Designing a Cooperative

[noddy]

Which utopia are you referring to? That which states that free markets solve all problems and always lead to beneficial situations for all parties?... You just have to look around you to realize that in "no place" has that occurred.

i find it surreal to think you teach economics sometimes, not once in my years of university or business did anyone state that the free market stops humans from making mistakes or problems from occurring..

the free market is about *correcting* mistakes the quickest, not avoiding them.

in a free market europe you would have had all the crashes and readjustments during the original gfc and all the people that couldnt pay their debts would be bankrupt and all the banks that had too much exposure to bad debt would have gone broke and all the chaos and anger and temper tantrums would have happened back then and be over and done with.

by now, many years later, the driving mechanism of the free market which is cooperation and consent would had allowed you to create your southern european prosperity sphere away from the meddling intrusions of remote government (EU/German et all)

you dont have a free market, you have centralised socialism with 2 competing layers of government doing everything they can to stop the corrections from happening and all they care about is maintaining the status quo.

so.. im totally confused, you spend your entire time on this forum bitching about centralised government and demanding that you should be allowed to create your own structures based on people you can cooperate with and yet you hate liberty and free markets ???????"?????????????????

ill try a simple example.

in a free market if businessman bob buys too many "thingamies" because he misjudged the demand for them, its businessman bobs problem to deal with... maybe he has to suck up the losses, maybe he has to go bankrupt, maybe maybe maybe.. the market has corrected, bob learnt his lesson and its only bob that suffers.

in a socialist market, the government will step in - either with a law to force everyone to buy "thingamies" or using tax payer money to get bob out of trouble by purchasing them itself... in this case bob happily keeps buying more "thingamies" and the market has not corrected and everyone keeps on suffering indefinately.

the entire west is currently doing the second thing at the moment and all the little people are suffering because our governments keep propping up bobs mistakes.

the governments just use fear to justify it, promises of destruction if the bobs business fails, however its their destruction they are so scared of, its not ours.

--edit--

and yes its painfully obvious a "free" market requires government rules that keep it "free" .. without them its called anarchy or fascism or something else.

the heart of the matter is how you deal with the fear of change and how much you trust your socialist safety nets.. its easy to laugh at the americans with the stashes of beans and ammo but .....

maybe its the word "free market" that confuses people.. maybe it should be a more left friendly word like "fair market"

[Simple Minded]

Which utopia are you referring to? That which states that free markets solve all problems and always lead to beneficial situations for all parties?... You just have to look around you to realize that in "no place" has that occurred.

i find it surreal to think you teach economics sometimes, not once in my years of university or business did anyone state that the free market stops humans from making mistakes or problems from occurring..

the free market is about *correcting* mistakes the quickest, not avoiding them.

in a free market europe you would have had all the crashes and readjustments during the original gfc and all the people that couldnt pay their debts would be bankrupt and all the banks that had too much exposure to bad debt would have gone broke and all the chaos and anger and temper tantrums would have happened back then and be over and done with.

by now, many years later, the driving mechanism of the free market which is cooperation and consent would had allowed you to create your southern european prosperity sphere away from the meddling intrusions of remote government (EU/German et all)

you dont have a free market, you have centralised socialism with 2 competing layers of government doing everything they can to stop the corrections from happening and all they care about is maintaining the status quo.

so.. im totally confused, you spend your entire time on this forum bitching about centralised government and demanding that you should be allowed to create your own structures based on people you can cooperate with and yet you hate liberty and free markets ???????"?????????????????

ill try a simple example.

in a free market if businessman bob buys too many "thingamies" because he misjudged the demand for them, its businessman bobs problem to deal with... maybe he has to suck up the losses, maybe he has to go bankrupt, maybe maybe maybe.. the market has corrected, bob learnt his lesson and its only bob that suffers.

in a socialist market, the government will step in - either with a law to force everyone to buy "thingamies" or using tax payer money to get bob out of trouble by purchasing them itself... in this case bob happily keeps buying more "thingamies" and the market has not corrected and everyone keeps on suffering indefinately.

the entire west is currently doing the second thing at the moment and all the little people are suffering because our governments keep propping up bobs mistakes.

the governments just use fear to justify it, promises of destruction if the bobs business fails, however its their destruction they are so scared of, its not ours.

--edit--

and yes its painfully obvious a "free" market requires government rules that keep it "free" .. without them its called anarchy or fascism or something else.

the heart of the matter is how you deal with the fear of change and how much you trust your socialist safety nets.. its easy to laugh at the americans with the stashes of beans and ammo but .....

maybe its the word "free market" that confuses people.. maybe it should be a more left friendly word like "fair market"

Great post noddy!

Cept that last sentence, nobody likes the word fair! People only like "fair" when it is applied to someone else, not them.

Attempted implementation of "fairness" has resulted in more deaths and misery than any other ideology.

I think "indifference" can include "free," but "fair" requires not indifference but "manipulation."

