Co-operative Economics
Details
When you arrive, if you go up the entrance steps and look right, you will see us at one of the first few tables.
Running a business in a democratic way has numerous benefits. Worker Co-operatives are less risky to startup, tend to have a longer lifespan, the workplace environment is more friendly because there aren't really "bosses", workers are better paid and less likely to be fired. The Mondragon Co-operative in Spain even has their own university with which to retrain workers if any jobs are made redundant for any reason, perhaps because of automation or the market naturally has less demand for certain goods or services. I've linked some videos below with more information about Co-ops. You don't have to watch them all, but a few of them should be enough.
There is a variety of different kinds of cooperatives. Some are direct democracies with an assembly that all members can vote in on any issue, others are more like representative democracies, others are a hybrid of both. The proportion of the revenue to re-invest in the company and how much to pay to the workers can vary, usually decided by a vote of the members. The exact procedures of voting, methods of initiating referenda or elections can vary and may be easier or more difficult.
Co-operatives can also behave more or less like Capitalist corporations. In some cases there may be a group of workers who partially own the company but they become somewhat oligarchic and start hiring labourers who are not shareholders. In some cases Capitalist companies may decide to start selling stocks to their workers in order to become somewhat like Co-operatives.
Some countries have even experimented with making co-operatives the dominant form of enterprise, often with great success. We will discuss this further at later events.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsbfOxUx8ZA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyepUAtHAL4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZoI0C1mPek&t=2s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXvlVIXETd0&t=5s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5oD9oeut7U
Every 1st Wednesday of the month
Co-operative Economics