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Mondragon Corporation is the world’s largest worker cooperative, based in the Basque region of Spain, and it flips the traditional capitalist model on its head: workers own the company, vote on leadership, and share in the profits. Founded in 1956 by a Catholic priest and a group of engineering students, Mondragon now includes over 80 cooperatives across industries like manufacturing, finance, retail, and education that is employing over 70,000 people. It’s not a utopia, but it shows that large-scale democratic ownership can work: executives earn no more than 6–9 times what the lowest-paid workers make (compared to the average of 344 times in USA), layoffs are rare (and often involve internal relocation), and key decisions are made collectively. It’s proof that economy-of-scale doesn’t require hierarchy and exploitation.
>>510286926 (OP)All of that is fine within capitalism. It doesn't flip capitalism on its head.
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>>510286926 (OP)“Equality of opportunity”: an ignis fatuus in politics—all our cogs have the right to fit themselves into whatever part of the machine they like! Provided that they do fit, that is… Which is to say, provided that they don’t “grind” against the other gears in the box. If they do, the others have the right to—deprive them of their opportunity! In that case, one goes from being a “comrade” and a “fellow human being” to a problem and a tumor in need of excision… Thus, it might be admitted: cooperatives, at bottom, are not so “cooperative!”
>>510290758This. If it was communism, the state would own it and all profits, and everyone working there would be in a bread line. But they would tell idiots what they want to hear and that would be enough for them.
>>510286926 (OP)“Flips the traditional capitalist model on its head.”
>Mondragon Corporation>Still operating within the confines of capitalism>Loved by libertarian-socialists>Still hierarchically organized, authoritatively centralized, inegalitarian; direct democracy still under the influence of the most outspoken/popular/hardest working individuals in the company
>>510294806Certainly a more leveled playing field than your standard capitalist or communist firm, there’s no denying that. At the end of the day it just depends on what you value. If you’re a mediocre individual with little to no aspirations and a desire to mesh into a system that is relatively inoffensive in comparison to the predominant ones, this workplace model is the dream for you.
>>510286926 (OP)So what's the catch? It can't *actually* be good, or they wouldn't allow it.
>>510295658It’s non-threatening. A bunch of hippies circle-jerking over “muh anarcho-syndicalism” while producing goods for capitalist economies to enjoy/assimilate into their own products. They think they oppose capitalism but they’re just participating in the most inoffensive version of it.
>>510291970What a stupid characterization of equality of opportunity. Equality of opportunity means one cannot be pre-denied, one must be ad-hoc-denied. In either case, the would-be-grinding cog is never fitted. The fact that these definitions are vague and arbitrary is salient.
Not all employees are members. Their biggest company Eroski (similar to Carrefour) hires plenty of wagies, and not all members work for the company. It's just a different form of stakeholder capitalism.
>>510296023>Equality of opportunity means…Where in my post do you see a conflict with that definition? Cooperatives are only “cooperative” and “equally opportune” to the extent that an individual adheres to the thinking of the greater majority. Otherwise, they are wholly uncooperative—and deprive the individual workers therein of opportunity.
>>510294806>direct democracy still under the influenceof whoever holds the reins and manipulates internal information flows and social engineering.
Democracy, in any existing declination, is nothing but an arms race to ubiquitous and invasive human psychological control.
>>510296513The model is a hive-mind. It doesn’t allow for individual excellence or accelerated innovation. It stifles both.
>>510286926 (OP)>executives earn no more than 6–9 times what the lowest-paid workers make dO thE eXeCutiVeS wORk 6 tO 9 tiMeS hARdeR? i tHinK NOt.
>>510296559Spot on. Social proof is massive in this kind of model.
>>510286926 (OP)Never heard of it.
Does it have a truly global scale?
Do they also share in losses?
>>510286926 (OP)we had this kind of crap in ye old yugoslavia it was called workers self-management, i heard stories so retarded like top engineers and janitors had the same weight in voting om engineering problematics so it ended really well like any other commie crap
good luck though
>>510297069Mondragon has been around longer than you've been alive. Clearly they are making it work.
>>510297069Yep, I remember reading about that. coops were common in the USSR, every commie idea has been done to death. It doesnt work. they are ironically very conservative in their thinking and obsessed with ideological purity so anyone who tries to come up with a new/more moderate solution to the problems they claim to care about gets cancelled.
Listen it’s all well and good that Mondragon is successful as a corporation and has been functioning for some time, and I’m not advocating for the company to be dismantled/done away with by any means. But let’s call a spade a spade here. They’re not what leftists make them out to be.
