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Mondragon as the new city-state

elysian.press

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Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#121

Post by kragen »

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #96
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!

you are overestimating the degree to which your personal social group is typical in the world by probably about a factor of 100

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#122

Post by greenie_beans »

jujube3 wrote: post #59
calvinmorrison wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no value without labor. is this a serious statement?

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.

This is a common misinterpretation of the labor theory of value. I understand it like this:

I am a capitalist and my money goes to pay labor to create a thing that I sell in a market. The workers create thing in the production process. I have captured a portion of the labor's true value based on the market, bringing me profit - what Marx called "surplus value."

I turn around and reinvest that profit into another business that brings me more profit. Rinse and repeat, forever.

But that profit is nothing but a portion of the labor's true value as reflected in the market price, and therefore the labor created the value. The market did not create the value. The market decided on a price to pay for the value created by the labor.

Much like "machines all the way down", value is labor all the way down.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#123

Post by Gaessaki »

jszymborski wrote: post #103
cies wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Especially in Canada, where capital is tight and productivity is low, I think incentivizing co-ops is a great idea. The Canadian gov't offers some grants for co-ops, but they are a pittance. Making debt cheaper for co-ops relative to corps (maybe via additional tax breaks on interest?) is, I think super important.

Quebec probably has the single best cooperative financing ecosystem in the world (1B+$). There’s a need for more risk-driven investment instruments in the sector however to seed early stage ventures. Most of the funds end up getting reinvested in existing cooperatives who can already access traditional funding.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#124

Post by AndrewKemendo »

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?

Considering that I just started one, the reason is, nobody will fund it

Why? Everybody with the money to start it, wants more money or special tax treatment via charity.

I’m actively funding ours myself for 0% return in order to bootstrap the infrastructure we need

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#125

Post by WalterBright »

harwoodjp wrote: post #76
api wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Why don't workers unite to democratically manage production? The police, propaganda, wage slavery.

There have been over 20,000 communes set up in the US. They are not illegal. Pick one and join it. Or set your own up.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#126

Post by fragmede »

jszymborski wrote: post #105

If: 1 - Cooperatives excite you and 2 - You use social media you might want to look at the social.coop Mastodon instance (or cosocial.ca if you're Canadian). Not only has the community on both those sites been a breath of total fresh air for me, I am not worried about the server I'm on having decide between disappearing and selling ads, and I feel like I'm partaking in a social enterprise. Just recently social.coop h…

That's neat! How is it funded?

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#127

Post by WalterBright »

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.

If it weren't for the Wright Brothers, NASA would never have existed.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#128

Post by Dalewyn »

nataliste wrote: post #119
api wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The paradox of worker-coops is that workers capable of successfully running businesses together are also capable of running businesses independently, so there's no need to form a co-op. It's those incapable of running a business individually or collectively that then form co-ops. Mondragon is the exception, not the rule.

Put another way: Singers who aren't good enough to make it on their own form large idol groups (eg: AKB 48) to sell themselves, while those who are become stars on their own or form small bands with others of similar success.

Or to put it another way: Ground meat is great, but the components thereof by themselves are generally regarded as waste.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#129

Post by trhway »

immibis wrote: post #120
trhway wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe because they are farms and not rocket makers

Why they are farms and not rocket makers? Because collective.
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