Excerpt from "Shift Change" shiftchange.org/ The MONDRAGON Corporation is a corporation and federation of worker cooperatives based in the Basque region of Spain.
Hello? are you still there?I also have the same dream as you,to start a worker co-op albeit I'm like a year late, I've seen you in Hakim's video and now here😂❤️ thought I should say hi since I'm also researching on this.And it seems like I'm following your footsteps.
*I JUST FOUND OUT ABOUT THIS* from a mental health study - they have just about the lowest levels of depression, drug and alcohol abuse in the developed world... In the 75 years since it started 2 people have needed drug rehab.
I'm a cooperative socialist. I'm searching for people to understand cooperatives better and launch and international cooperativization campaign. Anyone who would like to talk is free to text me.
Imagine a whole city becoming full of worker-led cooperatives like this. Then, one beautiful day, it's decided that food and rent should be free and you dont need your salary anymore. People keep working like allways, share instead of horde and everyone is taken care of. Just imagine
Any capitalist's nightmare. And because they own the media, they tell us that the whole system would collapse... The oldest excuse ever. Farm owners said the economy would collapse without slavery, kings told their peasants that their rule was justified by God's will, people believed the Earth was flat so nobody should sail towards the open sea so they wouldn't fall, any genocide in history was justified by the concept of other people being inferior, and I don't need to mention what the Catholic Church did, do I? And now they tell us that Capitalism was the best we could get (and Consumerism too actually, but they won't call it Consumerism because Consumerism only works if you're unconscious about your consumerist behaviour) and that anything else would destroy our economy.
When you have a stake in where you work it makes it very easy to cooperate with your fellow workers because everyone sees the benefits from working together as a community. Capitalism just makes the employees compete against each other to climb the ladder
Fascinating, I find the need for preservation of the companies for the next generation to be just like the culture you would find in the German mittelstand. Except here the companies aren’t owned by one family, but rather many families. Like a multi-family office instead of a normal family office for the uhnwi.
Very interesting socioeconomic system. Most of the YT videos on Mondragon are at least 7, 8 or 9 years old. What's their status now, in 2024, and what can we learn from their approach to the economic dimension of modern life?
Well then this would be perfect, because I don't consider myself a capitalist and I also think this is a good addition. I think, if every large company uses this model, it would be called democratic socialism. If even two opposing sides agree this is good, then this is probably the future we should focus ourselves on.
@@EliaMarc I think there is no need for democratic socialism. That will only restrict the way of how business could be run. I think the beauty of this spanish business in particular is that it can survive in a (semi-)capitalist society. There is no need for (socialist) governments to impose this type of coordination on companies.
@@james192599 before I get into my criticizism comrade i am an anarcho communists myself, but stateless socialism has a name already and it's not anarchism, communism is a classless stateless moneyless society. Anarchism is a force for communism, or a force for chaos. The state still exists in spain class still exists in spain, and class still exist in relation to spains neo colonies, mondragon is a good model for giving power to a group of workers but it hasn't beaten the capitalist state, it joined it. It is absolutely undeniably a better system than traditional neofeudal style capitalism but this isn't anarchism. Here im gonna quote another comrade "There is a frustrating trend here to call worker co-ops socialism, reinforced by the notion that "worker ownership" is a sufficient condition for socialism (arguably it's not a condition at all and is more accurately the abolition of private ownership of value generating property). Socialism is and has always been "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need". What this means is production is organised to serve social wants/needs instead of organised to maximise profit/exchange value. The defining features of capitalism identified by Marx are wage labour and surplus value extraction, private ownership of the means of production, generalised commodity production (note a commodity is a good or service produced for exchange, there is still obviously production under socialism). Worker co-ops do not organise production for social need but rather for profit, as any regular business would, because if they didn't they would be outcompeted by businesses that did and no longer exist. Worker co-ops must engage in surplus value extraction, and therefore wage labour, for reinvestment and growth to maintain competitiveness, production is self interested and directed towards maximising profit (workers are merely taking on the interests previously held by the shareholders or capitalist) and not to the benefit of society as a whole and they create all the same metabolic rifts (capitalism demands maximal exploitation of the "capital" of the natural world, any business that did not seek this would be outcompeted by those that did) as regular businesses. Any co-op that tried to not engage in these things would be outcompeted by the ones that did, so worker co-ops inevitably trend towards maximal surplus value extraction for reinvestment to maintain growth and begin to resemble the standard business structure as we have seen happen with basically every worker co-op in the real world. Now there is a semi legitimate argument that worker co-ops are a potential path to socialism (I strongly disagree, they engage in the reproduction of capital and therefore capitalism which is the opposite of what we need to do) but they are not socialism and they are absolutely not the end goal. Worker co-ops generally do improve worker conditions in the same way welfare policies do and you can push for them simply towards that end but that doesn't make them socialism. Also to head off capitalists claiming capitalism already directs production by social wants/need value: no, it directs production only towards use values that are profitable and often at the expense of society as a whole Tl;dr:Worker co-ops is just capitalism with more owners and "market socialists" are just very confused ancaps."