"Fair" generatlly requires lots of weapons....... and people willing to use them in the name of "fairness."

Killing your neighbor or stealing their stuff in the name of "fairness" is the world's second oldest profession.

[Endovelico]

so.. im totally confused, you spend your entire time on this forum bitching about centralised government and demanding that you should be allowed to create your own structures based on people you can cooperate with and yet you hate liberty and free markets ???????"?????????????????

I'm not against market mechanisms. I'm against market manipulation. And I know that the richer you are the more easily you manipulate the markets in your favour. I don't want to do away with markets. I want to do away with the capitalist ownership of firms. I favour cooperatives, where the capitalist and the worker are one and the same person. Which does away with exploitation, and reduces the risk of market manipulation. And I favour the adoption of the principle of banks being not for profit organizations. That´s the only way, in my view, of combining freedom and efficiency without exploitation. My disagreement with some of you is that you think that you can't have freedom without capitalism.

[Sparky]

so.. im totally confused, you spend your entire time on this forum bitching about centralised government and demanding that you should be allowed to create your own structures based on people you can cooperate with and yet you hate liberty and free markets ???????"?????????????????

I'm not against market mechanisms. I'm against market manipulation. And I know that the richer you are the more easily you manipulate the markets in your favour. I don't want to do away with markets. I want to do away with the capitalist ownership of firms. I favour cooperatives, where the capitalist and the worker are one and the same person. Which does away with exploitation, and reduces the risk of market manipulation.

I don't see how. A hyper successful co-op which dominates it's marketplace is in just as good a position to manipulate its marketplace and influence politicians, etc. as a dominant capitalist owned company in a similar position. If your answer to that is "well, we'd regulate them" then it strikes me that that is all that one really requires in the first place.

And I favour the adoption of the principle of banks being not for profit organizations. That´s the only way, in my view, of combining freedom and efficiency without exploitation. My disagreement with some of you is that you think that you can't have freedom without capitalism.

In other words, banks that on average, run at a loss. A perpetual trickle bailout sounds almost as unappealing as a once a century bailout blowout. Noddy makes some excellent points in his splendid post above - let's put the bank back in bankruptcy!

[Endovelico]

so.. im totally confused, you spend your entire time on this forum bitching about centralised government and demanding that you should be allowed to create your own structures based on people you can cooperate with and yet you hate liberty and free markets ???????"?????????????????

I'm not against market mechanisms. I'm against market manipulation. And I know that the richer you are the more easily you manipulate the markets in your favour. I don't want to do away with markets. I want to do away with the capitalist ownership of firms. I favour cooperatives, where the capitalist and the worker are one and the same person. Which does away with exploitation, and reduces the risk of market manipulation.

I don't see how. A hyper successful co-op which dominates it's marketplace is in just as good a position to manipulate its marketplace and influence politicians, etc. as a dominant capitalist owned company in a similar position. If your answer to that is "well, we'd regulate them" then it strikes me that that is all that one really requires in the first place.

And I favour the adoption of the principle of banks being not for profit organizations. That´s the only way, in my view, of combining freedom and efficiency without exploitation. My disagreement with some of you is that you think that you can't have freedom without capitalism.

In other words, banks that on average, run at a loss. A perpetual trickle bailout sounds almost as unappealing as a once a century bailout blowout. Noddy makes some excellent points in his splendid post above - let's put the bank back in bankruptcy!

Cooperatives are less likely to become conglomerates with a conglomerate mentality. Therefore they would be less likely to manipulate markets. And then, because their decision making process is more decentralized, there would be less likelihood of market control decisions. There wouldn't be captains of industry, nor Rockfellers or Rothschilds in a cooperative economy.

Not for profit banks do not mean loss making banks. It means only that all profits - results after investment - would be channeled back to clients, which would ensure net interest rates as low as possible. One cannot evaluate non-capitalist processes with a capitalist mentality. A cooperative dominated economy would function differently from a capitalist economy, but it wouldn't be less efficient.

[Ibrahim]

Endo, it seems what you really want/need is a different underlying motive for modern culture. The way you organize a given government or economy won't be able to produce different outcomes if the highest aspiration for the average person is to acquire wealth and live comfortably or, ideally, luxuriously. The evolution of most overtly Marxist states into either militaristic fascist states (when that was the rage mid 20th century) and/or into oligarchies of corrupt politicos and businessmen mirroring or worse than Western capitalist states, is an example of this in action. The ideology becomes subservient to individual motivations.

You, and I think Tinker in many of his political views, require the majority of people themselves to want something better, and post-industrial consumer culture doesn't supply it. Even Spenglerites pretending that they are really motivated by religious conviction ultimately behave the same as any other consumer, and the "American Dream" have for a long time been strictly an economic one.

[Endovelico]

Endo, it seems what you really want/need is a different underlying motive for modern culture. The way you organize a given government or economy won't be able to produce different outcomes if the highest aspiration for the average person is to acquire wealth and live comfortably or, ideally, luxuriously. The evolution of most overtly Marxist states into either militaristic fascist states (when that was the rage mid 20th century) and/or into oligarchies of corrupt politicos and businessmen mirroring or worse than Western capitalist states, is an example of this in action. The ideology becomes subservient to individual motivations.

