A critique of co-ops and my suggestion to improve them, and other thoughts.

(0). I've been telling socialists with increasing frequency about the necessity of them having an actionable plan if they want their ideology to be more than just the whiny background noise you hear through the mic of the other ideologies' feed between them talking. But I get the impression many of them don't know what I mean by an actionable plan, largely though not entirely due to the prevalence of the incredibly stupid and useless attempt at one that is essentially just saying "something other than capitalism" with no further detail. This post is partly for everybody, but is especially for those of you who both fall into this category and for whom showing is better than telling.

(1). But first, a bit of exposition for anybody not familiar with the topic. Why is this even worth talking about? Why not just settle for capitalism?. — I'm currently in agreement that increased ownership of things among laborers seems like it's probably the next logical step for our economy. I am influenced, in this thought, by my understanding of the dismantling of the feudal system. This is a process that had a powerful effect on society, because by it so many people were empowered by having property of their own, instead of relying on the property of the lords. This meant people became more independent, more invested in their own labor and conditions, and had the freedom to apply themselves and experiment with their own ideas. The economy for this reason became more efficient, as well as more satisfying to participate in. I see the potential for similar change in capitalism, because the people whose labor is used in production don't own any of the property they need to work, and therefore must rely on access to the property of the capitalist, from whom they are effectively renting everything they use, instead of having property of their own to be independent by.

(2). And then some more exposition, since the reason I'm stepping in here is the inadequacy of one of the most popular plans socialists have attempted: the concept of a worker co-op. What's wrong with co-ops? — As they're popularly conceived, the only model people seem to have so far is one in which control of a whole company split evenly between its workers, who may then vote about how to manage it. This was probably meant to emulate the dynamic of a liberal parliamentary government, but that seems like a poor idea because parliaments are designed to behave differently than productive organizations, and interact with different parts of society; and these two policies, diffused ownership and democratic management, together create some adverse incentives, as the workers in question recognize both losses and gains they create are absorbed by other workers, and they may vote in ways that are antagonistic to other workers by trying to raise their pay, lower their workload, or both. It's possible of course that some people may overcome the temptation of these options, with the right social dynamic between them, and this has been done in a few specific cases one could point to; but this is too specific and unreliable a requirement for this model to begin replacing existing ones in scale and prevalence all throughout the economy.

(3). What I suggest. — A better idea, in my opinion, is that ownership of the various parts that comprise a company should be more individualized, and for cooperation between them to continue on a contractual basis, the company itself thus morphing into what is essentially a conglomerate of small producers. I'm not claiming this is the perfect system nor the last that people will ever create; it's just meant to be a graduation from existing economies, that could actually be reasonably implemented given people's current understanding and expectations of how an economy works. In other words it's anti-capitalism on realism, since anti-capitalism on nothing but whimsy, wonder, and violent cults doesn't seem to be going anywhere. I'll now describe how I think this might work.

Let's take a supermarket, for example. Whether a chain or franchise, today the whole store is owned as a singular commercial property and put under direction of a store manager hired by the company. The company buys finished products for resale and unfinished products for in-store production, then pays people to stock the shelves and to process and pack the food at their deli, bakery, etc. In the sort of organization I can imagine, maybe a person hired to their bakery would start off being paid a basic wage, like they are today, but this would be expressed as the revenue created by their labor minus the cost of providing them with the necessary property. They would then have the option to buy... no, not shares of the company, but the actual property they use to do their jobs (their floorspace, knives, cutting board, oven, etc.)—and, therefore, to become entitled to the full revenue created by selling their products. This would change, among other things, the psychology of the affected workers: no longer are they just showing up to do grunt work they don't really care about with other people's stuff just to get paid. Instead they're showing up to work with their oven at their workplace to sell their cakes to their customers. It would totally change the character of the relationship a person has to their own production: they would be—how did I describe it again?—freer, more independent, and more invested.

But what about people in administration, or who aren't directly producing commodities (cashiers, janitors)? — If their work requires control of certain property and today they perform that work using the property of somebody else, a rent of some type is buried within their wage contract, and they should have the ability to gain ownership of that property and therefore sell their services independently. Within the context of a large organization like a supermarket, the cashiers and janitors may effectively become third-party contractors being hired by the workers who own the products being sold. (I realize those jobs could also be automated, but that evades the principle of the matter, and the principle is relevant to other, more complex jobs that aren't at such easy threat of becoming automated.) Now, administration is a bit different of a question because their job doesn't require property and they are thus generally not thought of as being exploited in modern economies; but much of what their job consists of would become unnecessary in an organization like I describe, as the company needs managers primarily for the purpose of disciplining workers into behaving in such a way that maximizes returns for the company, as they don't want to do naturally. In other words, the manager is necessary precisely because of the difference between how people behave in relation to their own property and how they behave in relation to the property of other people. In an organization where people work with their own property, that function is no longer needed. To what extent something like a manager, as we currently know the role, might be useful, however, say for the purpose of helping to coordinate or aid communication between people within the organization, or help mediate decisions that affect all of them, such a person could easily be classified, like the cashiers or janitors, as a contractor for hire, employed by the various producers in part.

The corporate office that exists above most stores is not pointless, either. It has a legal division, it does market research, it manages contracts with other companies, and it maintains brand coherence. But again, we find, nothing about this requires the hierarchy of ownership as currently exists. What distinguishes a generic supermarket from a franchisee is just their voluntary participation in (and conformance to) the brand quality, appearance, and selection. This is currently more expensive than it needs to be, due to how much power is granted to the corporate office, rather it just being an agreement between the stores themselves as it obviously could have been.

