GhostOnTheHalfShell

GhostOnTheHalfShell, 2 days ago

@Cirdan @dlakelan

I don’t see how equity matters. I doubt Cheese board new hires drop money into it before being hired. Varoufakis provides a model in his science fiction book, Another Now.

GhostOnTheHalfShell, 2 days ago

@dlakelan @Cirdan

At this juncture coops operate and succeed in the current economy. A coop economy has little
to do with a monolith.

As a matter of history, the Soviet model was hotly contested by different socialist / communist streams. They saw it as a change of management, while keeping capitalist structure. And Stalin or Lenin busied themselves by destroying land granted to peasants for centrally controlled collectives. IRRC they killed off cooperatives as well.

GhostOnTheHalfShell, 2 days ago

@Cirdan @dlakelan

for operational lending or capital investment? Consider businesses embedded in community. What does it mean to liquidate a company.

GhostOnTheHalfShell, 2 days ago

@Cirdan @dlakelan

From what I managed to scan about commons cap comes across as authoritarian and controlling.

The cultural toolkit of traditional communities in Central and South America are not shared in the West, although immigrant communities often retain them in the first and second generation.

I would argue from an anthropological standpoint, some caution is warrented.

GhostOnTheHalfShell, 2 days ago

@Cirdan @dlakelan

There are a couple of reasons. One enculturation. Two banking doesn’t understand them and it’s a challenge. Three they face constant pressure to sell out. Four, consolidation in the economy.

Even though co-op stores are often far more efficient, they get hammered by existing whales.

Ace Hardware is a staple of local hardware stores in the US. It’s a coop of retail shops. These are of whatever nature. But they enjoy branding and economies of scale, some thing like HomeDepot.

GhostOnTheHalfShell, 2 days ago

@Cirdan @dlakelan

?

These kind of topics rapidly run aground with headline ideas of each term; they are technically imprecise and overloaded in meaning to different people.

GhostOnTheHalfShell, 2 days ago

@dlakelan @Cirdan

Another point on this is capitalism didn’t spring whole cloth from feudalism, it grew largely organically but also with coercions (enclosures). The general sense transitions are a matter of creativity and variety to address issues as they arise.

GhostOnTheHalfShell, 3 days ago

@Cirdan @dlakelan

Mondragon has used contractors and that's caused some issues. Last I read about it, the response has been to alter the practice. It's the most widely known of co-ops but there are thousands more of various sizes.

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I've never heard that a hire into a co-op necessitates equity. That may the scheme of some of them, but it's not at all central.

GhostOnTheHalfShell, 2 days ago

@dlakelan @Cirdan

But that’s about as much of a social migration as any other transition. Commons capitalism would require the same legal and social evolution. I remain un moved wrt to “oh well a few people here” or that the average size is small. Or even of raising capital.

The argument feels logical fallacy-ish.

Ace Hardware is a retailer’s coop for instance. It’s a coop of small businesses. At the local level, employee owners run their affairs as they see fit.

🧵

GhostOnTheHalfShell, 2 days ago

@Cirdan @dlakelan

That would make an interesting piece,

GhostOnTheHalfShell, 3 days ago

@Cirdan @dlakelan

Millions of people work in co-ops.

GhostOnTheHalfShell, 2 days ago

@Cirdan @dlakelan

You're a bit overly focused on size, like Mondragon, and on its particular size as being relevant, rather than the total employed by that category and the disposition of those within them.

I was going to mention Ace Hardware, but this is a retail coop.

https://institute.coop/examples-worker-cooperatives

Venezuela would likely be the largest set, even if 50% are not operating that way. Still, 50% of 100K is a sizeable sample.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative#Worker_cooperatives_by_country

🧵

GhostOnTheHalfShell, 2 days ago

@Cirdan

Yes, I’ve pointed out the nature of Ace. I still wanna give you a wedgie.. “give employees”? Like because the unwashed need to have things ordered for them? You see where my discomfort is here?

GhostOnTheHalfShell, 2 days ago

@dlakelan @Cirdan

Yanis Varoufakis explored a specific kind of coop in Another Now.

It’s on my pile and partially read, but I know from interviews that bonuses, investment v distribution are all addressed. Profits don’t exist here. Net proceeds are distributed, or invested. “profits” don’t property exist here. Also equity to gain a vote doesn’t figure into this outside perhaps a trial period.

GhostOnTheHalfShell, 2 days ago

@Cirdan the unfinished business of the enlightenment was to bring democracy to the work place. The last leg is monetary system reform. Usury+pricing mechanism is a core driver of inequality. You need inflation and interest free systems, as Gessell specifies in Friegeld. Such systems existed in the past, and some local systems exist today.

—

Keen worked out the math. Credit + pricing system intrinsically drive inequality in down turns.

GhostOnTheHalfShell, 2 days ago

@Cirdan @dlakelan

This is a directory of democratic and worker coops in the US.

https://www.usworker.coop/directory/

GhostOnTheHalfShell, 2 days ago

@Cirdan @dlakelan

That would be a problem of cultural toolkit. Certainly some coops can devolve, just as any business’ culture can go pear shaped (see Boeing), by laws governing them also apply. As mentioned earlier Mondragon treated contractors as most businesses would treat employees in a downturn, but I think they altered that practice.

Each business is a product of the people in it. What they cultivate as normative does matter.

GhostOnTheHalfShell, 2 days ago

@Cirdan @dlakelan

I’ve heard because banks are also unfamiliar with co-ops, a point D@W makes. Some of it is existing culture.

GhostOnTheHalfShell, 1 day ago

@finestructure

After working in the nether regions of Java (for embedded no less), I approve of this development.

GhostOnTheHalfShell, 2 days ago

@StillIRise1963

fucking dirty sordid billionaires got their little cabal together to seize the means of government from a sovereign people. We should call it a coup.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=issmDdjBa5w

GhostOnTheHalfShell, 3 days ago

@SaintPeter @dlakelan

I feel no guilt

sin(pi) = 0