Capitalist Gives Workers The Company

[Wolf Larson]

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/boss...orkers-9881720 What do you think? Can slowly convincing capitalists to leave their business to workers have any meaningful impact? The fact that the workers of that company and other worker owned co-ops are still in competition with capitalist companies will ensure their continued exploitation. This is why I'm not a big fan of the anarchists who think Co-ops should "compete" with capitalism with the goal of co-existing. Fuck that. Things like this ^ can't be bad though...or can they? What do you think?

[Dimentio]

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/boss...orkers-9881720 What do you think? Can slowly convincing capitalists to leave their business to workers have any meaningful impact? The fact that the workers of that company and other worker owned co-ops are still in competition with capitalist companies will ensure their continued exploitation. This is why I'm not a big fan of the anarchists who think Co-ops should "compete" with capitalism with the goal of co-existing. Fuck that. Things like this ^ can't be bad though...or can they? What do you think?

If the coops could provide their members with free food, electricity and housing, they could actually compete on a capitalist market while providing their workers with a higher standard of life.

[Wolf Larson]

If the coops could provide their members with free food, electricity and housing, they could actually compete on a capitalist market while providing their workers with a higher standard of life.

I started a construction coop in 2005 with 6 people. We've gone under due to the CA housing market but we had to compete with bids from capitalists who employ wage slaves ,so, in order to make a living wage we had to work just as hard as the people being exploited. We were mostly in competition with the capitalists cherished underpaid so called illegal wage slaves [in competition with greedy capitalists who grossly underpay their workers]. We had one undocumented worker in the coop who was payed the same as us....the hard thing was figuring out what to pay the apprentice. We ended up working on a piece work basis. No boss taking most of the profit from the jobs- each worker was paid full price for each linear foot of trim, each door, each cabinet or sq foot of flooring we installed. Whoever put in the work to sell the particular job would be paid an hourly wage of 20 dollars an hour while meeting with homeowners. It was complicated but we were doing OK until the housing crash. There was 3 of us with our contractor lic but everyone pitched in to pay for bond/insurance. I want to push for amnesty for all "illegals" and try to get the to unionize. They're a big part of the capitalists game plan to further exploit all workers and lower wages in the overall service sector as you know but within construction it's all very obvious. I would have been better off joining a union but the anarchist in me wants freedom and wants it now. Coops are good for freeing yourself to a certain degree but I don't think they're revolutionary for the basic reasons you mentioned [and a few more].

[cyu]

we had to compete with bids from capitalists who employ wage slaves... Coops are good for freeing yourself to a certain degree but I don't think they're revolutionary for the basic reasons you mentioned [and a few more].


Yes, democracy in your own workplace is not enough if you are still excluded from the vast majority of the means of production by the force of arms commanded by capitalists. Democracy in your own workplace is only part of the solution. The rest of it has to include the ability for everyone to access the means of production, capitalist claims and title deeds be damned.

[Sendo]

I started a construction coop in 2005 with 6 people. We've gone under due to the CA housing market but we had to compete with bids from capitalists who employ wage slaves ,so, in order to make a living wage we had to work just as hard as the people being exploited. We were mostly in competition with the capitalists cherished underpaid so called illegal wage slaves [in competition with greedy capitalists who grossly underpay their workers]. We had one undocumented worker in the coop who was payed the same as us....the hard thing was figuring out what to pay the apprentice. We ended up working on a piece work basis. No boss taking most of the profit from the jobs- each worker was paid full price for each linear foot of trim, each door, each cabinet or sq foot of flooring we installed. Whoever put in the work to sell the particular job would be paid an hourly wage of 20 dollars an hour while meeting with homeowners. It was complicated but we were doing OK until the housing crash. There was 3 of us with our contractor lic but everyone pitched in to pay for bond/insurance. I want to push for amnesty for all "illegals" and try to get the to unionize. They're a big part of the capitalists game plan to further exploit all workers and lower wages in the overall service sector as you know but within construction it's all very obvious. I would have been better off joining a union but the anarchist in me wants freedom and wants it now. Coops are good for freeing yourself to a certain degree but I don't think they're revolutionary for the basic reasons you mentioned [and a few more].

Glad to see the initiative and I'm sorry to hear it had to fold. I think the co-op model survives best in areas with less competition and with more workers, like in the Argentine story Sin Patron it would be a town or city's major factory.

It's fine to have your feeling. You can support unions and still want to give co-ops a shot.

