are Worker Cooperatives Worker ownership of the Means of Production ?

[tradeunionsupporter]

Some Capitalists I have talked to bring up Worker Cooperatives and say we don't need Socialism because under Capitalism there are Worker Cooperatives are they right ?



A worker cooperative is a cooperative (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative) owned and democratically managed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers%27_self-management) by its worker-owners. This control may be exercised in a number of ways. A cooperative enterprise may mean a firm where every worker-owner participates in decision making (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_making) in a democratic fashion, or it may refer to one in which managers and administration is elected by every worker-owner, and finally it can refer to a situation in which managers are considered, and treated as, workers of the firm. In traditional forms of worker cooperative, all shares are held by the workforce with no outside or consumer owners, and each member has one voting share. In practice, control by worker-owners may be exercised through individual, collective or majority ownership by the workforce, or the retention of individual, collective or majority voting rights (exercised on a one-member one-vote basis).[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative#cite_note-0) A worker cooperative, therefore, has the characteristic that the majority of its workforce own shares, and the majority of shares are owned by the workforce.[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative#cite_note-ICA-1)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative

Who owns the means of production?

True socialism has never been tried at the national level anywhere in the world, although some employee-owned firms have successfully employed it in the West.

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-socialism.htm


Michael Moore's new film profiles two worker cooperatives


Breaking News from the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives:
Check us out! We're movie stars! The new film from Michael Moore, Capitalism: A Love Story (http://www.capitalismalovestory.com/), features USFWC members Isthmus Engineering (http://www.isthmuseng.com/) and Alvarado Street Bakery (http://www.alvaradostreetbakery.com/) as examples of economic solutions. Look for the section on worker cooperatives when you see the movie.

http://www.geo.coop/node/394

[Tim Cornelis]

They are wrong because only those who can afford to set up a cooperative (a tiny minority) are able to liberate themselves from wage labour.

[tir1944]

Worker's cooperatives are few and far between.
Besides,big companies that "have a say" in the national economy can hardly become "worker's cooperatives" any time soon...

[Thug Lessons]

Well yes, clearly they are, but even though ownership is collective they still leave the means of production as private property. There's significant debate on the left about whether that's acceptable, (supports of such a system are usually called mutualists or market socialists), and the vast majority of revolutionary socialists don't support worker cooperatives as an end goal even if they agree it's better than the current system.

[tradeunionsupporter]

True you must have money to set up a Worker Cooperative but if a group of Workers put their money together they could set one up or buy a Business from the Owner/Owners. Are you saying that Worker Cooperatives are only set up or owned by Rich/Wealthy People ?

Owner gives company to employees on 81st birthday

March 1, 2010 by workplacedemocracy (http://workplacedemocracy.com/author/workplacedemocracy/)

http://workplacedemocracy.com/2010/03/01/owner-gives-company-to-employees-on-81st-birthday/
Article

Go to Article List for Southern Changes. Volume 10, Number 2, 1988 (http://beck.library.emory.edu/southernchanges/articlelist.php?id=sc10-2_001)
Starting a Worker Owned Cooperative

By Frank Adams
Vol. 10, No. 2, 1988, pp. 20-22
There are a variety of reasons for starting a worker cooperative. They include workers' desires to own and work in a business where human values are of equal importance to productivity and profits, an owner's decision to retire or sell an existing business, the threat of a plant closing, or a community's determination to help create jobs by starting a new business. Whatever the reasons for starting a worker cooperative, there are several steps which can be taken to increase the probability of success.
Most new businesses, including worker-owned cooperatives, typically develop through four phases:
Organizing. A three to six-month period in which the decision to organize is made.
Startup. A phase that usually lasts for six months in which the basic business strategy is tested.
Growth. A phase that may last for several years in which the markets are expanded, management techniques and governance systems are refined, production techniques are altered as dictated by experience, and the workforce is expanded.
Consolidation. The phase in which the worker-owners assess their experience in reaching the targeted growth and develop the firm's goals and strategies for the next three to five years.
During the organizing phase prospective worker-owners

http://beck.library.emory.edu/southernchanges/article.php?id=sc10-2_017

[Tim Cornelis]

Worker cooperatives under capitalism cannot exist where they are most needed, that is in the most poor and exploited communities around the globe. All sweatshop workers of a factory together are unable to afford setting op a worker cooperative.

