Mastodawn

Mikel - Covivienda rural Bioketa Dec 30

@GhostOnTheHalfShell ¿Could just buying from #cooperatives solve the problem of #inequality?

Aaron Dec 30

@mikels

If people would only stick to it, definitely. Cooperatives align incentives and redistribute profits and power back to the community where it came from.

I want to see a law where workers have the right to collectively purchase their source of employment at fair market value whenever they choose. Or maybe make it a mandatory yearly vote.

If we had only cooperatives and single proprietorships, we would eventually run out of billionaires, because they'd have no way to extort the common people and renew their reserves. If we wanted to speed it along, we could also add a wealth tax and fund a UBI with it.

@GhostOnTheHalfShell

bufalo1973 Dec 31

@hosford42 @mikels @GhostOnTheHalfShell a good way could be a change in the laws to make cooperatives cheaper and easier to create but with the same benefits an Inc./Ltd./...

eliseo Dec 31

@bufalo1973 @hosford42 @mikels @GhostOnTheHalfShell

Cooperatives and regulations are too reformist to be effective on the long-term. It took three decades for the US government to destroy unions in the past century, policing and playing their game is a waste of time and effort.

J Lou Jan 2

@GhostOnTheHalfShell @mikels @hosford42 @bufalo1973

Building co-ops today is good. Many people that advocate co-ops believe that they must be mandated to protect workers’ inalienable rights. A co-op sector provides the economic base needed for moving towards mandated worker control. By building co-ops today, the far left could have lobbyists to influence the political process. Obviously, reforming lobbying and campaign finance would be better. Until then, we should try this tactic

eliseo Jan 2

@jlou @GhostOnTheHalfShell @mikels @hosford42 @bufalo1973

This approach was tried over a hundred years ago, in multiple nations, and every single attempt failed to safeguard worker rights on the long-term. Reformism is a game that tyrants want you to play, because that way it's ensured that things stay the way they are, the louder masses get to be content because their conditions are better on the short-term, then a couple decades later everyone forgets about how important it is and capitalists and the state dismantle everything the workers built.

The multiple and consistent failures of the left throughout the past century show that blood will have to spill, because that's the only language you can use against tyrants, leave the reformist speech to politicians, capitalists and liberals, they all seem to believe the economy is somehow broken and can be fixed, rather than replaced, guess why.

Aaron Jan 2

> This approach was tried over a hundred years ago

What country implemented a law that all businesses must be either single proprietorships or cooperatives -- a single share per shareholder, a single vote per share, all workers have shares? This is what will prevent billionaires from existing in the first place. And nobody has done it, ever. Not at the scale of the entire economy.

Bloodlust isn't the answer.

eliseo Jan 2

@hosford42 @GhostOnTheHalfShell @jlou @mikels @bufalo1973

> What country implemented a law that all businesses must be either single proprietorships or cooperatives -- a single share per shareholder, a single vote per share, all workers have shares?

None, because the way you blissfully believe this would be implemented no government will ever grant such level of power and autonomy to workers.

> This is what will prevent billionaires from existing in the first place.

Billionaires will threaten to kill and destroy anything to keep existing, and that's why this reformist bullshit you keep parroting will never achieve a thing, as it requires material conditions that do not exist right now, and if they did, cooperatives will not be needed because tyrants with power would not exist in the first place.

When I talked about what was attempted a hundred years ago I referred to unions, which spread throughout the west by the early 20th century and it took less than five decades for all relevant ones to collapse and be dissolved, specially with things like the Taft-Hartley act. Cooperatives have the same fate because they can't safeguard worker rights while keeping prices as low, let alone lower than conventional capitalist competition, I've seen dozens upon dozens of cooperatives failing where I live, every single attempt ends in an eventual failure.

Aaron Jan 2

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327907071_Cooperative_Longevity_Why_Are_So_Many_Cooperatives_So_Successful

> I've seen dozens upon dozens of cooperatives failing where I live, every single attempt ends in an eventual failure.

Businesses of all types fail. None of them lasts forever. But cooperatives are *more* resilient, not less.

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/5/1586

https://feb.kuleuven.be/drc/kco/en/blog/imprinting_effects_in_cooperative_enterprises_exploring_the_longevity_of_cooperatives

Aaron Jan 2

https://geo.coop/story/fact-sheet

"Cooperative businesses have lower failure rates than traditional corporations/small businesses: after the first year (10% failure versus 60-80%) and after 5 years in business (90% still operating versus 3-5% of traditional businesses) (World Council of Credit Unions study in Williams 2007). Evidence also shows that cooperatives both successfully address the effects of crises and survive crises better (Borzaga and Calera 2012)."

10 Facts About Cooperative Enterprise

Grassroots Economic Organizing

https://techhub.social/@hosford42/115826165940981436

Aaron

@[email protected]

I started to suspect this argument was in bad faith, so I checked out your account.

Adios!