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Mondragon as the new city-state

elysian.press

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Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#131

Post by WalterBright »

samatman wrote: post #19

The difference between Mondragon, the kibbutzim, and other successful examples of collective labor, and the Soviet system, is precisely that the former are not governments, and operate in a capitalist system of property rights and free markets (in a practical rather than spherical cow sense of that term). I'm all for more cooperatives, it's a good model. Operating in a system which doesn't compel that form of organiz…

The kibbutzim are failures propped up by generous government subsidies, using money taxed from capitalist businesses.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#132

Post by mikojan »

karaterobot wrote: post #113
mikojan wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

Note that Mondragon is not a socialist enterprise. It's not obvious to me whether you're saying it is, but I think one of the interesting things about Mondragon is that it's somewhere in between the socialist-capitalist dichotomy. If you came along and said "good news, the state is in charge of all your businesses now" they would not consider their mission accomplished.

Socialism traditionally meant workers control over production. To the degree that Mondragon is democratic it is socialist.

Socialism came to be commonly associated with "State-capitalist monopoly" (Lenin) later in the 20th century but that does not describe revolutionary Spain at all.

There companies were mostly worker owned, democratically managed and freely associated within democratic regional and industrial cartels representing consumers' and producers' interests respectively. Highly advanced democratic systems. Larger companies were expropriated compulsory. Yes. But they were transferred into the ownership of the workforce. While smaller companies generally were free to operate as "private" enterprises though at a certain size that rarely made sense because all of industry was structured to serve democratically managed industrial operations.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#133

Post by cylinder714 »

Aloisius wrote: post #111
jmyeet wrote: post #4

There is no value without labor. This was recognized by everyone from Karl Marx to Abraham Lincoln to Adam Smith. Smith even conceded that profit was impossible if workers retain their surplus value, which is exactly the point. I bring this up because that's what capitalism is: draining the surplus labor value from workers to the capital-owning class. In feudalism, the artistocracy and th emonarchy extracted that val…

> There is no value without labor. Yet wine is higher valued than grape juice. Value can clearly exist without labor.

Winemaking requires far more resources, labor, skill and time than simple grape juice production.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#134

Post by SamWhited »

fragmede wrote: post #126
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?

By the members; we all pay a tiny bit into the co-op each month. Most people pay 1 USD or GBP per month, if you use some of the other services we offer through organizational memberships in other co-ops (ie. we're a member of meet.coop for video calls, May First Co-op for Nextcloud and email and what not, etc.) then some people pay a bit more (normally no more than 3 to 5 USD or GBP).

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#135

Post by WalterBright »

ladyanita22 wrote: post #6
sturmbraut wrote: post #3

I read about Mondragon in Pickety's works. That's why I went to Mondragon. I was deeply disappointed, the city and the surroundings look very sad. It reminded me a lot of the former DDR (german "democratic" republic which was under russian control).

It's located in Spain, a country not known for its vast wealth. Plus, it's in a special administrative region in Spain, the Basque Country. They enjoy subsidies and favorable treatment from the regional government.

> a country not known for its vast wealth

Its looting of the gold and silver from S. America apparently didn't help.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#136

Post by nl »

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.

There are multiple Kibbutz in Israel that plant and harvest on time and are the major source of innovation for Israel's AgTech sector (which is only behind the US in terms successful startups).

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#137

Post by ericd »

jonnybgood wrote: post #115
teruakohatu wrote: post #108

> Mondragon provides us with a successful, working model. It’s not throwing out capitalism, it’s creating a better form of it. Can any people from this region tell us what the downsides of working for Mondragon are? The article only touched on lower pay. Also how much does the President of the parent Mondragon Corp get paid? The often cited 6:1 or 9:1 lowest paid worker to CEO seems to be applied to CEOs of the vario…

In the OP: “Lorenzo estimates that the president of Mondragon is the highest-paid position (level 6) with a salary of around €200,000. Managers and directors earn between €80,000 and €120,000.”

So the president makes less than a middle manager in a Fortune 500 company. I hope there are some other benefits…

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#138

Post by SamWhited »

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 more of them, but good design "just works" and so goes mostly unnoticed.

Actually, I wonder if there's a word for this effect?

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#139

Post by WalterBright »

jmyeet wrote: post #4

There is no value without labor. This was recognized by everyone from Karl Marx to Abraham Lincoln to Adam Smith. Smith even conceded that profit was impossible if workers retain their surplus value, which is exactly the point. I bring this up because that's what capitalism is: draining the surplus labor value from workers to the capital-owning class. In feudalism, the artistocracy and th emonarchy extracted that val…

> There is no value without labor.

True, but there is also no value without investment and risk. Marx's failure was ignoring the other two ingredients.

Marxism is building a road with hundreds of laborers with shovels. Capitalism is one guy with a bulldozer.

P.S. Cuba has no riches to steal.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#140

Post by aussieguy1234 »

Its interesting that Rojava wasn't mentioned here. After driving out Islamic State, they founded their own country in north east Syria, not widely internationally recognised yet but functioning much better than the rest of Syria.

They are still a developing country and by no means wealthy, but the average income in this area is double what it is in the rest of the country.

Their economy is built almost entirely on cooperatives. The government provides land and seed funding to get the cooperatives going https://www.hamptonthink.org/read/the-social-economy-of-roja...

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