Furthermore, the argument also assumes we accept private property as valid. Why should we accept it or be forced to accept it? (then they'll go on about self-ownership, and blah blah).

[MustCrushCapitalism]

Eh... in a way. I support cooperatives, but they aren't all that Socialist.

Workers' self management is something we all love though. :p

[tradeunionsupporter]

Can only the Rich/Wealthy afford to set up Worker Cooperatives ?

[RGacky3]

I support worker coopratives, but obviously most workers can't afford to set it up, so I would support worker cooperative infastructure, i.e. providing the capital. Or a revolution, take the Capital and make worker cooperatives.

I actually do think worker cooperatives are part of the end goal, (we want to take the means of productions)

There are many large companies that are around the world, mostly in europe, and some in Latin America, most provide an above standard wage and conditions for the workers (as you'd expect), and many do relatively well.

[ComradeMan]

I think cooperatives are a good idea. Why not?

[hatzel]

Cooperatives for everything. Worker coops, consumer coops, housing coops, transport coops. Anything you can think of...if you can turn it into a coop, you're not doing yourself any harm...

[ComradeMan]

Cooperatives for everything. Worker coops, consumer coops, housing coops, transport coops. Anything you can think of...if you can turn it into a coop, you're not doing yourself any harm...

Have we just found cooperativism? :lol:

[Yuppie Grinder]

Worker cooperatives under capitalism cannot exist where they are most needed, that is in the most poor and exploited communities around the globe. All sweatshop workers of a factory together are unable to afford setting op a worker cooperative.

Furthermore, the argument also assumes we accept private property as valid. Why should we accept it or be forced to accept it? (then they'll go on about self-ownership, and blah blah).

True, but democratic worker control of the means of economic means of production is still superior to private monopalization.

[Revolution starts with U]

Yes, co-ops are worker ownership of the MoP (kinda). And they are private ownership... obviously not socialism proper.

[Thirsty Crow]

I think cooperatives are a good idea. Why not?
Because it would be best that we as workers did away with capital, and all the antagonisms it produces on the global scale, and not just restructure the ownership of capital, and thus have no effect on the before mentioned antagonisms?

[Revolution starts with U]

Because it would be best that we as workers did away with capital, and all the antagonisms it produces on the global scale, and not just restructure the ownership of capital, and thus have no effect on the before mentioned antagonisms?

I agree with this overall. BUt I wouldn't say they have "no effect" on them. They serve to show the efficacy of worker self-management sans state mandates. The Mondragoran network of co-ops are entirely self-funded. THey have not taken a dime of subsidy.

[Drosophila]

They're good but they aren't enough to stop the exploitation of capitalism.

[Jose Gracchus]

I agree with this overall. BUt I wouldn't say they have "no effect" on them. They serve to show the efficacy of worker self-management sans state mandates. The Mondragoran network of co-ops are entirely self-funded. THey have not taken a dime of subsidy.

Mondragon also empowers all the "experts" and "specialists" over the rank-and-file worker-owner-members, and also has supplementary wage labor not represented. There have been strikes in Poland against Mondragon.

[Revolution starts with U]

To be fair, they are in the processing of bringing that supplementary labor into the cooperative system as well.
Trust me, I agree with all you are saying. They are not great. But they are a great alternative to typical private ownership. We should neither fully support nor fully condemn them, imo.

[DinodudeEpic]

Support worker cooperatives, and I want corporations and wage-labor to be abolished by law. And, I do support some sort of revolution. (Very militant electoral campaign with massive striking and protesting. That or violet revolution on dictatorships and monarchies.)

In short, all businesses are worker cooperatives or one-man businesses. Housing market? Real-estate cooperatives! Banks? Banking cooperatives! Sort of like what Somba said. Except that there would small one-man businesses too.

[Ocean Seal]

Yes worker's co-ops are good, but the workers who own them are also somewhat oppressed to be honest. Being that they have to compete in a market against companies which aren't workers co-ops and can afford to underpay their workers.