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Mondragon Corporation – a federation of co-operatives

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Re: Mondragon Corporation – a federation of co-operatives

#21

Post by anon7725 »

roenxi wrote: post #4
petrocrat wrote: post #2

Worker cooperatives are fully compatible with capitalism. Only mentioning it because sometimes this idea gets unfairly maligned due to some mistaken association with socialism or even communism. There should be more of these sorts of entities in the USA and Europe, and frankly everywhere. It's an assured route towards better conditions for the working class, by making them owners and stakeholders in a more substantia…

It remains confusing that, after centuries of profiting off capital generally being a much better strategic choice than profiting off labour, workers insist and persist in trying to make labour work. If the unions had dumped their efforts into co-ops instead of trying to fight their own companies then they might have managed to have a positive impact. They've been at it for long enough for capital accumulation to hav…

You may be surprised to learn that if one does not have capital, yet does have the capacity to labour, then one may seek to make labour work rather than profiting from capital.

Re: Mondragon Corporation – a federation of co-operatives

#22

Post by kingsfoil »

kingsfoil wrote: post #17

"Mutualism" by Sara Horowitz was an interesting book that discussed some of the history of this style of worker owned businesses. She traces some of it's history, and points out other examples of this style of worker or member governance showing up in other organizations: https://www.porchlightbooks.com/products/mutualism-sara-horo... Great read, highly recommend.

The National Center for Employee Ownership also maintains a list of 100 employee owned businesses in the USA: https://www.nceo.org/research/employee-ownership-100-largest...

Employee ownership is not a silver bullet to every problem. The governance model and governing body of employee-owners has to be well constructed as with anything. As a philosophy generally, it has a lot of potential to avoid certain common problems with more traditional business models.

In this space it's also important to understand the difference between cooperatives and collectives: https://institute.coop/about-worker-co-ops/worker-cooperativ...

Credit Unions tend to be a more commonplace example of member/worker governance, though in my experience it's somewhat rare for the average member to engage much with the governance.

Re: Mondragon Corporation – a federation of co-operatives

#24

Post by mikojan »

petrocrat wrote: post #2

Worker cooperatives are fully compatible with capitalism. Only mentioning it because sometimes this idea gets unfairly maligned due to some mistaken association with socialism or even communism. There should be more of these sorts of entities in the USA and Europe, and frankly everywhere. It's an assured route towards better conditions for the working class, by making them owners and stakeholders in a more substantia…

It is not a mistaken association. Socialism traditionally meant workers control over production. Work councils in Germany originally pursued direct workers control over respective businesses. Unions in Germany pursued some version of this well into the 1950s. Most socialist movements in Europe understood this to _be_ Socialism until the Soviet counter-revolution swept it all away.

And there is another forgotten truth. Before the Soviet counter-revolution, liberals advocated for this type of Socialism.

    The form of association, however, which if mankind continue to improve, must be expected in the end to predominate, is not that which can exist between a capitalist as chief, and work-people without a voice in the management, but the association of the labourers themselves on terms of equality, collectively owning the capital with which they carry on their operations, and working under managers elected and removable by themselves.
- John Stuart Mill

Re: Mondragon Corporation – a federation of co-operatives

#26

Post by hibikir »

jollyllama wrote: post #25
feverzsj wrote: post #13

They moved most production work to factories in China, which ironically aren't cooperative.

How'd that happen if it's one worker, one vote?

Because the workers are also shareholders, and shareholders like money either way. Some of their business units were becoming extremely uncompetitive. So they ship a bunch of the manufacturing away to subsidiaries where you are not really a member of the coop: You aren't getting shares if you are in many of those other subsidiaries. They still managed to build a class system anyway. If you work at their retailers, you aren't the same as if you work at their Basque factories.

As for workers that were part of the coop in uncompetitive jobs, they moved them around as they could, but ultimately no amount of union or coop-like behavior is going to help if you are getting outcompeted.

A lot of people think it's all wine and roses when you get more worker input, but then you realize quite a few of the warts come straight from having a bunch of people with different amounts of power, and you still have power differentials even if everyone votes.