Is there a place like this in the English speaking world? We need one. I have to immigrate soon so I would like to work at such a place. Must be fantastic to work at a place where I can earn 1/5 of the CEO salary with a hangover everyday.
This is what Marx imagined in his book. Capitalists want to demonize this because they want all the gain for them. I am very interested in knowing more of this and how this could grow inside our capitalist environments.
First step would be to find a way to finance the creating of coops. As it is now you could get a loan to start a business yourself as an individual but good luck getting the same loan as a cooperative of people wanting to start a business.
@@spiderpickle3255 What do you mean? It's more difficult to get a loan for a cooperative of people? Anyway, I'm interested more in the model of business and the team work. How something like this can be benefical and motivating for all the workers.
@@leonardoromero2000 Yes, from my understanding it is because it is what is known as a "share loan" which apparently fewer lenders offer (for some reason......) I wonder if Mondragon's banking arm offers such loans. Imagine the irony if a co-op bank doesn't offer share loans for others to start co-ops. I don't know a whole lot more beyond that so I imagine it won't take you long to exceed my knowledge. Lot more interest in co-ops these days though, so you'll definitely have plenty of information easy enough to dive right into.
I am all for this. Is there a place like this in the English speaking world? We need one. I have to immigrate soon so I would like to work at such a place. Must be fantastic to work at a place where I can earn 1/5 of the CEO salary with a hangover everyday.
@@spiderpickle3255 *I JUST FOUND OUT ABOUT THIS* from a mental health study - they have just about the lowest levels of depression, drug and alcohol abuse in the developed world... In the 75 years since it started 2 people have needed drug rehab.
It should be mentioned, mondragon does not allow for worker unionization or striking. Is the framework smth to strive for, yes, is the entire model smth to strive for, no.
El cooperativisno ya no existe. Hay cooperativas que las dirige el padre, luego el hijo, luego el nieto.... Hay una oligarquia que se reparte el pastel y los cooperativistas de base ponen anticipos, horas de trabajo gratis, etc, cuando las cosas van mal, pero cuando las cosas van bien, la oligarquia invierte los beneficios en lo que sea para que los socios se lleven el minimo al jubilarse. Lo he visto muchas veces. A mi, por ejemplo, me aterroriza que despues de hundir fagor, de arruinar a familias, de perder miles de empleos nadie haya pagado por ello.
Me gustaría saber más sobre como funciona todo esto internamente y qué problemas tiene. Porque suena genial, y seguro que es mejor que lo que tenemos actualmente con tanta pobreza, pero nada es perfecto y todo se puede mejorar.
Cooperative Incorporated: 1863 as the North of England Co-operative Society Employees: 60,000 Sales: £5.4 billion ($8.64 billion)(2001) NAIC: 445110 Supermarkets and Other Grocery (Except Convenience) Stores; 445120 Convenience Stores; 447110 Gasoline Stations with Convenience Stores; 522110 Commercial Banking; 522120 Savings Institutions; 524128 Other Direct Insurance (Except Life, Health, and Medical) Carriers; 812210 Funeral Homes and Funeral Services
And the honeymoon, lust period would quickly go away and you'd return to misery. And not to mention the horror once the sex gets old and you wake up to no makeup.😳
Yes there are still hierarchies but they all are still collective owners instead of shareholders. And leaders are democratically elected by the workers.
Algo conozco la corporación. Aquí están personajes como la gerente que hundió Fagor Electrodomésticos, o gerentes que han salido por la puerta de atrás de las cooperativas... cobrando buenos sueldos de 80 o 90 mil euros al año a cuenta las copes. Ver como funciona esto es lamentable. Son incapaces de crear nada que no sean jilipolleces. Viven de lo que auténticos emprendedores crearon tiempo atrás. Solo saben colocar a sus familiares y amigos. Simplemente lamentable.