You, and I think Tinker in many of his political views, require the majority of people themselves to want something better, and post-industrial consumer culture doesn't supply it. Even Spenglerites pretending that they are really motivated by religious conviction ultimately behave the same as any other consumer, and the "American Dream" have for a long time been strictly an economic one.

Your point is an important one, and it has been one of my main concerns in analyzing this question. But if there is one thing I don't want is to change people's nature.It can't be done so no need even to try. But one may limit people's opportunities to exert one's instincts. Capitalism, because it gives so much power to a relatively small number of people who have the ability to make a lot of money with their firms, creates the most inequality and violation of basic rights. A cooperative economy spreads this power a lot more thinly, not only inside the firm but also in the market, so that there will be less inequality and a lot less exploitation. People will still want to make money and live comfortably, but this can only be achieved as a group, and a large group at that. If your cooperative has 200 people, success must be achieved for those 200 people, not just for a dozen or so. Each person will have less money and thus less power. People will still be greedy but their greed will be checked by the environment, not by their ethics. This is not utopia, it's a very normal society made of regular people, with regular shortcomings, but with a lot less opportunities to impose their will on others.

[Simple Minded]

Seems to me the desired goal here of Endo, Tinker, noddy, and others is a free market, ie: the voluntary cooperation one finds in the private sector, not the coercion one finds in the public sector.

The reason person X acquires bookoo jack (and the resultant power) in a free market, is because his customers value his product or service more than their own money. Of course the question then becomes how does one (or the govt) keep the population from spending all their money on porn and cheetos?

Cooperative sounds great, since it implies cooperation. Very difficult for a govt to do since if 52% of the members in the cooperative decide to vote 10% of the members in the cooperative off the island, due to lack or performance, above average health care costs, hair styles, looks, whatever, to where does the cooperative govt exile the unwanted?

Always amazes me because I see thousands of these cooperative organizations (called small and large businesses, churches, clubs, 501c3s, etc) thruout the country, and yet people focus on the 1/50 fo 1% of the corporations that do seem to be run by the power hungry as being the norm. Not in my world, at least not yet.

Tour main street or east ave or maple street rather than pennsylvania avenue or K street or wall street.

For all the bemoaning one hears, throut the whole of my life, I have yet to encounter a single individual who has engaged in a market transaction against their will, unless, the force of govt was involved.

Anyone have any examples I should know about?

[Ibrahim]

Endo, it seems what you really want/need is a different underlying motive for modern culture. The way you organize a given government or economy won't be able to produce different outcomes if the highest aspiration for the average person is to acquire wealth and live comfortably or, ideally, luxuriously. The evolution of most overtly Marxist states into either militaristic fascist states (when that was the rage mid 20th century) and/or into oligarchies of corrupt politicos and businessmen mirroring or worse than Western capitalist states, is an example of this in action. The ideology becomes subservient to individual motivations.

You, and I think Tinker in many of his political views, require the majority of people themselves to want something better, and post-industrial consumer culture doesn't supply it. Even Spenglerites pretending that they are really motivated by religious conviction ultimately behave the same as any other consumer, and the "American Dream" have for a long time been strictly an economic one.

Your point is an important one, and it has been one of my main concerns in analyzing this question. But if there is one thing I don't want is to change people's nature.It can't be done so no need even to try. But one may limit people's opportunities to exert one's instincts. Capitalism, because it gives so much power to a relatively small number of people who have the ability to make a lot of money with their firms, creates the most inequality and violation of basic rights. A cooperative economy spreads this power a lot more thinly, not only inside the firm but also in the market, so that there will be less inequality and a lot less exploitation. People will still want to make money and live comfortably, but this can only be achieved as a group, and a large group at that. If your cooperative has 200 people, success must be achieved for those 200 people, not just for a dozen or so. Each person will have less money and thus less power. People will still be greedy but their greed will be checked by the environment, not by their ethics. This is not utopia, it's a very normal society made of regular people, with regular shortcomings, but with a lot less opportunities to impose their will on others.

But capitalism and socialism start with the same diffusion of wealth/power, and in both systems it tends to concentrate in a small group over time. When that group is powerful enough they start chipping away at the regulations that keep them from exploiting the system so badly that it starts to break down. Trying to change human nature is a difficult proposition, especially with an economic/political system, so the goal needs to be preventing people from destroying the system that is supposed to benefit everybody.

We've reached the stage where it is no longer debatable that capitalism is exploitative and destructive, and we already knew that all existing socialist states (I mean real socialism, not the Tea Party definition) have been destructive and exploitative, so it seems like the goal has to be minimizing the damage, rather than arguing one vs. the other.