Re: Mondragon Corporation – a federation of co-operatives

#27

Post by ralusek »

js8 wrote: post #12
inigyou wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism is not simply free markers - it means "control by people with capital." People control society proportionally to how much capital they have, and those who control vast boards of capital are very uninterested in allowing capital to be spread around more equitably.

The parent post is not even the worst offender. In his (otherwise good) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/23_Things_They_Don%27t_Tell_Yo... , Ha-Joon Chang completely flips the meaning between free markets and capitalism. I would say that capitalism is not only characterized by private ownership of capital, but also by free market for labor, which could be almost considered a complementary feature (other side of the same…

Socialism is completely incompatible with free markets. Free markets typically stop being opinionated beyond the concept of enforcing contracts/consent, i.e. people are allowed to structure their economic relationships with one another however they want, they just have to respect their agreements.

Socialism is a prescriptive ideology, it is concerned precisely with the nature of the economic relationships people make. Labor theory of value. "From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs." Workers own the means of production. To the degree that people are able to freely structure their economic relationships with one another, then the vast majority of those relationships will look nothing like the prescriptions of socialism. To the degree that the economic relationships are made to look like the prescriptions of socialism, then the economic model would fail to be described as a free market.

This is why in a free market/"capitalist" economy, communes can exist, Mondragon can exist...because you can structure your relationships with one another however you want. It's just that most people don't like that structure. "Capitalism" itself doesn't care at all if that's the way people want to distribute equity and control of the corporation. Now, if you want to structure an arbitrary economic relationship in a socialist communist country...good luck.

Re: Mondragon Corporation – a federation of co-operatives

#28

Post by rapnie »

ralusek wrote: post #27
js8 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parent post is not even the worst offender. In his (otherwise good) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/23_Things_They_Don%27t_Tell_Yo... , Ha-Joon Chang completely flips the meaning between free markets and capitalism. I would say that capitalism is not only characterized by private ownership of capital, but also by free market for labor, which could be almost considered a complementary feature (other side of the same…

Socialism is completely incompatible with free markets. Free markets typically stop being opinionated beyond the concept of enforcing contracts/consent, i.e. people are allowed to structure their economic relationships with one another however they want, they just have to respect their agreements. Socialism is a prescriptive ideology, it is concerned precisely with the nature of the economic relationships people make…

>> Capitalism is ... OTOH socialism ...

> No, socialism is not ... and capitalism is ...

I often wonder if these classifications have long outlived their usefulness, and only lead to endless, often heated, ideological discussions about their definition. To the extent that those benefiting most from observably-broken-form-of-global-capitalism can use that as a tool to sow division and strife and ensure nothing changes. The gist of your and parent's comment is the interesting bit, where new systems and mechanisms are discussed.

Re: Mondragon Corporation – a federation of co-operatives

#29

Post by mikojan »

jollyllama wrote: post #25
feverzsj wrote: post #13

They moved most production work to factories in China, which ironically aren't cooperative.

How'd that happen if it's one worker, one vote?

Sibling commented on organizational disadvantages that may or may not be inherent to cooperatives.

However, another explanation is that the dominant economic and legal environment - and, indeed, society itself - is structured around a single business model: the capitalist as chief, and workers with no meaningful voice in management.

Mondragon emerged in a region with strong traditions of industrial organization, communal solidarity and popular education, as well as a recent memory of workers' movements. It also arose within living memory of the large-scale worker collectivizations of the Spanish Revolution, particularly in Catalonia.

Much of the social and institutional environment that has made this possible has weakened over recent decades. This was not merely an accidental development: in much of the world, it was the result of a conscious political project that accelerated in the 1980s.

Re: Mondragon Corporation – a federation of co-operatives

#30

Post by yogthos »

Most people don't know this, but Huawei is another giant cooperative.

> Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd. is a private company wholly owned by 169,054 of its employees and retired beneficiaries. As of December 31, 2025, company founder Ren Zhengfei's investment accounts for nearly 0.59% of the company’s total share capital.

https://www.huawei.com/en/media-center/company-facts

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