The reality is that it’s much more difficult to get the initial funding for a coop than a traditional company, and it’s not that lots of people haven’t been trying different approaches including the hare brained schemes you floated many times. The fact that you just keep repeating something that’s demonstrably false means that there’s no point continuing this discussion. Have a good day.
We simply talk about different things. Initial funding comes with different risks.
I think established cooperatives should issue bonds for expansion.
New cooperatives cannot issue bonds because nobody can judge the risk. They have to do a startup and sell shares in a company that owns the assets. But why should the founders limit themselves and do the opposite of Zuckerberg and give their influence away by just owning one vote in the participating cooperative?
Again, you’re not the first person to think of this. In practice, it turns out that it’s much easier for traditional companies to secure funding under the financial capitalist system. That’s the world we live in. Lots of people are trying to run cooperatives in all kinds of different ways. In some cases, like Mondragon, they do manage to grow big, but in general systemic pressures favor capitalist structure.
Does difficulty matter? Any communist revolution will be more difficult than establishing a network of cooperatives. I believe that if there is a desire for Socialism, people will spend the time to establish cooperatives.
A communist revolution would fundamentally restructure the way society operates which is a far more valuable goal than establishing a network of cooperatives which simply allows people lucky enough to work in these cooperatives to cope better with capitalist repression. These two things aren’t even remotely comparable, and abandoning freedom for all workers because it’s just too darn difficult is a cowardly position to take.
It’s not new but also not tried in a convincing way.
I believe that it is possible and that it’s worth trying until a working combination is found.
What do you base your claim that this has not been tried in a convincing way on?
Ok, you were convinced. I mean the search for how to finance cooperatives should only be done when investors don’t hesitate to buy cooperative bonds.
The reality is that it’s much more difficult to get the initial funding for a coop than a traditional company, and it’s not that lots of people haven’t been trying different approaches including the hare brained schemes you floated many times. The fact that you just keep repeating something that’s demonstrably false means that there’s no point continuing this discussion. Have a good day.
We simply talk about different things. Initial funding comes with different risks.
I think established cooperatives should issue bonds for expansion.
New cooperatives cannot issue bonds because nobody can judge the risk. They have to do a startup and sell shares in a company that owns the assets. But why should the founders limit themselves and do the opposite of Zuckerberg and give their influence away by just owning one vote in the participating cooperative?
Again, you’re not the first person to think of this. In practice, it turns out that it’s much easier for traditional companies to secure funding under the financial capitalist system. That’s the world we live in. Lots of people are trying to run cooperatives in all kinds of different ways. In some cases, like Mondragon, they do manage to grow big, but in general systemic pressures favor capitalist structure.
Does difficulty matter? Any communist revolution will be more difficult than establishing a network of cooperatives. I believe that if there is a desire for Socialism, people will spend the time to establish cooperatives.
A communist revolution would fundamentally restructure the way society operates which is a far more valuable goal than establishing a network of cooperatives which simply allows people lucky enough to work in these cooperatives to cope better with capitalist repression. These two things aren’t even remotely comparable, and abandoning freedom for all workers because it’s just too darn difficult is a cowardly position to take.
What can you do with a communist revolution that you cannot do with cooperatives, apart from using violence?