Mondragon Corporation • Hacker News Board

Re: Mondragon Corporation

#241

Post by pimpampum » Mon, Feb 10, 2020, 5:00 PM UTC

simongray wrote: post #85

tasogare wrote: post #41

In France, in the game industry, there is Motion Twin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Twin "Motion Twin is run as an anarcho-syndicalist workers cooperative with equal salary and decision-making power between its members." Also, this is where the Haxe programming language was created.

> In August 2019, Motion Twin spun off a new studio, Evil Empire, composed of Dead Cells developers who wanted to continue its development while Motion Twin moved to a new project. Evil Empire is run by Motion Twin's former head of marketing and is not run as a cooperative, particularly because the company wanted to scale beyond ten employees. Motion Twin continues to participate in Dead Cells decisions. Spawning mor…

Even large corporations work in small teams and collections of small teams. There is a long tradition of management experiments in classical capitalist corporations, we need to see what works for coops and what needs to be reinvented. But by the looks much is already working out.

Re: Mondragon Corporation

#242

Post by rolleiflex » Mon, Feb 10, 2020, 5:02 PM UTC

patcon wrote: post #100

There's a really inspiring federation of 40-ish tech worker co-ops in Argentina called FACTTIC[1], who have been developing a neat process called FIT[2] by which they share work amongst themselves via regular check-in calls. It's almost like they're part of a big meta-company together that shared opportunities based on their needs (e.g., who needs the money the most, etc.) Here's a video of a presentation they gave o…

We've been working with Hypha for the past few months mentioned above and it's been a good experience. My understanding is they're pretty selective about what sort of projects they take, but it's worth a shot.

Re: Mondragon Corporation

#243

Post by otachack » Mon, Feb 10, 2020, 5:04 PM UTC

jboynyc wrote: post #6

cies wrote: post #2

From the article: At Mondragon, there are agreed-upon wage ratios between executive work and field or factory work which earns a minimum wage. These ratios range from 3:1 to 9:1 in different cooperatives and average 5:1. That is, the general manager of an average Mondragon cooperative earns no more than 5 times as much as the theoretical minimum wage paid in their cooperative. For most workers, this ratio is smaller…

A great resource on this is Nathan Schneider's book Everything for Everyone : https://nathanschneider.info/books/everything-for-everyone/

Backlogged this, I'm highly interested in this considering the old rat race seems out of style to me.

Re: Mondragon Corporation

#244

Post by macspoofing » Mon, Feb 10, 2020, 5:07 PM UTC

kiliantics wrote: post #225

wuliwong wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my mind a "market systems" implicitly includes prices which means there would then be profit and loss. I could imagine a market of 100% barter and no generally accepted currency but I do not think that is what most people mean when they use the term "market systems." There is a lot I'm unaware of, possibly market systems without prices is one of those things?

Profit is what's left over after all costs are taken out from the price, including labour costs. Profit, by definition, is what the capitalist gets to keep for having done nothing but owning the capital that was used to generate the profit. So like when Bezos makes $4M+ per hour, it's not a wage because he is not working for it, he could be sleeping or shitting and he would make the same money. He gets that just beca…

>Profit, by definition, is what the capitalist gets to keep for having done nothing but owning the capital that was used to generate the profit.

No. That is a dishonest distortion.

If providing and owning capital is such a nothing, why don't you try it and see how easy it is. Capitalization carries with it immense risk, which Communists conveniently ignore. Whereas the labourer gets a salary regardless of how the business performs, the one who capitalizes does not have this privilege. I've seen first hand how much work and how difficult it is to start and run a business. You only need to look at bankruptcy stats to see how many businesses fail and take down all the capital that was invested. It's not very pleasant to run a business, sink your life savings into it, only for it to go under with your savings and years of life.

>So like when Bezos makes $4M+ per hour,

That is another dishonest distortion.

Bezos does not make $4M+ per hour. He holds stock in Amazon that rises in value at that rate (Amazon's actual profit is on the order of 2% after close to two decades of 0 profit). The value of stocks stems from the fact that there are people who are willing to buy it at that price. This carries risk, because this willingness by others to buy the stock is subject to many factors, and it can go down to zero. Again, if you think it's easy, feel free to dump your savings into Amazon stock and see how easy it is for you to live of that or even make a good return - though I'm sure in your fictitious communist reality this would mean you would make millions without doing anything!

Re: Mondragon Corporation

#245

Post by chishaku » Mon, Feb 10, 2020, 5:14 PM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #238

chishaku wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Government can't solve the problem of externalities Do you enjoy the the benefits of the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act? In your view, does government at least partially solve the problem of some negative externalities? (Based on your bio, I assume you're in the US.)

> Do you enjoy the the benefits of the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act? I like having clean water and clean air. That's why I have air filters in my house and don't drink tap water. > does government at least partially solve the problem of some negative externalities? Government can certainly change incentives in ways that will, at least temporarily, reduce particular negative externalities. But to say that "so…

> That's why I have air filters in my house and don't drink tap water.

I'll assume this is a joke.

> we can stop worrying about that particular negative externality

I'm not sure who said this. In any case, we're all in agreement that the government plays a key role in addressing negative externalities.

