Co-ops and Mondragon -- Thom Hartmann interviews Richard Wolff

Thom Hartmann talks to Richard Wolff about the Mondragon Cooperatives, workplace democracy and libertarian marxism

[@zalamander8]

The BRICS should support worker cooperatives to help their economies.

[@theinternet1424]

+zalamander8 I like the way you think!

[@zalamander8]

Thanks, it's always great to have friends!

[@Irishandtired]

+zalamander8 Absolutely! That would really enhance BRICS and bring about real change in this world. I was thinking that if I convinced my colleagues in the oil and gas industry to start a co-op, we wouldn't get contracts with big oil majors. We would need government intervention in the form of say, Petrobras (or any other nationalised company) in Brazil. The big capitalist boys would not support you. Socialists seem to think that the government must wrest companies from capitalist control. Use taxpayer (workers) money to allow workers to compete in a capitalist marketplace. The main issue is not how much wealth people can accrue for themselves, but living a dignified and secure life, safe in the knowledge that your labor can benefit you and your family until you die.

[@zalamander8]

Thanks for your positive reply, I am a new kind of socialist, public banking, worker cooperatives. The new socialism, more democracy.

[@Irishandtired]

zalamander8 I am a staunch Catholic. Mondragon is the Catholic model of social order. I like natural order and if that means that a man can secure his future and family based on his labor, then I am for it. I am against exploitation.

[@suzettesnow-cobb9238]

It’s co-operativism!

[@virtusoroca7724]

Workers paid proportionally to its product (meritocracy) and freely combining their individual property, wich they own by working on it (enterpreneurship). Socialism is the contradictory result of capitalism.

[@radioguy8662]

Personally, I fully support the idea of worker co-ops as long as private owners of businesses aren't forced to sell or give -up ownership to their workers. There is nothing stopping millions of American workers from forming worker-coops. The idea has been around for decades, there are millions of dollars in worker pension plans that could be redirected to these co-ops, yet the idea never gains any traction. They haven't even gained any traction in the liberal countries of Western " Europe where they have been for decades and still account for less than 5% of any country's total economy. Wolff wrongly assumes that American workers see the world as he sees it; that they hate working in capitalist companies and would jump at the chance to be part of a co-op. But clearly he is wrong. Most workers would rather keep their retirement funds in diversified pension plans and let more qualified individuals risk their capital and make the strategic decisions that can mean the success or failure of their company.

[@twntwrs]

As if American workers have ever heard of co-op's.....lol.

[@justamaninTN]

If you explained to people what capitalism actually is in terms of the organization of their workplace and how they fit into the equation, I don’t think they would like it at all lol. “Hey, do you want 1 person or a small group of people making every major decision in the workplace, paying you as little as they can get away with and paying themselves 350x what you make?” The answer would probably be no lol. Most “more qualified” individuals managing the retirement funds can’t even beat the market and that’s before they extract their management fees. They’re criminals and should be ignored. If I was a sucker, maybe I’d enlist their help like most Americans do.

[@foosmonkey]

Sounds an awful lot like creating a free market within an enclosed framework. You could start your own business and have the same thing or greater. So do those collectivists have greater aspirations like private space travel, or do they limit themselves to bake bread and build bicycles?

[@tcritt]

Mondragon has advanced R and D programmes and engineering departments. They work in finance too. They also partner with Microsoft and other Fortune 500 companies. There are also several Mondragon universities. I detect a bit of ideological bias in your assumptions.

[@twntwrs]

Can you point to any world changing Innovation that has come out of mondragon?

[@jamescc2010]

So current capitalist only serves a few individuals and put the rest in disadvantage and uncertain conditions. Co-op if run property will definitely a game changer as it creates wealth for society (with all its vast support mechanism or other co-ops) not just a few individuals as we have been seeing. Yeap like Wolf said, we need to re-engineer and reorganize our society structure. Surely some co-op members can invest outside, and be wealthy using other means as well.

[@Irishandtired]

+James Chuaycham You miss the whole point I think. It's about living a dignified life, not wealth.

[@jamescc2010]

+Irishandtired There is nothing wrong with outside investing(outside co-op) if it is good investing that promotes good in society and has no conflict with co-op. We can have both options. We don't want to eliminate small business/entrepreneurs completely.

[@mikuhatsunegoshujin]

James Chuaycham ป้อม ศักดิ์ชัย >We don't want to eliminate small business Who's "we", private property is a spook.

[@vivebabeuf1917]

Its Market Socialism, pretty cwl

[@mikuhatsunegoshujin]

Blindfolded by Ideology still uses exploitive labor outside of the co-op.

[@truthseekers5609]

Distributism

[@james192599]

libertarian socialism is what it is called thom.

[@williamdevonshire356]

why arent there more Mondragons?

[@enhancedutility266]

It's pretty hard to start up I'm guessing the closest thing we have is WinCo

[@baiwatch1]

Because people who start or buy a business know that they can hoard more money to themselves if they are not like Mondragon. It takes sacrifice, fair-mindedness, and a good conscience to make a business like this.

[@AndyMorrisArt]

Over 100,000 workers!

[@trevorsanso32]

Bad analogy. Religion explicitly and objectively *commands* such things, nothing in Marxism advocates government control. I agree with what he's advocating for though.

[@terenceangelo8714]

True, it was even mentioned in the Manifesto how government is essentially the managing committee of the bourgeoise.

[@thepanafricanman]

All this Marxist chat puts me off. Good idea though

[@tcritt]

Worker ownership of the means of production, which is what they are talking about in this video, is literally what Marx proposed. You've just been taught to have that reaction to even the mention of his name.

[@terenceangelo8714]

@@tcritt In other words, they seize the means of production