Good question. (Sorry for the delay, I was on a vacation offline.)
I actually don’t have any experience with starting a co-op, because no one around me does that. (Once I saw a company that started as a co-op long ago, but later changed its legal structure.) But I assume that it is analogical to starting other types of companies, where the founders usually trust each other. Except, you usually need more founders for a co-op.
I have always been open to the idea of starting a co-op (and I probably made a mistake by not making this fact publicly known), but the few times I discussed this idea with someone, the reactions seems to fit into one of the following categories: “I think I don’t have the skills necessary to start and manage a company” or “I think I have the skills, so why should I share the ownership with others, if I can hire them instead?”.
And, as far as I know, this seems to be the fate of many successful co-ops, that instead of adding more people to the club, they find a legal loophole to keep the old workers in (as co-owners) and the new workers out (e.g. if the rules require that each employee becomes a co-owner, they only take contractors). Mondragon is the famous exception to this rule; they actively encourage adding more people to the club and spawning new small companies. (But the last time I researched them, they didn’t operate in my country.)
I think this might just be a US thing. Worker co-ops employ tens of millions of people (probably more than a 100 million, though it’s hard to count) and they’re dirt common in countries like France and Italy. I haven’t looked into why the US is so resistant to co-ops but if I had to hazard a guess I’d say it’s probably a more hostile legal environment (plus half a century of anti-socialism/collectivization & pro-capitalism/privatization propaganda). There’s also an element of self-reinforcement. Capitalist firms do better when there are more capitalist firms around, co-ops do better with more co-ops around.
This legal-loophole-story is also news to me (probably also a US thing?), though I am familiar with a similar dynamic. From what I read coops do tend to include new workers into the fold, but they don’t do this with contract workers. This would mean co-ops are an excellent way to improve upon traditional firms, but not a way to get rid of this new gig-economy. In any case, giving some workers a say is still an improvement over the status-quo.
Why do you think that?
Good question. (Sorry for the delay, I was on a vacation offline.)
I actually don’t have any experience with starting a co-op, because no one around me does that. (Once I saw a company that started as a co-op long ago, but later changed its legal structure.) But I assume that it is analogical to starting other types of companies, where the founders usually trust each other. Except, you usually need more founders for a co-op.
I have always been open to the idea of starting a co-op (and I probably made a mistake by not making this fact publicly known), but the few times I discussed this idea with someone, the reactions seems to fit into one of the following categories: “I think I don’t have the skills necessary to start and manage a company” or “I think I have the skills, so why should I share the ownership with others, if I can hire them instead?”.
And, as far as I know, this seems to be the fate of many successful co-ops, that instead of adding more people to the club, they find a legal loophole to keep the old workers in (as co-owners) and the new workers out (e.g. if the rules require that each employee becomes a co-owner, they only take contractors). Mondragon is the famous exception to this rule; they actively encourage adding more people to the club and spawning new small companies. (But the last time I researched them, they didn’t operate in my country.)
I think this might just be a US thing. Worker co-ops employ tens of millions of people (probably more than a 100 million, though it’s hard to count) and they’re dirt common in countries like France and Italy.
I haven’t looked into why the US is so resistant to co-ops but if I had to hazard a guess I’d say it’s probably a more hostile legal environment (plus half a century of anti-socialism/collectivization & pro-capitalism/privatization propaganda).
There’s also an element of self-reinforcement. Capitalist firms do better when there are more capitalist firms around, co-ops do better with more co-ops around.
This legal-loophole-story is also news to me (probably also a US thing?), though I am familiar with a similar dynamic. From what I read coops do tend to include new workers into the fold, but they don’t do this with contract workers. This would mean co-ops are an excellent way to improve upon traditional firms, but not a way to get rid of this new gig-economy. In any case, giving some workers a say is still an improvement over the status-quo.