31–40 of 88 posts
I wanted to buy from worker-owned cooperatives but there was no single place to see what they actually sell. So I scraped the product catalogs from ~60 worker-owned co-op stores and made them searchable. 22,000+ products: coffee, chocolate, clothing, books, home goods, etc. You search, find something, and click through to buy directly from the co-op's store. Nothing goes through me. There's also a section for finding…
I never thought I'd see anything like that easily accessible on hacker news. (Edit: I say that because this is a project by independent artists that has no real hope for commercial exit -- monetize free jazz, I dare you. Edit: actually don't, please.)
Seems some of the results are outdated. For example Ubuntu Coffee Collective in Emeryville is permanently closed.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is nothing inherently ethical about co-op owned organizations nor anything inherently unethical about privately owned organizations. The party vanguard of the worker co-op is exactly as capable of selfish or abusive behaviour as the private owner.
> There is nothing inherently ethical about co-op owned organizations nor anything inherently unethical about privately owned organizations. I disagree. Co-ops are inherently democratic. Privately owned business is inherently anti-democratic. The difference only becomes starker as the scale increases. That alone makes it seem more ethical to me, before you even get to examining the way democratic organizations obviou…
I have no doubt that there are people who wish to attend meetings to vote and argue about minutia involves in the running of bakeries and other organizations. But just because people exist does not mean that the most ethical organization is one that gives them the most opportunity to exercise their particular interest in attending meetings.
The vast majority of people do not want every organization their lives to run like a mini democracy. Not only is this not necessarily more ethical than other alternatives, but it is definitely less efficient and that matters when it comes to the supply of material goods. I don’t want a vote on whether or not my bakery puts sesame seeds on the bread. I just want to buy a loaf of bread thanks.
I wonder of there is a version of this but for jobs?
Not exactly what you asked for, but here is a related Wiki entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_employee-owned_compani...
I took a brief look at some of the products like coffee and im not sure they are competitive. What exactly is the premium coming from ?
Apropos: the way they ended the REI Adventures program is behavior consistent with a normal big-box chain. That is, announce the end simultaneously to their customers and REI's partner adventure companies, provide refunds to customers, but don't forward the relevant same customer info to the partners for rebooking because that's REI's proprietary data.
If that's also behavior consistent with a worker-owned coop, I have to ask: what is the social benefit of worker-owned over a normal corporate structure? And if it's not, why point the user to REI for a pair of hiking shorts?
Curious that you include REI. It's a retail coop model, not a worker-owned coop. Apropos: the way they ended the REI Adventures program is behavior consistent with a normal big-box chain. That is, announce the end simultaneously to their customers and REI's partner adventure companies, provide refunds to customers, but don't forward the relevant same customer info to the partners for rebooking because that's REI's pr…
No capital-risking, and then rent-seeking, middleman, if I’m following.