Re: Mondragon Corporation

#246

Post by pdonis » Mon, Feb 10, 2020, 5:41 PM UTC

chishaku wrote: post #245

pdonis wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you enjoy the the benefits of the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act? I like having clean water and clean air. That's why I have air filters in my house and don't drink tap water. > does government at least partially solve the problem of some negative externalities? Government can certainly change incentives in ways that will, at least temporarily, reduce particular negative externalities. But to say that "so…

> That's why I have air filters in my house and don't drink tap water. I'll assume this is a joke. > we can stop worrying about that particular negative externality I'm not sure who said this. In any case, we're all in agreement that the government plays a key role in addressing negative externalities.

> I'll assume this is a joke.

It's not.

> I'm not sure who said this.

I'm not sure what "solved" means if you still have to keep worrying about the negative externality.

> we're all in agreement that the government plays a key role in addressing negative externalities.

I don't think our agreement is as broad as you seem to think it is.

Re: Mondragon Corporation

#247

Post by fdsfssgs » Mon, Feb 10, 2020, 5:57 PM UTC

danharaj wrote: post #212

CountSessine wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do wonder sometimes how different Chomsky's career and his academic work would have been if he'd been required to take a course in game theory while he was an undergraduate.

I guarantee you Chomsky knows more about game theory than you.

And on what is that guarantee founded?

Edit: I appreciate the flag, but I'd much rather have an answer.

Re: Mondragon Corporation

#248

Post by abathologist » Mon, Feb 10, 2020, 6:17 PM UTC

iagovar wrote: post #18

fasouto wrote: post #11

There's another interesting (but way smaller) cooperative in Spain: Igalia https://www.igalia.com/ They work in open source projects and are big contributors to Chromium/blink, WebKit, V8, Vulkan, etc...

They look small-ish though. I wonder if there's any big coop software company out there.

My suspicion is that the worker-owned cooperative model, especially if it emphasizes the more important worker self-directed part, will tend towards much smaller units of self-organization. I predict we will see confederations and networks of smallish coops, and I suspect this is for the best.

Re: Mondragon Corporation

#249

Post by monadic2 » Mon, Feb 10, 2020, 6:30 PM UTC

shadowgovt wrote: post #224

allworknoplay wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what is your point?

That Chomsky's ideal end-goal is unrealistic because it is inherently dynamically unstable. Small worker-owned cooperatives plus a free market is an ecosystem ripe for larger worker-owned cooperatives to create incentive structures that let them dominate the market, which lets them grow, which is a positive feedback loop in that incentive structure.

Tbh I do not think Chomsky has written on his ideals the way others have, much of his positions are extrapolated from his critiques on other states (please correct me if I am wrong). However he has positively identified himself as an anarchy-syndicalist.

There are multiple ways an anarchist society might respond to a corporation growing too large: convincing its workers to split or find work elsewhere to avoid economic collapse, seizing its assets and forcibly splitting or shuttering its operations, denying it use of supply chains, of debt if the market has currency, etc. a critical aspect of anarchist societies is lack of private property and capital.

Trade unions can hold much of the power; I can’t speak to the concepts of anarchist states. In fact the idea of anarchist currency (anarchy-capitalism or market socialism, I guess?) is something I am unfamiliar with, in part because it obscures the cost in man time and effort it takes to produce a good or service—rather easy too, just consider subscription services where you pay a flat rate, or the labor it takes to get you chocolate or coffee vs how much it is valued in terms of your wages (presumably in a post-industrialization service economy if you’re on this forum). Similarly I do not know what an anarchist state is.

Regardless, the idea is founded in large part on the concept of mutual aid. There is certainly plenty of research into how mutual aid tends towards or away from stability. A quick google search turns up this, for instance: https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00275386/document

Re: Mondragon Corporation

#250

Post by mcprwklzpq » Mon, Feb 10, 2020, 6:37 PM UTC

irthomasthomas wrote: post #94

I thought Chomsky's quote was interesting. "Take the most advanced case: Mondragon. It’s worker owned, it’s not worker managed, although the management does come from the workforce often, but it’s in a market system and they still exploit workers in South America, and they do things that are harmful to the society as a whole and they have no choice. If you’re in a system where you must make profit in order to survive…

This quote without context might give impression that Chomsky is critical of Mondragon. A bit of context around it helps to understand his point. From [1]:

“LF: So it sounds as if you might support something like the Cleveland model where the ownership of the company is actually held by members of the community as well as the workers…

NC: That’s a step forward but you also have to get beyond that to dismantle the system of production for profit rather than production for use. That means dismantling at least large parts of market systems. >

Markets also have a very bad psychological effect. They drive people to a conception of themselves and society in which you’re only after your own good, not the good of others and that’s extremely harmful.

LF: Have you ever had a taste of a non market system — had a flash of optimism –– oh this is how we could live?

NC: A functioning family for example, and there are bigger groups, cooperatives are a case in point. It certainly can be done. The biggest I know is Mondragon but there are many in between and a lot more could be done.”

1 - https://www.counterpunch.org/2012/04/30/talking-with-chomsky...