I’ve known a few in the U.S., and even worked at one. Maybe people won’t become billionaires doing this, but why wait for a complete overhaul of society to implement more of what are good ideas.
I’d also like to see more childcare co-ops, or community shared pre-k schools. Wheres the movement to build communities and pool resources around these business models in the US? In short, co-ops are the closest socialist/communist business model that’s actually implemented in the U.S., so why are more leftists not doing this?
Its really hard. People who start businesses put a shit ton of work into it for a time but if it takes off as long as they make a profit they can expand their way to wealth. Does not always happen but it is the motivation. coops do get started when there are enough folks to share the load but it takes a good enough group. Like I was part of a condo of 12 units and getting a board when half the units had to do it was tough as hell. Now im in one with eighty plus units and its easier but you still get uncontested elections. This is from a group that is probably pretty competent overall and motivated for their own good. So I would say you have to get together a group that is like two standard deviations more responsible and competent than average to get something like this going.
You’re right it’s hard, that’s the same pressure as normal business creation. I mean, look at the fediverse. Making something like this didn’t happen overnight, and there’s a lot of talent and vision which made it happen.
I think to start, someone could build a profit-sharing version of TikTok, FB, Zoom, Amazon or Etsy etc.
I was thinking the fediverse is a good example. coders, people willing to host, are just a fraction of the population.
Because he who controls the capital, controls the legal structures of capitalism.
Aka pedons ain’t got no money, boy
This doesn’t make sense, there are people already doing this and making millions, at least.
Because corporations will sweep in and take all the business by taking a loss just long enough to put the others out of business.
Maybe people won’t become billionaires doing this,
I think the first bit is a big part. Keeping generated wealth is a main selling point for capitalism.
but why wait for a complete overhaul of society to implement more of what are good ideas … I’d also like to see more childcare co-ops, or community shared pre-k schools.
I think this is one part lack of resources. Those who can spare the most for a pool don’t see the need too. Those who need these things the most are still inside a market that does not reward such things. You would need way more low income people to fund the preK and the staff could do better working somewhere else, unless there is an element of altruism to working with low income communities.
A lot of things are market driven in the US and markets are not as good at selecting good ideas as our myths around them suggest. Right to repair is a good example of this. Everyone is better of being able to fix stuff; even if most chose not to. More people would be better with community this or that, but most people do not know about them, or they won’t know how to organize.
It is going to be hard to pick a pragmatic approach that can survive pressures from a for profit market that might have and that people will culturally accept today.
Poor communities already do this to support each other. They watch each other’s kids. They run errands for each other. They don’t keep track and charge cash and create an LLC. But community support is real.
In short, co-ops are the closest socialist/communist business model that’s actually implemented in the U.S., so why are more leftists not doing this?
Starting a business (that is based on a sound and viable business plan that has even a snowball’s chance of surviving its formative early years) is really REALLY hard. It takes massive amounts of money or debt, the early years promise years of having no income for yourself (or paying yourself below minimum wage), it means a staggering amount of hours you need to put in to keep it going, forgoing vacations and important family events, loss of friendships because you’re having to put all your time and energy into the business without socializing, having to work when you’re incredibly ill, incredible amounts of stress (which increases by 10 times when you have employees that now depend on you for their livelihood) and even if you do everything perfect your business can fail leaving you with nothing for the years that you put into it, and potentially also with tens of thousands or millions of dollars in debt. It means many times being force to make decisions that massively affect other people’s lives (your employees or your customers). It can be versions of the Trolley Problem time and time again.
“According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), approximately 20% of new businesses fail during the first two years of being open, 45% during the first five years, and 65% during the first 10 years. Only 25% of new businesses make it to 15 years or more.” source
So ask yourself if you want to go through all of that, and instead of wealth you can live on and support your family with at the end of it, you get simply a “thank you” for building a co-op.
Yes, I agree, it is very hard. I’ve talked to a lot of founders and was working on getting a company off the ground myself.
The perspective and the idea of a co-op however is completely different from what you describe: to distribute the hardships, the risks and rewards right from the start onto many shoulders. There’s no more “my company, my sacrifices” etc. It’s all we.These are great points, and looking at some of the other responses I get the sense that it’s a time and skills issue. So, what exactly do communists and socialists imagine will happen when “workers seize the means of production”?
I don’t want to discourage anyone from pursuing these ideas, I think at least in the U.S. it might be cool to have a consultancy or non-profit which helps connect such founders and provides them with education, training and startup resources.
Edit oh and some of the other points are that one wouldn’t get rich doing this. So what? I’ve already seen people look down on wealth accumulation, so I think it’s fair to say that the motives for someone who’d start such a business venture are different, which is valid and reasonable.
