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Mondragon as the new city-state

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Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#91

Post by trhway »

mikojan wrote: post #89
trhway wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You obviously never been to a collective farm.

Despite government support to the extent much larger than that for SpaceX collective farms have nothing to show for it.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#92

Post by qrush »

Just wanted to flag that there are areas in the US that co-operative enterprises do flourish and have knock-on effects. This is biased by my food co-operative experience but just to show that there is an alternative to unfettered capitalism where businesses help each other thrive.

- The Minneapolis/St. Paul region has so many food co-ops that there's a co-operative warehouse dedicated to serving them (and other businesses too) https://www.cpw.coop/

- New England has a multitude of 30-40 year old food co-ops (along with startups like mine) and has its own association of food co-ops to help advocate for better state policy/governance http://nfca.coop/

- National Co-op Grocers is a US-wide group that helps co-ops buy food at cheaper rates and provides a ton of great branding food co-ops who are members get to use https://www.grocery.coop/

I'd love to see more tech co-operatives sprout up someday... there is an alternative to VC that keeps ownership equal, and it's been all around us this whole time!

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#93

Post by cies »

orthecreedence wrote: post #55
cies wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's inherent to the way a coop works that it's not possible to follow the same path. There is no 7% equity to be given, only the repayment of a loan. The coop model does not promote taking risk and hence have many fail, yet a few grow very quick. Another problem is law. At this point it favors the common ownership forms of business. Starting a coop is hence much harder than it should be. This is what i think where t…

A possible model is to divide your shares into ownership/control class shares (reserved only for workers) and profit shares which can be bought/sold by third parties. This gives workers ultimate control over the venture while allowing third-party investment. I don't know if this has been implemented anywhere, but it's a possibility. It's not going to fuel explosive growth like VC funds do, but TBH I'm finding as I ge…

If you invest you want some control. The law is very clear (lots of preceding cases) on your power as an investor in case of equity investments. In case of w-coop investment constructions as you mention the law is very unclear. Hence usually they start with basic loans (sometimes that the initial workers bare some responsibility for) or gifts.

I agree with many VC-backed startups develop toxic behavior.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#94

Post by cies »

jszymborski wrote: post #45
cies wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's inherent to the way a coop works that it's not possible to follow the same path. There is no 7% equity to be given, only the repayment of a loan. The coop model does not promote taking risk and hence have many fail, yet a few grow very quick. Another problem is law. At this point it favors the common ownership forms of business. Starting a coop is hence much harder than it should be. This is what i think where t…

I'm not a finance person, but my understanding is that co-ops more often raise capital with traditional loans. While I believe you are correct that co-ops are not a great fit for the growth business strategy that VCs make their bread and butter on, I believe that on many metrics co-ops tend to be more sustainable than the corporate alternatives[0]. This means they are more likely to be around tomorrow to pay off a lo…

> All this to say, it would be great to see more capital for co-ops in the form of traditional loans with favourable interest rates.

Sure, that would be great. But what can govt do today to incentivize that?

I'd say just relax (tax) law on w-coops to incentivize them compared to the less favorable forms of incorporation.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#95

Post by mikojan »

abeppu wrote: post #8

A thing that is kind of glossed over is: what is "ownership" when we talk about worker-owners at cooperatives? > The profits generated by each cooperative are put to work for the benefit of the greater whole. Each cooperative gives 14-40% of their gross profits to their division (depending on the division), and another 14% to their parent company. The rest are invested back in the cooperative (60% of net profits), di…

> ... so it's not ownership, right?

"Ownership" as in: You control it, and you ought to control it, too.

Control is exercised by means of the democratic process (the worst type of process except for all others).

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#96

Post by thinkingtoilet »

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

>anarcho-syndicalist

I'm sure 99% of people first heard this term in the famous Holy Grail bit. I have never seen it used in the wild. Thanks!

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#97

Post by calvinmorrison »

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

Probably more influenced by the Falange driving against classic capital and communist analogs. This was setup under Franco's Spain.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#98

Post by jujube3 »

cooolbear wrote: post #74
jujube3 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's a Marxist and believes in Marx's labor theory of value. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value As wikipedia says, "modern mainstream economics rejects the LTV" (for very good reasons). It leads to some pretty obvious absurdities if you take it seriously. For example, 10,000 people digging holes should be more "valuable" than one guy designing a microchip, because hey! The holes take more labor.

Nice try, but getting 10,000 people to dig holes (e.g. gigantic infrastructure projects) ends up costing much more than what it takes for "one guy" to "design a microchip"

Sure, it costs more, and everyone agrees on that. Where we disagree is whether it provides more VALUE. The LTV says that it does by definition, because labor = value, and therefore more labor = more value.

You may choose to disagree. Just as modern economists disagree with the LTV.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#99

Post by Aunche »

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?

When you start a co-op, just like any other bootstrapped business, you're staking your livelihood, but you're forgoing most of the upside. You also need several other people to agree with you. This screens out most of the risk, which is why they're perceived as working well. This works out great if you're lucky enough to be employed by one, but not great for people who need a job immediately.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#100

Post by davidw »

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?

That's a good question and it seems like it's difficult to separate from people's ideological ideas about whether they are good or bad.

My hometown in Oregon had a cooperative, Burley, that made bike stuff like trailers and tandems and some clothing. Word was that it was kind of dysfunctional because of how democratic it was even if all the people cared deeply. I think they finally ended up selling out to some outfit who scrapped everything but the trailers.

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