[noddy]

bluntly i think overly clever people with complex symbolism philosophies get all sorts of things back to front - the symbol is the cart and the thing being symbolised is the horse, you cant call a horse an airplane and then expect it to become a unicorn... only intellectuals fall for crap like that.

from my perspective you already had the EU - you had stopped killing each other and all the companies and individuals that could cooperate across borders were happily doing so... all this crap about germans and portugese post EU forgets the examples like leica which is one the most boutique and expensive german camera brands happily hand making all its cameras in portugal because they recognized the high skill and hard working craftsmen available at cheaper standards of living than the german ones.

this experiment started in the 1970's and has only grown since, i believe they have thrown all their money at expanding that factory and they are pretty much a portugese company now and rich tossers in waistcoats and trendy glasses rejoiced and happily pay absurd amounts of money for their fashion cameras.

then you ruined it when you created the EU and expected more from it - all the people that cant cooperate were immediately expected to cooperate because golly gosh and wibble me stupid, the symbol had changed

hence you now carry a parasitic second layer of government that tries to glue wings on the horse and cant even agree how many wings their should be and which direction they should face.

as for harm minimisation and the evil weevils of capitalism - ill try and organise my thoughts on that a bit better - however this also ties into horse and carts and symbols.. blaming capitalism is blaming the tool.

[noddy]

the mechanisms by which corporates get to abuse our free society - this is the trickiest part of all, the most contradictory and thusly the most polarising left/right.

for a start - the bit you cant stop, is that some companies/coops are more successful than others and many people would much rather join the big successful thing and hide away in a niche rather than deal with all the problems both political (squabbling etc) and capitalist (investment decisions etc) themselves.

nothing wrong with that per se, nothing you can or should do to stop it, indifference is all it takes to ignore them if thats not your cup of tea.

so now onto the hairy bits that pretty much break down any conversation and put people into their appropriate tribal camps and leaves me frothing and babbling.

the two main mechanisms that make life really bloody hard for startups and small coops are marxism and middle class safety obsessions and these ALLEGEDLY left wing protections in our society are also the things that pretty much make large corporates the only possible outcome... its tricky territory.

the marxist bit is the infantile class splitting of bossess/employers from workers/staff and the enforced roles they must take - every damn time some left wing makes my poor worker arse more protected they also make my coop more illegal.. from garunteed wages and conditions through to benefits like healthcare and retirement packages, these things all add up to create a situation where you have to be a huge company with teams of lawyers and accountants and investment people just to play the game.

if you *shock horror* arent a money grabbing riches seeking person and you want to actually do something as a cooperative with your trusted friends and coworkers then their is no "exploitive boss" and this entire paradigm is actually forcing you to create that situation... in my little coops we all know exactly how much the company is pulling in each week and we can easily split that between us based on who did what but this is a chaotic thing based on what happened that month.. maybe its 10 grand split between 5 or maybe its 2 grand split between 3 or or or .... stable garuntees are not given to us by our clients and this marxist thinking requirement for employment is just an absurdity.

luckily at the moment my current coop has a person who is good at playing these legislation games and we hopefully arent too illegal despite the fact we mostly ignore the laws time will tell, maybe ill end up posting from jail and ill have plenty of time for forum dribbles.

the other mechanism is middle class safety protections.. from food to houses to cars and services and workplaces, every damn thing is legislated to within an inch of its life and again this makes life very difficult for startups and smaller coops.

from the small farmer not legally being allowed to sell non commercially homogenised milk to the welder and artstudent not being allowed to make a funky little city car, most of our lives are protected to the point that only the big boys can play the licensing games... sure hope you can afford to make 10 cars to pass smash testing etc etc.

a hell of a lot of what some people on blame "corruption and government bribes" is actually demanded by the middle class, safety at all costs, another rule will fix it mentality.

----

i realise that some countries havent gone as far as mine when it comes to the above legislated nightmares but i think england and many states in america have.

western mainland europe really only makes an exception for traditional foods... so much so they have legislated themselves into a corner from the other direction, i was reading about the greeks enforced "traditional" milk production the other day which actually stops farmers from expanding and making their product affordable.

a "free" market would allow the flexability for all forms to exist as much as people were prepared to support.. the fussy rich people could pay top dollar for the "organic" the poor ones get it from the large factory farms.

----

the safety net should garuntee food,housing and accident/emergeny hospital treatment - that would take alot of the death stress out of being poor and the morbid fear of the status quo changing away from the nearly poor.

above that, your on your own and have to create more by cooperating with others (aka a job and/or a community) if you want more.

capitalism is great, it lets you exchange stuff with people you dont trust via a trusted proxy called money... ermm.. yeh..printing press ..cough, sigh.

getting the laws that keep the system open and free ... well... that would require a brave and engaged people who trusted each other .. cough... sigh.

[noddy]

Cept that last sentence, nobody likes the word fair! People only like "fair" when it is applied to someone else, not them.

Attempted implementation of "fairness" has resulted in more deaths and misery than any other ideology.

