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Mondragon as the new city-state

elysian.press

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Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#81

Post by dbingham »

trhway wrote: post #78
api wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why aren’t there more of these if they work well?

They don’t allow genuine innovation in any shape or form, and that in particular leads to highjacking by bureaucrats and degradation. So they may work in short term (work for some at the price of oppressing the ones who don’t fit well into the collective) - I’m from USSR for example - yet the result is predetermined.

That is flatly false. Worker cooperatives are every bit as innovative as any other form of private corporation. These are owned by workers not a centralized government. There are quite a few of them and you may well have purchased their products with it even realizing it. Two additional examples you may have encountered are Equal Exchange and King Arthur Flour.

There aren't more of them because they have a hell of a time securing financing when most businesses are financed through equity sales which they can't do.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#82

Post by captainbland »

api wrote: post #71
conaclos wrote: post #67

The anarchist culture of the 1800s and 1900s in Spain, especially the emergence of anarcho-syndicalist structures [0], is certainly one of the reasons for Mondagon's existence. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-syndicalism

Why aren’t there more of these if they work well?

There are a few. There's a tech coop federation in the UK for instance. A big hurdle for efforts like this is access to finance meaning they often have to be bootstrapped.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#83

Post by [deleted] »

mikojan wrote: post #41
intalentive wrote: post #7

>If the model is a good one, detractors say it can’t be replicated outside of the Basque Country, and there’s some truth to that. The author doesn't speculate why, but I'd guess it's partly due to Basque ethnic solidarity. Mondragon sounds a lot like the kind of late 1800s / early 1900s syndicalism that later evolved into Italian fascism and German National Socialism. Of course, another big "collectivist capitalism"…

The importance of "leftist" fascism is overplayed. "Socialism" back then, much like "Human Rights" today, was generally associated with what is morally right. It was not an ideology of extremist groups. Fascism "evolved" from socialism same as everybody and their mother evolved from it. And because of its dominance, everybody tried to exploit it, too. So you called your organisation "National Socialist Party" and you…

[deleted]

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#84

Post by trhway »

dbingham wrote: post #81
trhway wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don’t allow genuine innovation in any shape or form, and that in particular leads to highjacking by bureaucrats and degradation. So they may work in short term (work for some at the price of oppressing the ones who don’t fit well into the collective) - I’m from USSR for example - yet the result is predetermined.

That is flatly false. Worker cooperatives are every bit as innovative as any other form of private corporation. These are owned by workers not a centralized government. There are quite a few of them and you may well have purchased their products with it even realizing it. Two additional examples you may have encountered are Equal Exchange and King Arthur Flour. There aren't more of them because they have a hell of a…

Example of innovation please. I’ve seen first hand that no collective farm is able to produce nor SpaceX nor even EV nor even plant in time and harvest in time.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#85

Post by mikojan »

api wrote: post #71
conaclos wrote: post #67

The anarchist culture of the 1800s and 1900s in Spain, especially the emergence of anarcho-syndicalist structures [0], is certainly one of the reasons for Mondagon's existence. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-syndicalism

Why aren’t there more of these if they work well?

I do not believe it is necessarily about that.

It might be a lack of education (not a value statement). Socialism in Spain was not established at once. It was an effort spanning many decades.

If we would suddenly find ourselves in a medieval kingdom we would certainly need time (and help) to adapt to that system. Likewise, people from that period would need time (and help) to adapt to ours. Regardless of whether it is better.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#86

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

trhway wrote: post #78
api wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why aren’t there more of these if they work well?

They don’t allow genuine innovation in any shape or form, and that in particular leads to highjacking by bureaucrats and degradation. So they may work in short term (work for some at the price of oppressing the ones who don’t fit well into the collective) - I’m from USSR for example - yet the result is predetermined.

It seems a bit premature to speak so generally about collectivism. It's quite possible that the USSR failed for reasons that do not apply to Mondragon.

Maybe once we've seen a few hundred of these come and go it'll be time for a general theory of their kind.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#87

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

trhway wrote: post #84
dbingham wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is flatly false. Worker cooperatives are every bit as innovative as any other form of private corporation. These are owned by workers not a centralized government. There are quite a few of them and you may well have purchased their products with it even realizing it. Two additional examples you may have encountered are Equal Exchange and King Arthur Flour. There aren't more of them because they have a hell of a…

Example of innovation please. I’ve seen first hand that no collective farm is able to produce nor SpaceX nor even EV nor even plant in time and harvest in time.

I'm not close enough to manufacturing to evaluate how innovative their approaches to factory automation are, but it's not like they're based solely on turnips:

https://www.mondragon-assembly.com/automotive/

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#88

Post by trhway »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #86
trhway wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don’t allow genuine innovation in any shape or form, and that in particular leads to highjacking by bureaucrats and degradation. So they may work in short term (work for some at the price of oppressing the ones who don’t fit well into the collective) - I’m from USSR for example - yet the result is predetermined.

It seems a bit premature to speak so generally about collectivism. It's quite possible that the USSR failed for reasons that do not apply to Mondragon. Maybe once we've seen a few hundred of these come and go it'll be time for a general theory of their kind.

>It seems a bit premature to speak so generally about collectivism

2B people spent better part of 20th century doing the experiments, killing tens of millions of those who didn’t completely shared the ideas of the collective, and you think it is premature?

General theory is in the Das Kapital. So far the things have worked as described. People by mistake ascribe happiness to the outcomes calculated there while there is no such happiness predicted by that theory. Ie communism isn’t a happy place like some naïve readers think, communism is prison and oppression.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#89

Post by mikojan »

trhway wrote: post #84
dbingham wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is flatly false. Worker cooperatives are every bit as innovative as any other form of private corporation. These are owned by workers not a centralized government. There are quite a few of them and you may well have purchased their products with it even realizing it. Two additional examples you may have encountered are Equal Exchange and King Arthur Flour. There aren't more of them because they have a hell of a…

Example of innovation please. I’ve seen first hand that no collective farm is able to produce nor SpaceX nor even EV nor even plant in time and harvest in time.

The collective farm that produced SpaceX is the United States Government. It carried out all the research and development necessary to create and further the North American space program. And it is existential in furthering it to this day. Without this source of contracts, research projects and income SpaceX would not be able to produce its commercial spin-off products.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#90

Post by cies »

samatman wrote: post #70
cies wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "soviet system" as you call, started (yes the revolution) with a slogan "power to the soviets". In the slogan the word "soviet" meant "worker coop". This slogan was abolished when more central planning took over, and the word soviet become more associated with the central govt/ the state.

I didn't say "soviet system", I said "Soviet system", as in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. I do know what the word means.

In that case i just want to clarify it to others who may read it.
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