**
I wanted to give you a thank you for this news tidbit and for making a co-op with an undocumented.

[Dimentio]

I started a construction coop in 2005 with 6 people. We've gone under due to the CA housing market but we had to compete with bids from capitalists who employ wage slaves ,so, in order to make a living wage we had to work just as hard as the people being exploited. We were mostly in competition with the capitalists cherished underpaid so called illegal wage slaves [in competition with greedy capitalists who grossly underpay their workers]. We had one undocumented worker in the coop who was payed the same as us....the hard thing was figuring out what to pay the apprentice. We ended up working on a piece work basis. No boss taking most of the profit from the jobs- each worker was paid full price for each linear foot of trim, each door, each cabinet or sq foot of flooring we installed. Whoever put in the work to sell the particular job would be paid an hourly wage of 20 dollars an hour while meeting with homeowners. It was complicated but we were doing OK until the housing crash. There was 3 of us with our contractor lic but everyone pitched in to pay for bond/insurance. I want to push for amnesty for all "illegals" and try to get the to unionize. They're a big part of the capitalists game plan to further exploit all workers and lower wages in the overall service sector as you know but within construction it's all very obvious. I would have been better off joining a union but the anarchist in me wants freedom and wants it now. Coops are good for freeing yourself to a certain degree but I don't think they're revolutionary for the basic reasons you mentioned [and a few more].

What you really need is a network of coops. Say that you have a cooperative which is producing electricity for your coop. They do it for free. Another cooperative is taking care of the buildings, also for free. In turn, you do favours for them for free.

There are other ways to cut costs than to employ wage-slaves.

[Hit The North]

Bob's a cool dude, for "giving" "his" business to the workers, though. But he's like the 19th Century industrialist and utopian socialist, Robert Owen, half-glimpsing the wonderful possibilities of socialism and offering generous but mistaken palliatives.

But generally speaking, the very last thing 99% of capitalists want to do is "give" "their" businesses to the workers. I'm afraid that we're going to have to "take" them back on our own.

[Red Commissar]

An admirable action. Most would usually sell their business or give it to their family or close associate.

[Wolf Larson]

What you really need is a network of coops. Say that you have a cooperative which is producing electricity for your coop. They do it for free. Another cooperative is taking care of the buildings, also for free. In turn, you do favours for them for free.

There are other ways to cut costs than to employ wage-slaves.

Indeed. Maybe we should get off the internet and start? I've been fixated on freeing myself lately. I have a goal, even though I despise property, to buy a small lot of land up north in Oregon or Washington next to Seattle or Portland in order to build my own small home off the grid [energy independent] but next to a large city. I've become disillusioned with whats going on in the Bay Area which is NOTHING. I have this silly dream of homesteading but I'm aware putting your head in the sand wont change anything....that's a every man for himself attitude but over the years I've started to feel powerless. I don't really know what else to do outside of trying to homestead while doing odd jobs here and there. I'm not a hippie but homesteading became appealing after I read some of Helen and Scott Nearing's work. Has anyone read Making Of A Radical OR Living The Good Life? Most everyone probably already knows who he is but if you don't check him out here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Nearing. I'm no Scott Nearing but I may be experiencing the disillusionment he experienced. I'm ready to homestead.

[The Red Next Door]

A businessman with a heart of the hammer, awesome revolutionlious.

[ZombieGrits]

If the company does well it will prove undisputably once and for all that cooperative ownership works, which is a good step towards seeing more worker-owned businesses. And by the way, that company's oatmeal is friggin delicious.

[The Vegan Marxist]

If the company does well it will prove undisputably once and for all that cooperative ownership works, which is a good step towards seeing more worker-owned businesses. And by the way, that company's oatmeal is friggin delicious.

All one would have to do is watch the documentary 'The Take' if they wanted indisputable proof towards the success of cooperative ownership & worker-run management.

[Demogorgon]

That's very nice and I am sure those directly involved will benefit from this. But slavery did not end by persuading individual slave owners to gradually grant their slaves manumission.

[cyu]

If the company does well it will prove undisputably once and for all that cooperative ownership works

Already proven, except that those who own the means of communication don't like their underlings or anybody else to get any ideas. From http://www.revleft.com/vb/studies-show-free-t125550/index.html

Excerpts from http://trustcurrency.blogspot.com/2009/12/worker-cooperative-productivity.html (http://trustcurrency.blogspot.com/2009/12/worker-cooperative-productivity.html)

surveying their empirical studies, Derek Jones and Jan Svenjnar report, “There is apparently consistent support for the view that worker participation in management causes higher productivity. This result is supported by a variety of methodological approaches, using diverse data and for disparate time periods.” In 1990, a collection of research papers edited by Princeton economist Alan Blinder extends the data set much further and reached the same conclusion: worker participation usually enhances productivity in the short run, sometimes in the long run, and rarely has a negative effect. Moreover, participation is most conducive to enhancing productivity when combined with profit sharing, guaranteed long-range employment, relatively narrow wage differentials , and guaranteed worker rights (such as protection from dismissal except for just cause)- precisely the conditions that will prevail under Economic Democracy.