I think "indifference" can include "free," but "fair" requires not indifference but "manipulation."

"Fair" generatlly requires lots of weapons....... and people willing to use them in the name of "fairness."

Killing your neighbor or stealing their stuff in the name of "fairness" is the world's second oldest profession.

open market ?

actually now that i think more about this i realise that it needs 2 names depending on the audience.

"fair to all, open to difference, cooperative enhancing synergy system" and "superior and toughest supplier testing regime with constant fierce competition"

[Simple Minded]

But capitalism and socialism start with the same diffusion of wealth/power, and in both systems it tends to concentrate in a small group over time. When that group is powerful enough they start chipping away at the regulations that keep them from exploiting the system so badly that it starts to break down. Trying to change human nature is a difficult proposition, especially with an economic/political system, so the goal needs to be preventing people from destroying the system that is supposed to benefit everybody.

Excellent summary of the crux of the problem. Till our elected regulators have a much better "human nature" than those evil bastards which need "regulating" the discussion of how many more regulations and of what type shall remains fruitless. Unfortunately, that is the only SOP we have....

We've reached the stage where it is no longer debatable that capitalism is exploitative and destructive, and we already knew that all existing socialist states (I mean real socialism, not the Tea Party definition) have been destructive and exploitative, so it seems like the goal has to be minimizing the damage, rather than arguing one vs. the other.

Everyone loves the creative destruction of capitalism when they are consumers. As an engineer, I am often amazed how cheaply stuff can be produced. But as producers, we would all like a protective shield from those who are smarter, more efficient, or willing to work harder for less. Damn, if only we could be just consumers, capitalism would be great. And if we could only be just producers, socialism would be great. sigh.....

As noddy outlines above, complying with regulation is expensive. Only the wealthy corporations/unions/individuals have the cash/legal muscle to buy dispensations and still keep the doors open. UAW pension plan bailout at the expense of the taxpaying little people. Exemptions from the Obamacare requirements that were supposed to save US healthcare. Hmmmm.....

[Simple Minded]

the mechanisms by which corporates get to abuse our free society - this is the trickiest part of all, the most contradictory and thusly the most polarising left/right.

for a start - the bit you cant stop, is that some companies/coops are more successful than others and many people would much rather join the big successful thing and hide away in a niche rather than deal with all the problems both political (squabbling etc) and capitalist (investment decisions etc) themselves.

nothing wrong with that per se, nothing you can or should do to stop it, indifference is all it takes to ignore them if thats not your cup of tea.

so now onto the hairy bits that pretty much break down any conversation and put people into their appropriate tribal camps and leaves me frothing and babbling.

the two main mechanisms that make life really bloody hard for startups and small coops are marxism and middle class safety obsessions and these ALLEGEDLY left wing protections in our society are also the things that pretty much make large corporates the only possible outcome... its tricky territory.

the marxist bit is the infantile class splitting of bossess/employers from workers/staff and the enforced roles they must take - every damn time some left wing makes my poor worker arse more protected they also make my coop more illegal.. from garunteed wages and conditions through to benefits like healthcare and retirement packages, these things all add up to create a situation where you have to be a huge company with teams of lawyers and accountants and investment people just to play the game.

if you *shock horror* arent a money grabbing riches seeking person and you want to actually do something as a cooperative with your trusted friends and coworkers then their is no "exploitive boss" and this entire paradigm is actually forcing you to create that situation... in my little coops we all know exactly how much the company is pulling in each week and we can easily split that between us based on who did what but this is a chaotic thing based on what happened that month.. maybe its 10 grand split between 5 or maybe its 2 grand split between 3 or or or .... stable garuntees are not given to us by our clients and this marxist thinking requirement for employment is just an absurdity.

luckily at the moment my current coop has a person who is good at playing these legislation games and we hopefully arent too illegal despite the fact we mostly ignore the laws time will tell, maybe ill end up posting from jail and ill have plenty of time for forum dribbles.

the other mechanism is middle class safety protections.. from food to houses to cars and services and workplaces, every damn thing is legislated to within an inch of its life and again this makes life very difficult for startups and smaller coops.

from the small farmer not legally being allowed to sell non commercially homogenised milk to the welder and artstudent not being allowed to make a funky little city car, most of our lives are protected to the point that only the big boys can play the licensing games... sure hope you can afford to make 10 cars to pass smash testing etc etc.

a hell of a lot of what some people on blame "corruption and government bribes" is actually demanded by the middle class, safety at all costs, another rule will fix it mentality.

----

i realise that some countries havent gone as far as mine when it comes to the above legislated nightmares but i think england and many states in america have.

western mainland europe really only makes an exception for traditional foods... so much so they have legislated themselves into a corner from the other direction, i was reading about the greeks enforced "traditional" milk production the other day which actually stops farmers from expanding and making their product affordable.

a "free" market would allow the flexability for all forms to exist as much as people were prepared to support.. the fussy rich people could pay top dollar for the "organic" the poor ones get it from the large factory farms.

