Workers Self-Directed Enterprises Questions AND Answers

You don't know what Mondragon is and how it operates. Each of the 275 companies is essentially an independent unit, operating with its own policies and products and cost structures. What they have in common is subscription to a core set of social values, but they don't even follow those.

There is a world of difference between being an owner and actually running the company and participating in all the decisions. If you own stock in a company, then you are an owner with an interest in the well being of the company. You influence the direction of the company by buying or selling the stock, and attending shareholders meetings, and electing the board of directors. But you don't decide the daily or even the strategic decisions.

 

Repeating the same inanities merely proves my point that you really don't comprehend the concept of worker owned and directed corporations and what makes them successful of both the small and the large scale.

 

I repeat them because you don't understand what Mondragon is and how it operates, you can't even do a simple internet search and learn how wrong you are.

And I know the concept in question, and it doesn't work on a scale of any significant size. You are wrong, its that simple.

 

Stomping your feet denying the REALITY of Mondragon is not going to alter the FACTS one iota.

Mondragon is hard factual evidence that worker self directed co-ops can be global corporations that rival for profit multinational corporations.

 

From a link posted on Dec 17, 2017 about Mondragon:
"But while Mondragon is often a starting point for those who want a real world alternative to capitalism, critical questions about the cooperatives’ rank-and-file workers, working conditions, and class are too often sidelined.
Although its coops are concentrated in the Basque region, Mondragon went global in 1990, and now controls some 100 foreign subsidiaries and joint ventures – mainly in developing and post-socialist countries, with low wages or expanding markets. These firms are not worker-owned, and employees do not enjoy the same rights or privileges given coop members. Instead, they are wage laborers. Even in the Basque country and Spain, industrial and retail coops employ significant numbers of temporary workers on short-term contracts.
Today, only about one-half of Mondragon’s businesses are cooperatives, and only one-third of its employees are members."

And that's not all. The link I'm referring to is:
http://isa-global-dialogue.net/the-mondragon-cooperatives-successes-and-challenges/

 

Again with your weak understanding of organisational economics. Inefficient firm structures are more likely in firms with traditional ownership (e.g. use of hierarchy in order to control worker bargaining power). Worker ownership and co-operatives allow for more modern forms to develop unhindered.

 

Mondragon is a host of 275+ small companies, each operating fairly independently. It is not a single large company - the fact it is called Modragon Co-operative tells you it is not a single company.

And the individual operations don't even follow the co-op rules, they have exceptions as I have already mentioned.

What you are arguing is equivalent to lumping all retail stores in the USA and claiming they are a single entity because they operate under the framework of US law.

You still utterly fail.

 

Again with the fail! You're assuming that a company has to be U form or M form. It doesn't. You're much more likely to see more innovative forms. This is because there is no need for managerial control over worker activities (e.g. artificial human resource management methods to eliminate the threat of worker solidarity). In addition, given the diffusion of knowledge that avoids the Hayekian knowledge problems that you also ignore, you're more likely to see co-operatives and worker owned companies appreciate the productivity weaknesses of old organisational forms (which only became standard because of a weak reaction to economies of scale)

 

When I was a kid, we'd donate time to a local co-op grocery. I think those can work fairly well.

 

Are you rejecting Hayekian distributed knowledge like Battle3? That would be amusing!

 

Unlike you, I never reject peaceful cooperation in favor of authoritarian comman-and-control as a means to impose my preference.

 

Please try and answer the question: Are you rejecting Hayekian distributed knowledge like Battle3?

 

Once again you fail to comprehend that it is just a different business model that is proven by Mondragon to be more than capable of being a successful global multinational corporation.

The math doesn't lie and Mondragon's numbers prove that it is doing $16 billion in global revenues with 75,000 employees.

Onus is entirely on you to prove that is not factually accurate.

 

It wouldn't be surprising to see worker ownership using "loose umbrellas". Greater firm structure would arguably only be required if economies of scale issues dominate.

 

The self directed worker business model is what Mondragon is using and there is nothing at all misleading about the FACT that it is a GLOBAL multinational corporation operating under the self directed worker business model.

Ironic!

 

No, it is not on me. All you have are 2 numbers, I've given the details behind them which prove you wrong. The facts are there for all to see, all you have to do is spend a few minutes reading them.

 

Thank you for tacitly conceding that you really don't understand how the Mondragon business model works for small, medium, large and even global multinational co-ops of self directed workers.

Have a nice day!

 

Sorry sweetie but I dont want to either

There are just some things I am happy to read about when other posters I trust post them - will read your responses on this though! :hugs:

 

The Hayekian distributed knowledge paradigm boils down to the difference between centralized planning and distributed planning. Yes, that is an oversimplification but it works for this example.

If someone is employed by a multinational corporation then their local knowledge is not factored into the decision making by the authoritarian executives who are looking at bottom line profits. Compare that to the co-op model where decision making incorporates that local knowledge. Both organizations are successful but for different reasons. The authoritarian decision making makes profits by ignoring the human cost. The co-op makes money because it takes advantage of local knowledge that the authoritarian does not have access to.

Speaking personally I have always favored what I called the "adult" approach to management. Treat people as adults and they will respond accordingly. Give them the power to make the right decisions for both themselves and the organization and that is exactly what they will do. Contrast that to the control management approach where everything that an employee can do is rigidly defined and they are punished for using their own initiative.

The need for that level of management control stems from a lack of trust in the individual themselves. Yes, there are always a few who will exploit trust to their personal advantage but using those exceptions to stymie individualism is what makes work into drudgery rather than something that can be enjoyed because it results in a sense of accomplishment.

Co-ops give individuals that sense of accomplishment and they are rewarded by sharing in the profits. They are leveraging the power of individuals in a way that authoritarian corporations like to pretend that they do but actually don't. They used the concept of having a "career" but that evaporated when constant layoffs for the purposes of preserving profits destroyed that trust.

 

Don't get me started on committees. Listening to old people spend 3 hours talking about Facebook makes me want to kill myself

 

Not only do you not understand how Mondragon works, you don't understand how a multinational works. A multinational has a distributed network of management so that it can take into account local knowledge, otherwise it is a failure. Stick to subjects you know about.

 

Oh, the irony coming from someone who knows nothing at all about Mondragon and how it successfully competes as a multinational co-oporative.

 

Just more hierarchical layers. The idea that can get around Hayekian knowledge problems is particularly optimistic. Indeed, if that was the case then the traditional socialist planner can easily replicate the market.

 

That's the beauty of capitalism. You can structure your private business however you like. I don't see worker-run businesses as incompatible with capitalism at all. They're just another form of private ownership structure.

 

There is a general ignorance of how worker ownership and cooperatives generate higher levels of productivity. That narrative doesn't help the right wing and their "roll over and tickle my tummy" interaction with big business. Realising that efficiency and equity go hand in hand is decidedly inconvenient for their narrative.