But what about the cost of figuring out that this supermarket was viable in its current location, for it to be an attractive purchase for that worker to begin with? The worker may have been able to buy the property from a distributor, but how would they have known to put it where it is and to use it in the way they're using it? That's not a bad thought, but this is just a factor to be weighed into the cost of purchasing it. That's not to say information doesn't have a cost, of course, bor that the people who figure out things like this aren't doing useful labor, but there's a reason we don't have to explicitly wonder about where this cost goes when it comes to real estate in general, whose development also requires reading demand and taking risks. The market coordinates these things already.

(4). Now I'm going to answering the best questions/arguments against this that I could immediately think of.

But if this were such a good idea, then why hasn't it already already? — It takes less time to theorize and write about social development than it takes for it to actually occur. Most people aren't theorists, and even those who are don't have magic wands. In general, people just reply to the conditions society presents to them, and in doing so they can only deviate from the norm by so much. The genius of a plan is not measured by whether it can happen over night. Let's also consider for a moment, that it took years for the enterprises now in existence to develop, for the procedures and strategies to converge and stabilize to the point where they are normal and expected. How long would it take for people get used to some totally new set of ideas and practices? With every step early adopters take, they would be making new ground. It would be a constant learning experience for some time, and that alone is an organizational cost that any new form would need to overcome to establish and justify itself—and this all contributes to "why good ideas don't happen instantly."

Why would the existing business class agree to do something like this? — The short answer is, they wouldn't. Today's businesses profit from the way things are, but that's precisely what makes developments like what I speak of so revolutionary. Would slavers have agreed to end slavery, even though we now know an economy of free men performs better than one of slaves? Did the feudal lords agree to an economy they had no part in? Perhaps some did. Early movers, who were invested in the alternative, like oil companies buying green energy. But it's generally difficult to convince a person of some new way of doing things if step one in getting there is they have to sacrifice the things they worked for. Which isn't to say there's going to be violence against capitalists in the same way there was against many of the lords and slavers—not because capitalism has some kind of unique anti-violence property, but because the state of politics has since then become far less violent, I suppose because of all the technology and comfort we have now. I think society deserves a revolution, but more in the sense of the word as in "industrial revolution."

But if the current business model is more profitable, why would a property owner not insist on that instead? Am I suggesting we dispossess the existing businesses? If not, how does this work? — As it turns out, I don't think it's necessary to dispossess anybody. The question is, phrased a different way: if I own a bunch of property, why would I ever choose to sell it if I could rent it out endlessly instead, as people do now? This question can to a large extent be answered with another question: if I have a bunch of land, why would I agree to pay people a wage to work it temporarily, instead of letting them live there in exchange for their services, like people did centuries ago? Assuming I wouldn't be in violation of any labor laws. The difficulty I'd run into is, why would anybody agree to a scheme like that, when all the other land in society is run by people offering them wage labor? That's a better deal than serfdom, so my offer suddenly isn't very attractive. If I lured in some potential farmhands they'd stop me part way through my explanation of the offer and think I'm off my rocker. The point is, what people are willing to accept as normal changes a lot over time, and is informed by a large degree to what their other options are. If you already lived in a world where this was normal, what confusion or shock the idea would have caused you a century beforehand isn't too relevant (and boy, how confused you would have been if we had tried explaining how modern society works to a peasant version of yourself we lobbed out of a time machine into the dark ages as a baby). But this all leads to the final question I'm going to preemptively address, which is:

Then how do you get the ball rolling to begin with? If I've admitted it's difficult to develop new things, but my explanation of why the fact this scenario not being the most optimal setup for the people at the top of the ladder is that once it's in motion they couldn't stop it, then a big detail whose absence would blow this whole thing over is how I plan to get it into motion. This part isn't going to be too well received by all the American right-liberals who browse here, but I figure most of them won't have made it this far without being against me already anyway. The most feasible answer that isn't just waiting for the most politically conscious of workers to get out there and do the hard work necessary to break new ground against all odds (and they'd have to be really politically conscious, otherwise they'll be asking themselves the entire time why this work they're doing isn't just toward building one of those more standard you-get-all-the-profit-you-make sort of businesses instead), is to wield state power for the explicitly ideological purpose of subsidizing the shit out of it (maybe just in a few specific instances to start), while also removing the layers of protection that current corporations enjoy.

But what about the free market (in relation to the above)? If it's a good idea why does it need subsidies? — The problem with what this question implies is that the "free" market isn't what ended feudalism or slavery. It can take significant state action to change a widespread paradigm, both in dismantling the old institutions and protecting and aiding the new ones in their infancy. It took wars in various countries to put slavery down, and it took wars in various countries to end what we now understand as the feudal regime. If capitalism was such a good idea, why didn't it just... whatever "winning on the free market" means? ... No, I think asking why the free market doesn't solve our problems for us is basically just asking why the capitalists don't volunteer to shoot themselves in the foot, and asking why we don't just sit around asking for capitalists to shoot themselves in the foot for us to have a chance to implement our ideas is basically just asking why we're not a fan of sitting around not accomplishing anything. In other words it's a question that doesn't conceal as much depth as some of its users seem to think it does. So, I don't think it's unfair to want to use the state in attempt to create something new.