Secondly, I don’t think market forces will impact such businesses because if you’re creating communities around them, then people will choose what they know and trust.
These are great points, and looking at some of the other responses I get the sense that it’s a time and skills issue. So, what exactly do communists and socialists imagine will happen when “workers seize the means of production”?
I admit I’m not a scholar in this area, but my college reading of Marx and Engels they were taking about nation-state levels of “seizing the means of production”. As in, the entire nation’s ability to produce goods, grow and transport food, facilitate communications, etc. Doing so on such a grand scale that the elites/bourgeois would be forced to cede control of the levers of power because society effectively halts with the means of production in the hands of the working class (proletariat).
Marx wasn’t talking about a socialist group starting up a competing grocery store to the entrenched established players in that market space.
I don’t want to discourage anyone from pursuing these ideas, I think at least in the U.S. it might be cool to have a consultancy or non-profit which helps connect such founders and provides them with education, training and startup resources.
There are educational resources for starting non-profits organizations (and I’m assuming co-ops). The real resource any org (for-profit or nonprofit) needs to start up is: large amounts of money. In for-profit ventures (assuming your business plan is respectable) you can get bank loans or outside investors. Both of these groups expect a return on the money they’re giving you to get started up.
With a co-op, I’m guessing the only sources of startup capital are: government grants, philanthropic donations, or a founder that already has amassed their own fortune.
Edit oh and some of the other points are that one wouldn’t get rich doing this. So what?
At those really dark times for your business you ask yourself “why the hell am I even doing this?” for most business owners the answer is “so that at some point in the future my life will be much easier”. For a co-op, there has to be a very deeply held belief that what you’re doing is extremely meaningful and your sacrifice will be “worth it” somehow. While those people exist with almost a religious level of obligation to their cause or their community, I think they are extremely rare.
I don’t envy the leadership in a struggling co-op. Running an organization is hard enough at the best times as a single owner. Having to run it by committee when it is crumbling sounds like a painful death.
I’ve already seen people look down on wealth accumulation, so I think it’s fair to say that the motives for someone who’d start such a business venture are different, which is valid and reasonable.
You may already have your answer. In your first post you said: “I’d also like to see more childcare co-ops, or community shared pre-k schools.”
What is stopping you from you creating a child-care co-op?
Secondly, I don’t think market forces will impact such businesses because if you’re creating communities around them, then people will choose what they know and trust.
This is naive. Market forces (and other externalities) can have massive impacts on your organization irrespective if you’re a for-profit or co-op. Just think of what COVID did to many organizations. Though nothing change in the business model or service offering, thousands of companies went under because the conditions of the market changed through no fault of the organization owners/leaders.
I don’t know, it seems the whole argument seems to boil down to “there’s not enough time, money or skill”. I guess my question is why do ML theorists think workers can organize enough to run a state when they can’t organize enough to run a business?
Deleted by creator
Sorry, in retrospect that was entirely too flippant and answer for a pretty good discussion and question. Deleted.
Starting a business requires resources and coordination. It is easier for one individual with many resources to get the ball rolling than for many people with few resources to do the same. Even if you need to take out a loan, it’s simpler to do as an individual than as a group. Most people who front at the resources for a business are going to want creative control over the structure and operation, and consequentially to the profit. It’s much easier, logistically, for one person to roll existing capital into a new business than to coordinate a board of founders. Democracies are much slower at making decisions than dictatorships, obviously.
I am 100% pro co-op. I’d love to see credit unions offering start-up loans to groups of founding members, specifically designed to develop co-ops. It’s just currently uncommon, so the infrastructure isn’t there. Without that financial infrastructure, you’re relying in everyone fronting a portion of the start-up funding.
So, in short: it’s more complicated, financially and logistically. I’m all for it, but before we see co-ops carve out a must significant market share, we’ll need to see some chipping away at thesr barriers to entry.
Companies don’t do profit-sharing because they have no pressure or incentive to do so. In other words, they can get away with not profit-sharing so they do.
Co-ops are community projects. They arise out a strong, educated and engaged community. This does not exist in the US at large. That’s why about the only place with co-ops in the whole country is NYC.
It relies on everyone involved not falling out with each other / losing interest / selling out down the line
Idk, people are doing it already. Seems like this isn’t really a good reason.
Personally I wouldn’t risk it. Been burned too many times and I also don’t trust myself to hold up my end of such an agreement. Never can know what the future holds.
They are run out of business, most simply.
The operation that does not focus their profits on building further capital and establishing monopoly will fail in the arms race of those that do.