----

the safety net should garuntee food,housing and accident/emergeny hospital treatment - that would take alot of the death stress out of being poor and the morbid fear of the status quo changing away from the nearly poor.

above that, your on your own and have to create more by cooperating with others (aka a job and/or a community) if you want more.

capitalism is great, it lets you exchange stuff with people you dont trust via a trusted proxy called money... ermm.. yeh..printing press ..cough, sigh.

getting the laws that keep the system open and free ... well... that would require a brave and engaged people who trusted each other .. cough... sigh.

nother great post dude. You be on a roll.

Problem in capitalism is what to do with the lazy non-producers. Damn those capitalists are mean, heartless, evil, bastards.

Problem in socialism is what to do with the free spirited non-compliers. Damn those socialists are mean, heartless, evil, bastards.

Where is the island of those who have been voted off?

[Endovelico]

You guys have complicated things beyond understanding.

1. A cooperative economy is freer than any other type of economy.
2. A cooperative economy requires nevertheless that you work either in a cooperative or as a liberal professional. Non-cooperative firms would not be permitted.
3. If you work in a cooperative you are entitled to participate in the decision making process and you are entitled to a share of the profits, in the manner decided by the group.
4. The state does not interfere beyond what is necessary to guarantee public health and safety, and to preserve competition in any productive field. There is a lot less state interference than in any capitalist economy.
5. Greed does not disappear but has little room to manifest itself.
6. In a cooperative economy people can't be fired, but people may leave a cooperative for another or to work as a free-lancer.
7. The only unemployed people would be those whose cooperative has failed.
8. In a cooperative economy firms are not moved to cheap labour countries, nor firms can be taken over by other firms. Multinational firms and large conglomerates are a lot less likely to exist. There are no stock markets nor speculative financing. None of this is imposed, it's the natural consequence of a cooperative economy. Cooperative economies are to capitalist economies as democracy is to dictatorship.

Many of you are still reasoning as if a cooperative economy would coexist with a capitalist economy. Not at all. A cooperative economy, to fulfill its aims, would have to replace totally the capitalist economy. No fifth columns would be allowed. A cooperative economy is not socialism either, at least not as most people imagine socialism to be.

[Simple Minded]

You guys have complicated things beyond understanding.

1. A cooperative economy is freer than any other type of economy.
2. A cooperative economy requires nevertheless that you work either in a cooperative or as a liberal professional. Non-cooperative firms would not be permitted.
3. If you work in a cooperative you are entitled to participate in the decision making process and you are entitled to a share of the profits, in the manner decided by the group.
4. The state does not interfere beyond what is necessary to guarantee public health and safety, and to preserve competition in any productive field. There is a lot less state interference than in any capitalist economy.
5. Greed does not disappear but has little room to manifest itself.
6. In a cooperative economy people can't be fired, but people may leave a cooperative for another or to work as a free-lancer.
7. The only unemployed people would be those whose cooperative has failed.
8. In a cooperative economy firms are not moved to cheap labour countries, nor firms can be taken over by other firms. Multinational firms and large conglomerates are a lot less likely to exist. There are no stock markets nor speculative financing. None of this is imposed, it's the natural consequence of a cooperative economy. Cooperative economies are to capitalist economies as democracy is to dictatorship.

Many of you are still reasoning as if a cooperative economy would coexist with a capitalist economy. Not at all. A cooperative economy, to fulfill its aims, would have to replace totally the capitalist economy. No fifth columns would be allowed. A cooperative economy is not socialism either, at least not as most people imagine socialism to be.

Endovelico,

Life is complicated. So far the discussion sounds like an excellent intellectual exercise, as long as one ignores the realities of life.

After reading 1000's of posts from the Spengler derives fora, it seems to me that Galt's Gulch, TinkerTown, SimpleMindedstan, Noddy's Niche, and Endovelico's Enclave are virtually identical economic systems other than minor terminology differences. If they shared common borders, the resident of any could walk thru them all and scarcely notice the difference.

Obviously, there is plenty of history documenting that people often do not live up to previously agreed upon promises or contracts. That pesky human nature which ruins so many grand plans often rears its ugly behind!!!

But I am still interested in hearing what happens to the non-comformists or those who break their contracts/agreements in a cooperative.

What are the incentives that encourage cooperation? What are the punishments that discourage uncooperative behavior?

For example, we all agree that each of us will produce 20% more than each consume in order to fund the cooperative. And in order to keep cooperative health care costs sustainable, we will all maintain our body fat content at less than X, our cholesteral at less than Y, and our blood sugar at less than Z. We shall never heat our house above 72 degrees, nor operate a vehicle that gets less than 20 mpg.

So what happens when people start acting like humans and breaking the rules???

Enquiring minds want to know.

