@tomjennings I’ve thought a lot about the possibilities of co-operatives over the years here as well. there were, for 30+ years, some successful co-operatives like Mountain Equipment Co-Op, but in the end they refused to embrace the full meaning of the word. they just became large group-purchasing companies instead of member-owned, member-run orgs.
another interesting example comes the doc film The Take (which no one saw)… naomi klein’s followup to her Corporation film. it offered a useful response to what amounted to useless criticism of corps: a worker co-op that took over their corporate factory in south america.
i’ve been wondering about the maligned Saturn (of general motors) company, which as it turns out was co-owned by the union. the cars were shit and the company folded, but the idea was new and interesting
I think part of the problem is the class of people who can pull off a coop aren't hungry enough to maintain a coop; if you have the buy-in (class portability, marketable skills etc) if things get tough even momentarily people can and do just bail. But market and legal forces literally work against you. Push and pull. People who are hungry enough get undermined and put back in their place.
Look at the shit the basque had/have to push through. Narrow circumstance there.
@tomjennings yup, sadly that is the story of MEC in a nutshell. it came to the grossest possible end too: an american private equity firm bought it out in 2020 and it is now just another "sell expensive jackets to rich dummies" company 😩
honestly, i wish more than anything else that canada had a co-op grocery store chain that could compete with he massive oligopolies here. it makes me goddamned insane that the markups have become 20-50%
anyway, i'm bitching about nothing new here. just frustrated at how little effort there is put into creative workarounds for really predictable corporate problems
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