@@MarcusAA American corporations are too socialist as it is. I question why I bother working hard and using my talents when other people are paid about 50% of my pay to produce 10% of what I produce. I can only imagine how depressing working at a cooperative would be.
@@evangrey4737 What are you on about? USA is not full of needless suffering. Some people NEED to suffer to be motivated to get off their ass and produce something. Hence, not needLESS.
Worker coops are brilliant but the comment about having jobs to buy falls into the consumer trap. We are here to sustain our living not to buy useless things. Worker coops sustain their communities where the many, not the few, share the profits and decide what, where and how to produce.
Worker Cooperatives are the future, if we are to have a future.
We'll need to fight to have a future
Fight for a solar punk future.
It's the past and is gonna be the future.
This is the way things are supposed to work,, Healthy. People being Grown ups, not being kept enslaved and like children.
☀️
Oh my god. This is so inspiring. Worker co-op's are coming folks, and i'll do everything I can to make that happen.
Hello? are you still there?I also have the same dream as you,to start a worker co-op albeit I'm like a year late, I've seen you in Hakim's video and now here😂❤️ thought I should say hi since I'm also researching on this.And it seems like I'm following your footsteps.
Amen, brother!
*I JUST FOUND OUT ABOUT THIS* from a mental health study - they have just about the lowest levels of depression, drug and alcohol abuse in the developed world...
In the 75 years since it started 2 people have needed drug rehab.
I'm a cooperative socialist. I'm searching for people to understand cooperatives better and launch and international cooperativization campaign. Anyone who would like to talk is free to text me.
Imagine a whole city becoming full of worker-led cooperatives like this. Then, one beautiful day, it's decided that food and rent should be free and you dont need your salary anymore. People keep working like allways, share instead of horde and everyone is taken care of. Just imagine
Any capitalist's nightmare. And because they own the media, they tell us that the whole system would collapse... The oldest excuse ever. Farm owners said the economy would collapse without slavery, kings told their peasants that their rule was justified by God's will, people believed the Earth was flat so nobody should sail towards the open sea so they wouldn't fall, any genocide in history was justified by the concept of other people being inferior, and I don't need to mention what the Catholic Church did, do I?
And now they tell us that Capitalism was the best we could get (and Consumerism too actually, but they won't call it Consumerism because Consumerism only works if you're unconscious about your consumerist behaviour) and that anything else would destroy our economy.
what happens if i decide to stop working and say open a business
Not realistic at all.
@@Skullman367 Do you know what imagination is? Do you know what dreams are?
Kalleponken i get you but it seems like you’re talking as if there’s a scenario where it’s feasible
They're literally seizing the means of production!!
No, they aren't. The means of production belong to the workers and not the state. The means of production are being DISTRIBUTED and not seized.
Distributism
@@gupon.creativeDistrbutism is just Catholic Mutualism.
Wow, this excerpt from Shift Change" is truly eye-opening. It's amazing how much can change in 9 years. Thanks for sharing the link!
Right on. A nice segment.
community Cooperatives leads us a safety heirs in our family future.
I cant help but think only the Basques can do this. They are industrious and a tight community
We all can form a sense of community. It's in our nature.
When you have a stake in where you work it makes it very easy to cooperate with your fellow workers because everyone sees the benefits from working together as a community.
Capitalism just makes the employees compete against each other to climb the ladder
Fascinating, I find the need for preservation of the companies for the next generation to be just like the culture you would find in the German mittelstand. Except here the companies aren’t owned by one family, but rather many families. Like a multi-family office instead of a normal family office for the uhnwi.
Thanks!
Beautiful
Very interesting socioeconomic system.
Most of the YT videos on Mondragon are at least 7, 8 or 9 years old. What's their status now, in 2024, and what can we learn from their approach to the economic dimension of modern life?
Do you know whats the name of the guy who explains why job creation is very important?
Cool name 😎
I, who considers myself a capitalist, aprove this. If the business doesn't fail and go bankrupt it's a good addition to current capitalism.
Well then this would be perfect, because I don't consider myself a capitalist and I also think this is a good addition. I think, if every large company uses this model, it would be called democratic socialism.
If even two opposing sides agree this is good, then this is probably the future we should focus ourselves on.
@@EliaMarc I think there is no need for democratic socialism. That will only restrict the way of how business could be run. I think the beauty of this spanish business in particular is that it can survive in a (semi-)capitalist society. There is no need for (socialist) governments to impose this type of coordination on companies.
@@EliaMarc More market socialism/distributism
@Make America Gay Again Because socialist government policies are a type of economic force. Pure capitalism is the absence of force in the economy.
