61–70 of 120 posts
This sounds like a re-branding of a cryptocurrency/DAO scheme. It's too abstract for conventional consumers to understand and too game-able for serious participants to not be wary of. Who is this for?
Essentially, we need more unions - I'm not sure we have to invent new names for these things. These won't be your parents' unions, or the union boogeyman you may have seen on TV—the union can do exactly what you wish it to do. I've been (unintentionally) part of two union drives in my own life and have seen friends in an unrelated field participate in a third. They make perfect sense in moments like our current one,…
My only experience with unions was as a low level employee while I was in high school. It consisted of certain employees trying to drum up willingness to unionize through a combination of unrealistic promises and threats of violence. The company I worked for at the time was in trouble and went out of business before the unionization effort came to a vote. I don't know how representative my experience was, but it defi…
Essentially, we need more unions - I'm not sure we have to invent new names for these things. These won't be your parents' unions, or the union boogeyman you may have seen on TV—the union can do exactly what you wish it to do. I've been (unintentionally) part of two union drives in my own life and have seen friends in an unrelated field participate in a third. They make perfect sense in moments like our current one,…
For example, when we change "union" to "party" (as in political party) even those who claim to hate unions latch onto it as if it was the greatest thing ever conceived, despite being the exact same thing. Marketing matters.
This negative cycle is even more pathological in co-ops than in a normal corporation/for profit.
I hope some day someone figures a better way.
The post is written like as if consumer coops is a radically new idea (spoiler: they're everywhere in Europe). Unfortunately they have long since succumbed to the same mechanisms as their competitors and have a tremendous power concentration in top leadership, with directors making ridiculous salaries. On paper though, e.g. Coop with a 25 % market share in Norway is owned and controlled by about 1 million of its cust…
I've seen many co-ops fail. They never address the long-tail nature of productivity, perhaps to not offend people or because most people can't admit it or even understand it. Popular loudmouths take power. Quiet competent people leave. Co-op slowly dies. This negative cycle is even more pathological in co-ops than in a normal corporation/for profit. I hope some day someone figures a better way.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the union can do exactly what you wish it to do. ICE can also do "exactly what you wish it to do", so why do people complain about it so much and want it gone when it does what people want? The answer is that even democratic institutions easily get corrupted and hard to deal with. US unions seem to be very prone to this for some reason, both union leaders and corporate lobbyists wants the unions to be corrupt so I…
> ICE can also do "exactly what you wish it to do" What? Unless you are Congress, you can't create ICE at your workplace. You can, however, create a union.
What is a union? It is another social structure, exactly same as corps are.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wouldn’t mind unions except they get involved in all sorts of political battles that I would get opted into. I would rather they focus on the barebones of negotiation for compensation instead of taking it over like it’s their personal nonprofit.
The cool thing about a union is that you actually can have a say in what political battles they fight You just can't do that if you only want to be a passive member
> In many existing demand cooperatives, such as rotating savings groups, there is often a trusted central coordinator — frequently an older community member — who helps maintain accountability and keep the interests of the group aligned. Aligned with what? Whenever a central position is formed with power over something, even if it’s only a steering power, it will be sought out by power-hungry people and manipulated.…
The financial co-operatives, the building societies, fell victim to "carpetbaggers" in the 90s who encouraged members to vote for proposals to convert to traditional for-profit structures and get bought out by other banks. This was at the time a really good deal! Co-op members got big one-off payments.
It was only in the 2000s that we found out what the negative effects of bank consolidation were.