Re: [tlug] Introduction to (Tech) Worker Cooperatives, 09:00AM on Sunday, July 12th JST

[Yasuaki Kudo <yasu@example.com>]

Hi Stephen,

 

Although I am still learning so can’t much definitively,

 

• Not true in worker cooperatives.  Customers and society at large are

excluded from decision-making.

 

This part is probably not true, based on my numerous encounters with actual worker cooperators.   The reason is, the community-focus, fair trade, fair use, etc., are usually at the heart of their “competitiveness” compared to capitalist rivals.  That’s their main selling point.   So, many of them actually create, formally or informally, a broader coalition of “multi-stakeholder” business model.

 

One family of large (10,000+ members) and successful worker cooperatives I know in Japan have a militant focus on the community.   I heard the entire franchise’ success is determined by whether they can successfully root themselves in the particular community or not. 😊

 

-Yasu

 

 

 

 

 

From: Stephen J. Turnbull
Sent: Thursday, July 16, 2020 15:31
To: Tokyo Linux Users Group
Subject: Re: [tlug] Introduction to (Tech) Worker Cooperatives,09:00AM on Sunday, July 12th JST

 

Benjamin Kowarsch writes:

 

> This is not an issue of capitalism versus cooperative, but an issue of

> scale in general.

 

+1

 

> Under a bottom up model, this consensus has to be reached by a very

> large group of people, essentially all stakeholders.

 

Not true in worker cooperatives.  Customers and society at large are

excluded from decision-making.

 

> Individual cooperatives are organised within a federation of

> cooperatives through which certain assets (infrastructure,

> know-how, intellectual property, marketing etc) are shared.

 

And pricing policy == monopoly power. 

 

I suspect this model doesn't work as well without government

regulation in network industries.  Cf. buttcoin, which was designed as

a federated distributed money supply, but has turned out to be a

monopolized pyramid scheme for betting on the stupidity of later-

comers.  Although nobody has ever spent Satoshi's original pile, maybe

that was the idea from the get-go....