It has been in business since 1942
this is anarchism(libertarian socialism, stateless socialism, etc) people
+Dodô Correia worker directly owning their means of production is libertarian socialism.
A new name for the Catholic Social teaching?
anarcho syndicalism?
Distributism
@@james192599 before I get into my criticizism comrade i am an anarcho communists myself, but stateless socialism has a name already and it's not anarchism, communism is a classless stateless moneyless society. Anarchism is a force for communism, or a force for chaos. The state still exists in spain class still exists in spain, and class still exist in relation to spains neo colonies, mondragon is a good model for giving power to a group of workers but it hasn't beaten the capitalist state, it joined it. It is absolutely undeniably a better system than traditional neofeudal style capitalism but this isn't anarchism. Here im gonna quote another comrade "There is a frustrating trend here to call worker co-ops socialism, reinforced by the notion that "worker ownership" is a sufficient condition for socialism (arguably it's not a condition at all and is more accurately the abolition of private ownership of value generating property).
Socialism is and has always been "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need". What this means is production is organised to serve social wants/needs instead of organised to maximise profit/exchange value.
The defining features of capitalism identified by Marx are wage labour and surplus value extraction, private ownership of the means of production, generalised commodity production (note a commodity is a good or service produced for exchange, there is still obviously production under socialism).
Worker co-ops do not organise production for social need but rather for profit, as any regular business would, because if they didn't they would be outcompeted by businesses that did and no longer exist.
Worker co-ops must engage in surplus value extraction, and therefore wage labour, for reinvestment and growth to maintain competitiveness, production is self interested and directed towards maximising profit (workers are merely taking on the interests previously held by the shareholders or capitalist) and not to the benefit of society as a whole and they create all the same metabolic rifts (capitalism demands maximal exploitation of the "capital" of the natural world, any business that did not seek this would be outcompeted by those that did) as regular businesses.
Any co-op that tried to not engage in these things would be outcompeted by the ones that did, so worker co-ops inevitably trend towards maximal surplus value extraction for reinvestment to maintain growth and begin to resemble the standard business structure as we have seen happen with basically every worker co-op in the real world.
Now there is a semi legitimate argument that worker co-ops are a potential path to socialism (I strongly disagree, they engage in the reproduction of capital and therefore capitalism which is the opposite of what we need to do) but they are not socialism and they are absolutely not the end goal. Worker co-ops generally do improve worker conditions in the same way welfare policies do and you can push for them simply towards that end but that doesn't make them socialism.
Also to head off capitalists claiming capitalism already directs production by social wants/need value: no, it directs production only towards use values that are profitable and often at the expense of society as a whole
Tl;dr:Worker co-ops is just capitalism with more owners and "market socialists" are just very confused ancaps."
Is there a place like this in the English speaking world? We need one. I have to immigrate soon so I would like to work at such a place.
Must be fantastic to work at a place where I can earn 1/5 of the CEO salary with a hangover everyday.
So are managers chosen cooperatively
This is what Marx imagined in his book. Capitalists want to demonize this because they want all the gain for them. I am very interested in knowing more of this and how this could grow inside our capitalist environments.
First step would be to find a way to finance the creating of coops.
As it is now you could get a loan to start a business yourself as an individual but good luck getting the same loan as a cooperative of people wanting to start a business.
@@spiderpickle3255 What do you mean? It's more difficult to get a loan for a cooperative of people? Anyway, I'm interested more in the model of business and the team work. How something like this can be benefical and motivating for all the workers.
@@leonardoromero2000 Yes, from my understanding it is because it is what is known as a "share loan" which apparently fewer lenders offer (for some reason......)
I wonder if Mondragon's banking arm offers such loans. Imagine the irony if a co-op bank doesn't offer share loans for others to start co-ops.
I don't know a whole lot more beyond that so I imagine it won't take you long to exceed my knowledge. Lot more interest in co-ops these days though, so you'll definitely have plenty of information easy enough to dive right into.
I am all for this.
Is there a place like this in the English speaking world? We need one. I have to immigrate soon so I would like to work at such a place.
Must be fantastic to work at a place where I can earn 1/5 of the CEO salary with a hangover everyday.
@@spiderpickle3255 *I JUST FOUND OUT ABOUT THIS* from a mental health study - they have just about the lowest levels of depression, drug and alcohol abuse in the developed world...
In the 75 years since it started 2 people have needed drug rehab.