As to the viability of complete workplace democracy, we note that workers in the plywood cooperatives in the Pacific Northwest have been electing their managers since the 1940s, workers in the Mondragon cooperatives in Spain since the 1950s. There are some twenty thousand producer-cooperatives in Italy, comprising one of the most vibrant sectors of the economy. The Swedish cooperative movement is also large and impressive. Needless to say, not all self-management ventures are successful, but I know of no empirical study that even purports to demonstrate that worker-elected managers are less competent than their capitalist counterparts. Most comparisons suggest the opposite; most find worker self-managed firms more productive than similarly situated capitalist firms.

"Productivity and profitability are higher for cooperatives than for capitalist firms. It make little difference whether the Mondragon group is compared with the largest 500 companies, or with small- or medium-scale industries; in both comparison the Mondragon group is more productive and more profitable."

[Robocommie]

If the company does well it will prove undisputably once and for all that cooperative ownership works, which is a good step towards seeing more worker-owned businesses. And by the way, that company's oatmeal is friggin delicious.

That's because it's the People's oatmeal!

No but seriously, this kind of set up is to me the cornerstone of a truly socialist worker's state, a network of co-ops, protected and assisted by a democratically elected representative government, with principles of cooperation and socialism written into the Constitution.

This guy seems like a really good guy, with a fantastic attitude towards business and life, and I hope this spirit catches on. But, I have to agree, he's sadly going to be the exception. Most factory owners will not yield their wealth.

[Robocommie]

All one would have to do is watch the documentary 'The Take' if they wanted indisputable proof towards the success of cooperative ownership & worker-run management.

I'd like to see that, then. Any suggestions where I could find a copy?

[The Vegan Marxist]

I'd like to see that, then. Any suggestions where I could find a copy?

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8149373547373833649&ei=RmOGS8L-BpPorAL5yc3ZDQ&q=The+Take&hl=en#

There you go. Full copy. Enjoy!

[BogdanV]

Wow! Never expected such a decision.
But still, practically speaking, how will the workers own the company ?
What does the individual actually own (% of company's value ?) and is this ownership maintained if he/she quits/retires ?
Also, how are the company's profits distributed now between the workers ?

Its a really generous and smart move, but the news bulletin is kinda sketchy on details.

[Dermezel]

If the coops could provide their members with free food, electricity and housing, they could actually compete on a capitalist market while providing their workers with a higher standard of life.

They can compete. And they can win.

To explain, there is no magical reason why the bourgeoisie dominate the market. The reason is that they own machinery and technology. This machinery and technology is simply so much more powerful then human labor that it gives them a tremendous economic advantage that simply eclipses that of the proletariat.

Now some workers, through a stroke of pure luck, have this machinery. They can use this machinery even more effectively then the capitalist because they are not as bound by exchange value but can make economic policy based on use-value. That is, they can develop plans that are purely utilitarian, instead of those that depend on the illusion of work ethic.

To do this effectively they must discard all illusions of work chauvinism. Again hard work is admirable, but it is powerless in the face of technological machine might. See my thread on The Labor Theory of Value as a Prescriptive in the Theory section.

They must be willing to curtail labor, and emphasize the role of machinery and technology. Most capitalists will not even do this without being forced, bound as they are by their own bizarre bourgeoisie idealist illusions that they somehow "earn" as opposed to inherit their fortunes (the vast majority of all wealth is inherited from previous generations by society as a whole) .

That means being willing to cut hours, transfer labor, and increase vacation time. It is better, if you have a machine ready to increase productivity, to get the machine and simply cut hours while increasing pay then it is to refuse the machine and let the workers' keep their hours. The workers' company that allows more idle workers on the pay check will likely stay just as competitive because the managerial classes and executive superfluous classes are eliminated, thereby removing a huge source of waste.

Again, it is better to have 50% of your workforce stay on the pay and do absolutely nothing, then refuse to implement state of the art machinery and keep those workers busy for long hours. Especially in the long-term. (In practice I would simply implement a rotation system, but the ways of dealing with this matter humanely are very wide open strategically. )

Along with this, they will need constant up to date information. I would suggest getting state of the art computers with information technology. This tells you of what new labor saving devices are being developed immediately, and likewise allows for the quick finding of various sales opportunities. The internet is also a fast, cheap way to implement marketing schemes.

Again, so long as these proletariat place their trust in technology instead of illusions of hard work they will succeed. If however they eschew technology under some illusion that with enough human spirit, or hard work, or discipline they will win, their voyage is about as doomed as a hardy crew on a shoddy boat in the middle of a stormy sea.

[Dermezel]

Last I have to note that the company has to be extremely careful of pension schemes. Employees in employee owned companies in the past have seen their pensions declared "company assets" and taken by bank creditors.