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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

#241

Post by vundercind »

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…

I’ve worked for an employee-owned US business.

It was indistinguishable from a normal corporation that periodically grants stock to employees, except other forms of retirement contribution were sub-par, and vesting periods for everything were LOL WTF long.

Working conditions and such were worse than many places in ways that definitely wouldn’t have been the case if it were a traditional ownership structure with a union rather than employee-owned.

They did love to put that up front when selling a job there, though. As if it actually meant something.

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

#242

Post by Qworg »

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.

Morning Star is an example that takes it even further - there are no bosses and all pay is peer based. They do about $1B a year and have 10% of the tomato ingredient market.

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

#243

Post by kwere »

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…

co-ops existed well before industrialization, as guilds of artisans. Guilds were quite protective of their markets and IPs. You had to inherit the menbership or pay a hefty sum to enter the guilds.

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

#244

Post by astrange »

marricks wrote: post #186
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…

I was shopping at winco a couple years back, which is employee owned, and one of the cashiers was in his 40s/50s and mentioned he had a couple million in retirement. Very cool to hear, dude will likely be better off than me. Employee owned corporations are good.

Unclear why hearing that someone else is richer than you is supposed to be cool, regardless of if they're capitalist coded or cashier coded.

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

#245

Post by kwere »

saalweachter wrote: post #141
_mlbt wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that socialism doesn't scale without force. Eventually you'll run out of people who willingly go along with doing things for the greater good. Looking at history, once you get larger than a commune or coop it all falls apart. You need force to seize the means of production, and the leaders of this force never give up their "temporary" powers. You also need force to get people to do the necessary but un…

> The problem is that socialism doesn't scale without force. Eh, not a problem unique to socialism, or devoid from capitalism. The history of labor in the United States is rife with both socialist (well, maybe anarchist) bomb-throwers and rich capitalists hiring private armies to gun down striking workers.

striking workers usually would occupy factories, property they had no right to "seize". If workers quit / stopped showing on mass, nobody would have done anything

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

#246

Post by rybosworld »

greenie_beans wrote: post #230
rybosworld wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Multiple people here have told you that your understanding is incorrect. Now you've resorted to straw man so... I think deep down we all know who is talking out of their behind.

two people, you and some other guy who is also wrong and doesn't know the 7 principles of coops based on his comment (you still haven't argued about how those principles are capitalist, so pretty sure the onus is on you anyway). there are plenty of examples in the other comments on this post supporting my opinion. being a contrarian doesn't mean you're right. and re: strawman, i just met you at your level after you u…

"being a contrarian doesn't mean you're right" - oh the irony

You never had an argument beyond "I'm right and you're wrong" lmao.

I asked you to respond to specific questions like: Explaining how a privately owned, for-profit org (a coop) can exist in a socialist world. You ignored it and have now devolved to emotional responses only.

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

#247

Post by kyle_grove »

Qworg wrote: post #242
eatonphil wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Morning Star is an example that takes it even further - there are no bosses and all pay is peer based. They do about $1B a year and have 10% of the tomato ingredient market.

I lived in Woodland for a time and I really wish I had heard about them back then so I could arrange a plant tour.

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

#248

Post by kwere »

piva00 wrote: post #50
_mlbt wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that socialism doesn't scale without force. Eventually you'll run out of people who willingly go along with doing things for the greater good. Looking at history, once you get larger than a commune or coop it all falls apart. You need force to seize the means of production, and the leaders of this force never give up their "temporary" powers. You also need force to get people to do the necessary but un…

Mondragon's example goes exactly against all of your points. It's a 70k workers company ran as a co-op. You can have co-ops running and trading between them, the only point where capital is necessary is for investments in new businesses lines (in the sense of financing capital, not all capital, financing capital from banks can also come from co-op banks). Undesirable jobs are done either way if people are paid, there…

capitalism is about accountability and trust at scale compared to previous systems that worked on connections that didnt scale well across classes / countries / cultures. Bankruptcy, is probably the best idea came out capitalism.

Competition between humans can turn ugly wheter on economic or political fields and "common folks" do ends up as collateral victims. Thats unchecked human nature

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

#249

Post by jltsiren »

kwere wrote: post #243
jltsiren wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

co-ops existed well before industrialization, as guilds of artisans. Guilds were quite protective of their markets and IPs. You had to inherit the menbership or pay a hefty sum to enter the guilds.

Guilds were something very different.

They were oligarchic rather than democratic: only masters were full members. They were monopolies rather than competing in the market: you had to be a member of the relevant guild if you wanted to do business. And they were not businesses: each master ran their own business instead of working for the guild.

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

#250

Post by robocat »

dredmorbius wrote: post #145
eatonphil wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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…

> Bob's Red Mill

I think Bob basically gifted the company to the employees (they bought in over 10 years, but at a valuation far lower than Bob could have got selling the company to an acquirer).

Some discussion on the employee ownership here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39374158

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