Cooperatives§

I’m very much into the idea of cooperatives. I don’t have any experience of working in one myself (yet), but have worked with some, and try to buy goods/services from them when I can.

A co-operative is an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise.

– Cooperative identity, values & principles | ICA

A cooperative is an association chartered to provide a product or service, much like any other company. What sets cooperatives apart from more conventional enterprises is that they are entirely owned by the people who work for them—their members—and that their policies and growth strategies are steered by the membership itself, via some kind of democratic decision-making process. All the benefits and rights attendant on the ownership of capital are distributed equally within the organization.

– [[Radical Technologies]]

Are they a challenge to capitalism?§

…if cooperatives are islands in a sea of capitalism, we need better catamarans, bridges, and data lines to connect them to each other and to other transformative economies.

– Manifesto – DisCO.coop

I think the same could be said about [[free software]]. Both coops and free software are non capitalist, but in and of themselves aren’t a strategy to end capitalism or even a real threat to the capitalist system. In the worst vein, they provide a strategy for a privileged few to avoid some exploitative aspects of capitalism. There is enormous potential to organize within these movements to actively struggle against capitalism. But I’m not sure how to do this.

– @jamiem@social.coop

Though participants are often drawn to the cooperative movement by a concern for basic tenets of fairness and economic justice, there’s nothing in it that conflicts with private ownership, property rights or the market as a mechanism of resource allocation.

– [[Radical Technologies]]

Co-operatives should also strive not to silo themselves off from broader social struggle. Once in competition with other firms, there is a tendency to pursue goals that would advance the interests of the co-operative and to become detached from social issues. The platform co-operative movement works best alongside other forms of activism and political change. This would involve working through trade unions, municipal associations and political parties

– [[Platform socialism]]

change in ownership model is no guarantee that other forms of social power – from racism to sexism and ableism – will not continue to be reproduced within the space

– [[Platform socialism]]

Are co-operatives just a better business model or do they stand for an alternative way of organising the economy?

– [[Platform socialism]]

As Rosa Luxemburg saw, the issue with workers’ co-operatives is that they are a ‘hybrid form in the midst of capitalism’.

– [[Platform socialism]]

This is why platform co-operativism cannot lose sight of its broader political struggle against capitalism and remain content to build small co-operative islands in a sea of corporate giants. If platform co-operativism is reduced to simply a better way of doing business for members it loses its emancipatory potential.

– [[Platform socialism]]

[[Distributed Cooperative Organisations]]§

Copper lane cohousing§

Novara Media https://youtu.be/yjbtCVTWCas

Cooperatives formalize the practice of commoning and facilitate legally regulated operations in the marketplace.

– [[The DisCO Elements]]

Cooperatives worldwide have a combined turnover of US$3 trillion, which is similar to the aggregate market capitalization of Silicon Valley’s greatest players (Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Apple and Facebook).

– [[The DisCO Elements]]

Links§

Co-ops in Spain’s Basque Region Soften Capitalism’s Rough Edges - The New Yor…
GitHub - hng/tech-coops: A list of tech coops and resources concerning tech c…
#PlatformCoop Directory – The Internet of Ownership

What is a Co-operative? - Invidious

Open-value cooperatives§

An extension of open cooperatives by [[DisCO]].

Open-value cooperatives apply the logic of feminist economists like Marilyn Waring, to account for the care work vital to human prosperity and survival. They also acknowledge the value of intersectional approaches, currently ignored through the misleading narratives of our harmful economic systems.

– [[DisCO Manifesto]]

Protocol cooperatives§

Protocol cooperatives are global open source repositories of knowledge, code and design, that allow humanity to create infrastructures for the mutualization of the main provisioning systems (such as food, habitat, mobility), and that are governed by the various stakeholders involved, including the affected citizenry.

– [[P2P Accounting for Planetary Survival]]

Misc Notes§

Some things needed that would help grow coops, digital ones in particular:

Public procurement via coops

Policy to support the growth of co-ops

its skewed towards setting up traditional businesses right now

Education to promote coop model

you don’t learn about coops in business school

Political will

someone in power needs to care about and support coops

Relationship between coops and unions

a bit strained at times
unions come at the problem from below
politicians come at the problem from above
cooperatives come at the problem from below

Federation and internationalisation will help

Resource sharing between coops around the world

Worker cooperatives§

Antidote to long hours, zero hours, crap pay, precarious employment, alienation?

Owned and collectively controlled by the workers. Run for their benefit. Organised democratically. No boss. Workers are the company directors. Equal say in how the business is run, how everyone gets paid, and what happens with the profits.

Go against the grain of competition and individual success and workplace hierarchy.

Can still be a tough gig. Collective decision-making can be time consuming. Surviving under capitalism while sticking to your principles can be difficult.

Coops are resilient compared to traditional start-ups.

Worker cooperatives are a real utopia that emerged alongside the development of capitalism. Three important emancipatory ideals are equality, democracy, and solidarity. All of these are obstructed in capitalist firms, where power is concentrated in the hands of owners and their surrogates, internal resources and opportunities are distributed in a grossly unequal manner, and competition continually undermines solidarity.

– How to Be an Anticapitalist Today , Erik Olin Wright

TODO Need to look up Wright’s idea of a real utopia again§

In a worker-owned cooperative, all of the assets of the firms are jointly owned by the employees themselves, who also govern the firm in a one-person-one-vote, democratic manner. In a small cooperative, this democratic governance can be organized in the form of general assemblies of all members; in larger cooperatives the workers elect boards of directors to oversee the firm.

They may also embody more capitalistic features: they may, for example, hire temporary workers or be inhospitable to potential members of particular ethnic or racial groups. Cooperatives, therefore, often embody quite contradictory values.

– How to Be an Anticapitalist Today , Erik Olin Wright

Challenges§

Though local coops can be developed, they cannot overturn the national legal system which in the UK that remains hostile to co-operatives. Co-operative development agencies of regional government can undoubtedly boost the co-operative economy but Westminster can unshackle these efforts if used in tandem.

– [[Can municipal socialism be Labour’s defence against ongoing austerity?]]

Cooperatives§

Cooperatives§

[[Cooperative values]]§

[[Coops and commoning]]§

[[Coops and socialism]]§

Are they a challenge to capitalism?§

[[Worker cooperatives]]§

[[Open cooperativism]]§

[[Open-value cooperatives]]§

[[Distributed Cooperative Organisations]]§

Copper lane cohousing§

Links§

Consumer cooperatives§

Multi-stakeholder cooperatives§

Open-value cooperatives§

platform cooperatives§

Producer cooperatives§

Protocol cooperatives§

The Future of Digital Cooperatives§

Misc Notes§

Worker cooperatives§

TODO Need to look up Wright’s idea of a real utopia again§

Benefits§

Challenges§

Critiques§

Versus unionism§