[noddy]

im glad all that complicated politics crap can be done with and its just a quick n simple culture change.. certainly makes things simpler, ill just wait for mr p and endo to hammer out the details about how exactly you can smell the difference between a large coop that elects the best person to handle it and a corporation with a ceo.

we all want a quick n simple culture change im afraid, and i personally think mine is the best idea (shock, horrror) .. cooperate with those you can, be indifferent to those you cant and let the diversity with all the wonderful hedging aspects that creates, blossom... stop projecting fear onto the "other" and get on with your life... the government does conflict resolution not conflict avoidance (i think we agree on that)

its how the south pacific works, every village is a small cooperative that speaks its own language and has its own variations on how to do things, wonderfully tolerant people, to a point... the point being outsiders coming in and causing a fuss, they tend to die.. so some would call it insular and xenophobic.

i get the sense endo you cant stand the constant change and chaos, you want life to be like a pacific villager.. all the "things" that need to be done are refined and known, so they can be allocated around and then everthing shared.

you can only do that when things are static and constant, modernity comes with a price and that price is constant obsolescence...you name it, i predict it wont exist in 10 years... right here right now nearly every single electronic gadget we know and love from the last 20 years is dead because the smart phone does it all.. so good luck with your portable stereo factory.

their are some constant occupations around but not enough for all of us.

you can of course just scream, and say "enough" its all good enough at this point and dropout.. thats what the amish did and thats what the pacific islanders did, thats what lots of cultures throughout history have done.

couldnt say i blame you, i would have moved to the pacific ages ago if they didnt have laws stopping buggers like me unless we are rich .. they know they are onto a good thing

the price you pay is that their is no 24 hr hospital with people working all hours out of job stress, so if you get badly injured or sick at night you die and if you do have a creative idea they will ignore it, it breaks the easy peace to change things or improve things.. someones role might be affected and thats a really bad thing.

modernity is about managing chaos, not about comfort zones and stability im afraid... its like a step backwards in the civilisation scale, we are kind of nomadic hunter gatherers again ... feasts and famines and being prepared to move with the economic weather.

[Sparky]

No fifth columns would be allowed. A cooperative economy is not socialism either, at least not as most people imagine socialism to be.

So much for consent, for liberty and for pragmatism. In fact it is curious that consent hasn't arisen in this discussion so far.

[Endovelico]

No fifth columns would be allowed. A cooperative economy is not socialism either, at least not as most people imagine socialism to be.

So much for consent, for liberty and for pragmatism. In fact it is curious that consent hasn't arisen in this discussion so far.

You are right, to a point. Would society consent to an exclusively cooperative economy? Once people understand that a cooperative economy would be beneficial to over 90% of the people, and only potential tycoons would lose, you would have their consent. But would people "believe" in you, when you tell them it would be beneficial? Government might start by promoting cooperatives on a scale that would make their effect visible, and let people then decide if they should make cooperatives a compulsory form of firm organization. Or you could make it compulsory from the start and force all firms to become cooperatives, and then hope for the best... Difficult to conciliate with democracy, isn't it? And that's definitely a problem. I haven't found an answer to that, yet.

[Endovelico]

(...) i get the sense endo you cant stand the constant change and chaos, you want life to be like a pacific villager.. all the "things" that need to be done are refined and known, so they can be allocated around and then everthing shared.

you can only do that when things are static and constant, modernity comes with a price and that price is constant obsolescence...you name it, i predict it wont exist in 10 years... right here right now nearly every single electronic gadget we know and love from the last 20 years is dead because the smart phone does it all.. so good luck with your portable stereo factory.

their are some constant occupations around but not enough for all of us.

you can of course just scream, and say "enough" its all good enough at this point and dropout.. thats what the amish did and thats what the pacific islanders did, thats what lots of cultures throughout history have done.(...)

If I gave you the idea that's the way I feel, I must be a very poor writer indeed and I haven't been able to put my ideas across.

A cooperative economy is, to me, an environment of freedom. And there is no way a free society would be a static one. I'm all in favour of progress and I'm quite sure cooperatives would be as innovative as any capitalist firm. Ownership of the means of production is the issue. Nothing else. People working in a cooperative - and owning it - would be as inventive, as eager to make money and live well, as people working in a capitalist firm and as the capitalist firm's major shareholders. But they wouldn't have the means to manipulate the markets, or exploit the people actually producing the goods, or laying off thousands of workers, or moving the firm to China where salaries are lower. But investing in new ideas and products would remain very much as we know it.

