It could just be tradition and the effects of history. But then why did US history create more shareholder corps while European history created more co-ops? It could be that US investors are less willing to invest in co-ops. But then, why? Is there something about them that makes them less comp…

I guess it's because American culture is more focused on property and ownership. The co-op movement arose as a reaction to industrialization and capitalism, which threatened many workers. You could understand it as capitalism based on membership rather than ownership, or as a third way that's neither capitalism nor socialism. But just like socialism never really took root in the US, other alternatives to capitalism d…

Worker co-ops are quite concretely socialist in the sense that the workers control their means of production. Of course when embedded in largely capitalist economy, e.g. banks do still have often de-facto control over them.

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

#238

Post by PNewling »

Collisteru wrote: post #224

I wonder why co-ops are so comparatively rare in the US, even though everybody seems to like them (customers and employees). It could just be tradition and the effects of history. But then why did US history create more shareholder corps while European history created more co-ops? It could be that US investors are less willing to invest in co-ops. But then, why? Is there something about them that makes them less comp…

>It could be that US investors are less willing to invest in co-ops. But then, why? Is there something about them that makes them less competitive?

My, admittedly uninformed, guess would be it has to do with 1) there are more worker protections in the EU than in the US and 2) Co-ops tend to pay employees better wages, have better benefits, etc.

Shareholder corps will try to drive down their labor costs as much as possible. Walmart goes so far as providing advice to how it's employees can best apply for food stamps, all the while keeping them under the 32hr/week threshold that would require them to receive benefits. This can provide a price advantage against co-ops who are not running these same practices. It the EU the labor protection laws are better so the potential difference of labor cost is diminished between sharecorp and co-op.

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

#239

Post by vidarh »

dfadsadsf wrote: post #165
Arkhaine_kupo wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

JP Morgan works in 65 countries, in some of them 2300 would be a year of salary. Venezuela avg salary 230$ per month Vietnam avg salary 277$ per month Lebanon avg salary 190$ per month Nigeria avg salary 730$ per month Pakistan avg salary 293$ per month

In all those countries, average salary for JP Morgan employees is significantly higher (especially if you include expats). Also I think you are significantly off with Nigeria avg salary - no way it's so high in such a poor country.

Nigeria is tricky - I've seen estimates ranging from $130-$750. World Bank classifies it as a "lower middle income" country at this point, which would suggest they at least think the median is <$4k or so per year, I think.

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

#240

Post by ClarityJones »

Collisteru wrote: post #224

I wonder why co-ops are so comparatively rare in the US, even though everybody seems to like them (customers and employees). It could just be tradition and the effects of history. But then why did US history create more shareholder corps while European history created more co-ops? It could be that US investors are less willing to invest in co-ops. But then, why? Is there something about them that makes them less comp…

Big-government is also an aspect. Both the federal and state governments in the US have a tendency to form wholly-owned subsidiaries to conduct businesses that could otherwise be run by co-ops.
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