For example: there are countless community and public efforts establishing childcare and pre-k through pooled resources. They are in direct competition with things like Bezos’ childcare academies. (Personal anecdote: they bought out my kids’ building for public pre-k and evicted them.)
And a successful co-op will get pressure to be bought out like a start-up. (Often starts as a great way to expand! Then the expansion changes the culture, the new location feels corporate and the original location is later shut down and left vacant. -Also personal anecdotes for a grocery co-op and an employee owned operation I once worked at.)
I am sorry, but what does bought out mean? The person running it simply didn’t have to sell. If you’re saying “money was too tempting”, then isn’t that an inherent flaw in any Marxist Leninist theory in practice? So let’s say, the business wasn’t run by someone who cared enough about others and got greedy, so why not start one where you pick the right people? If you can’t do that, then why should any state ever cede over production to workers? How would we ensure greed doesn’t take over then?
If you’re saying “money was too tempting”, then isn’t that an inherent flaw in any Marxist Leninist theory in practice?
HA, yes, yes it is. Marxist Leninist works most effectively when everyone is moralistic and considers the larger picture. It doesn’t work when you have a world of selfish money grubbers. Notice which system is winning today?
I’d like to see you own a small business and get offered 10x its value by a large corp. Then you can see whether you want to maintain your praxis or retire on a nice beach somewhere the rest of your life.
Marxist Leninist works most effectively when everyone is moralistic and considers the larger picture.
Which is why it can never work
That’s one of the most dangerous myths about marxism and similar ideologies.
It wouldn’t work even if everybody had their best intentions in mind, and did their absolute best to contribute.
In that model they wouldn’t be able to sell without the workers agreement.
In the one example with the grocery co-op: I can assure you, few if any, of the people involved with the co-op were Marxist-Leninists, let alone comfortable with Marxism or the ‘S’ word. So that was kind of a critical flaw in any Marxist-Leninist theory in practice.
A lot of people practice forms of community action without having any sort of class consciousness. A wealthy philanthropist can offer a bunch of money with strings attached and people will jump at the promises without second thought and rarely keep up with the follow-through.
Point I was making nonetheless was these operations tend to exist under seige from competing and profiteering interests. If I remember correctly the grocery co-op was having issues making the skyrocketing rent payments for the commercial lot. That was the problem the money solved: the one created by the landlord.
So in a sense I was saying ‘the pressures of capital tend to be too great’ than money being tempting or greed from the community.
Not every business needs to expand, though. There are quite constrained markets for very specialized goods or services. I know several B2B companies that have 10-20 employees, serve several dozens up to few hundred rather small, regional customers, and they’re perfectly happy with that.
First of all, most people have no understanding or conceptual of even what the hell you’re talking about. Second of all, setting up, co-ops, etc., is extraordinarily difficult, as is becoming part of one. Most people believe it isn’t worth the effort, regardless of the reality of it.
The government makes the entire concept of a co-op, extremely difficult to exist, mostly because the government favors capitalism and punishes anything that runs against it. And, most notably, if there is anything the government can do to stop helping poor people and or minorities, that is always the first to target. Because people in control of our government are extra extraordinarily shitty.
As others have already stated, it’s expensive to start, expensive to maintain, and very high-risk.
Most startups fail within the first two years, and an organization that doesn’t focus first and foremost on profit is I imagine even more likely to fail within those first couple of years.
Maybe people won’t become billionaires doing this
And that’s exactly why. Even if the founder wants to be altruistic, the venture capitalists he depends on to get his business off the ground sure as Hell don’t.
People upvoting this have no idea, VCs aren’t the only way to fund a business
True, but if it’s not a traditional business but a coop, you’d probably prefer to have the original investors bee the members. Guess it really depends on if they can scratch up enough to cover startup costs.
I have an idea for a building decarbonization co-op enterprise that I’m really excited about, but it’s difficult for a few reasons: time outside of work to develop the business plans, lack of connection to others to build with, and lack of financial capital to get off the ground. I’m not opposed to putting in the effort to try fixing those, but they are all significant challenges.
Well, then there’s a business idea for another co-op right there: one that does nothing but connect potential co-op founders. A marketplace of ideas and abilities, if you will.
Also, your co-founders will contribute time as well as capital to free you. The challenge then becomes decision-making. IMHO, if you can come to terms with relinquishing control, you can be part of a successful business in a co-op easier than in a classical setup.
It’s not uncommon in a lot of industries for more signal enterprises to refuse to do business with these sorts of companies.
“Signal enterprises”?
I’m guessing it is meant to say “single” but I’m honestly not sure.
Supposed to be traditional.
I don’t understand, can you give some examples?