[noddy]

its a long slow process getting to the nitty gritty of what each other words mean, especially cross cultures, i also think sparky makes an excellent point about the problems of consent when it comes to all this talk.

i do note you havent got much detail about health,education and all the usual political battlegrounds for liberty and difference but we can ignore that for the moment

instead of capitalist/socialist talk or the communist/facist extremes of those, id rather talk in terms flat vs pyramid hierarchies with an added dash of consensual vs authoritarian organisations.

under those terms, i cant tell the difference between fascism and communism and nor can i tell the difference between working for government or a large corporate.. they are all pretty steep pyramids with supreme masters at the top and layers of middle masters and then poor suckers at the bottom

a cooperative as i use the word and as you seem to also, is a group of people that dont need or like those layers, and they deal with the problems of the company as equals and its an almost flat hierachy with no explicit leaders...all free consent and walk away if its not working out for you.

this is a pretty special arrangement that only some people are capable of making work - some are too egotistical and arrogant (strong and powerful?) and cant compromise enough, others are too gentle and quiet (weak and passive?) and wont stand up and take their place.

some folks just like the pyramid thing.. they want an authority to help them with personal conflicts, they want the boss to make the hard business decisions and risks, they just want to show up, get paid and go home and forcing them to be in a cooperative would be as bad as forcing me to be in a corporate .

when any of the groups ive been in expand, most of the filtering process is about these qualities, more so than the qualifications - we actively seek those that can tackle problems without help and can deal with their own conflicts and decisions and its a high failure rate.

really, the only thing i think government can and should do is to keep an eagle eye on various industries and how hard it is to break into them.. if it takes free market seriously then it should consider any industry that has reduced to oligopoly as an unhealthy industry and make steps to allow new players to start without massive hurdles.

alas, im dreaming for much of the west, as i stated before, its the people not corrupt government that are pushing for the conditions that create this corporate versus government reduction into authoritarian pyramids, the general population is risk averse and looking for harm minimization via legalism.

ibrahim made these points but from the other angle.. more comforts for less work, the goal of modernity.

i fully expect the chaotic asia elements to provide the new things from now on - india, parts of china.. places you can just do stuff for the sake of doing it and hurt yourself without being punished for it

maybe portugal is better for that side of it, if so, good luck to you, hurry up and get out of the eu and get control of your destiny again!

eek, im in spenglermatic death of the west mode again.. deary me.

[Simple Minded]

Excellent thread. Looks like we are back at square one. Everyone thinks the option of voluntarily deciding who is one's vendors and customers is the best option.

Walk away from transactions with the dishonest in the private sector (voting with one's wallet), petition for change in the public sector (voting with the ballot), or look for greener pastures (voting with one's feet) in both the private and public sector.

Endovelico, I don't see where it has anything to do with democracy and everything to do with human nature. The same people who want the best deal when they are consumers, also want to maximise profit when they are producers. Nothing evil at foot, simply people being people.

Noddy, you are right about trying to decode what the terms that other use really mean. After reading hundreds of posts from Endovelico and Tinker, both strike me as very enthusiastic advocates of Ayn Rand's ideology.

I know neither would consider that to be a compliment. It is not intended to be either a compliment nor an insult, just an observation. In spite of the words we use, most people seem to be a lot alike.

Alas there shall always be regulators/governors, producers/vendors, and consumers/voters. How to keep one group from either expoiting or corrupting the other two is the big rub.

Thankfully, most people get along better as neighbors, than they do as ideologues in theoretical/political discussions.

Very little common ground seems to exist in cyberspace.....

[Mr. Perfect]

A few issues.

Endo is right, complicated beyond comprehension.

Also a Freudian slip from a few.

Few people get up in the morning to be part of a "system". A lot of people get up in the morning to get laid, make a check, get high, check out some celebrities, follow the sports team, go to a book club and so forth. In fact, people who are even really conscious of a system at all (voters) prove to usually be a minority of any given population and divided.

Anyone perpetuating a "system" will never arrive at it. Most of the West interested in these types of things is now in complete agreement about the "system", as the system burns to the ground before our eyes.

We had a good bit of time at it, and it's going bankrupt everywhere you look. In the west Central Fiat Banking and welfare state (with a few item based exceptions in the US) policy is ubiquitous and the result is global bankruptcy. You gents are whistling in the graveyard.

This is all that's left.

[noddy]

your trying to get my hopes up with doomer pron... the great correction, economic and political.

anyway, not solving the world, just chatting to find out what and why other people prefer.

[Endovelico]

Endovelico, I don't see where it has anything to do with democracy and everything to do with human nature. The same people who want the best deal when they are consumers, also want to maximise profit when they are producers. Nothing evil at foot, simply people being people.

I quite agree that human nature is the key. That's why I would like a system in which human nature would have fewer opportunities of being destructive. When I equate a cooperative system with democracy and capitalism with dictatorship, it's because decisions are taken democratically in a cooperative and in an authoritarian manner in capitalism. In a capitalist firm decisions are taken by the major shareholder, on its own, based only on its absolute power over that firm. The thinking goes like this: If you own something you are entitled to do with it as you wish, including destroying it. In a cooperative firm all members may vote on any decision, and the majority will prevail. In a capitalist firm you have as many votes as you have shares - the richer you are the more votes you have -, in a cooperative firm all members have only one vote. It should be clear to all that exploitation and manipulation are a lot more difficult to achieve in a cooperative economy. Human nature will still lead people to be selfish and greedy, but it will be a lot harder to put it into practice. Democracy never works perfectly, but any of us will prefer democracy over dictatorship, anytime. Why not apply the same principle to the economic system?...