It should be mentioned, mondragon does not allow for worker unionization or striking. Is the framework smth to strive for, yes, is the entire model smth to strive for, no.
So Everyone Makes $250,000 a year Asking for Freemarket America. Whats the tax rate? Thanks
Does it matter if you are making $250,000 a year???
:')
So this is what Socialism looks like? I'm into it.
That isn't socialism. It's the Third Position.
Market socialism
It's Distributism idiot
this is Distributism
@@CoastalReaction? This is literally what socialism is
El cooperativisno ya no existe. Hay cooperativas que las dirige el padre, luego el hijo, luego el nieto.... Hay una oligarquia que se reparte el pastel y los cooperativistas de base ponen anticipos, horas de trabajo gratis, etc, cuando las cosas van mal, pero cuando las cosas van bien, la oligarquia invierte los beneficios en lo que sea para que los socios se lleven el minimo al jubilarse. Lo he visto muchas veces. A mi, por ejemplo, me aterroriza que despues de hundir fagor, de arruinar a familias, de perder miles de empleos nadie haya pagado por ello.
Me gustaría saber más sobre como funciona todo esto internamente y qué problemas tiene. Porque suena genial, y seguro que es mejor que lo que tenemos actualmente con tanta pobreza, pero nada es perfecto y todo se puede mejorar.
Cooperative
Incorporated: 1863 as the North of England Co-operative Society
Employees: 60,000
Sales: £5.4 billion ($8.64 billion)(2001)
NAIC: 445110 Supermarkets and Other Grocery (Except Convenience) Stores; 445120 Convenience Stores; 447110 Gasoline Stations with Convenience Stores; 522110 Commercial Banking; 522120 Savings Institutions; 524128 Other Direct Insurance (Except Life, Health, and Medical) Carriers; 812210 Funeral Homes and Funeral Services
That is not a WORKER owned cooperative, it is a user owned cooperative.
I'd marry the last girl interviewed and work in a co op and be a happy guy. lol need to travel to spain.
...and in 5 years, you will mourn your idiotic decision and crawl back to the US, leaving your babies behind.
@@user-tl5yb1jy7c why would he really? They pay good money my dude
@@obesebeast2036 No idea what I was thinking back when I made that bizarre comment. May have been drunk.
And the honeymoon, lust period would quickly go away and you'd return to misery. And not to mention the horror once the sex gets old and you wake up to no makeup.😳
I will bet my last dollar yes you have a BOSS. Everyone can't be the boss.
Yes there are still hierarchies but they all are still collective owners instead of shareholders. And leaders are democratically elected by the workers.
I work in one and all that glitters is not gold.
Can you please explain ??
Everything is going to have its downside, but is it better than what we have now?
Algo conozco la corporación. Aquí están personajes como la gerente que hundió Fagor Electrodomésticos, o gerentes que han salido por la puerta de atrás de las cooperativas... cobrando buenos sueldos de 80 o 90 mil euros al año a cuenta las copes. Ver como funciona esto es lamentable. Son incapaces de crear nada que no sean jilipolleces. Viven de lo que auténticos emprendedores crearon tiempo atrás. Solo saben colocar a sus familiares y amigos. Simplemente lamentable.
No lo veo. Esta viéndoseles el plumero, y ya es muy descarado. El ultimo que cierre el portón.
Interesting concept, but who is really that afraid of losing your job in the USA? That is what we call a 'vacation' before you find a new job.
You sure?
@@MarcusAA American corporations are too socialist as it is. I question why I bother working hard and using my talents when other people are paid about 50% of my pay to produce 10% of what I produce. I can only imagine how depressing working at a cooperative would be.
@@evangrey4737 LOL?? well im sorry if you live in the ghetto, but plenty of us are doing just swell
@@evangrey4737 What are you on about? USA is not full of needless suffering. Some people NEED to suffer to be motivated to get off their ass and produce something. Hence, not needLESS.
@@evangrey4737 What are you talking about? I'm not following the life of paris hilton.
Why do these people look like they’re factory robots to me...
Worker coops are brilliant but the comment about having jobs to buy falls into the consumer trap. We are here to sustain our living not to buy useless things. Worker coops sustain their communities where the many, not the few, share the profits and decide what, where and how to produce.
Lol these people thinking Mondragon is a 'democracy'. it's not. It's an out and out Meritocracy and is all the better because of iy
Do you have any burden of proof about your claims?
It helps that they're all racially and culturally homogeneous
Que la empresa es nuestra dice el txabal ese. Madre mia.