Mondragon Cooperative Part One

[TheUlrikHansen]

All the doubters should watch the bbc horizon "the mondragon experiment", and understand that today they are 60k worker-owners compared to the 17k in the 80es.

To all the people defending the coops: Just remember, that it works :-) How is only important if you want it to be important. For me it is, which is why iam trying to figure out what might stand in the way of coops where i live: Laws/institutions, ideas/culture, financing?

[roberthennecke]

This is my blog which is about advocating a workable mechanism to enable this type of idea to get off the ground.

Google modernized crat guilds and Robert Hennecke.

[qwertypoiu4321]

If a business could keep all of its workers' massive initial capital investment and wages to paper over losses and get subsidized by the coercive State it would always be profitable as well. This is proof of why co-operatives will never work.

[TheLibertarianzye]

Cooperatives, that is voluntary asociation for the collective ownership of a company, can exist peacefully under Capitalism.......... that says a lot of the virtues of economic and political freedom.

[Endstation]

And in 2011 Mondragon will start to cooperativize Eroski and all their subsidiaries as well! Will be vere interesting to follow the process! And don't miss the Mondragon-US steelworkers deal!

[SherryVapors]

See, even with cooperative companies, a LEADER or leaders are necessary, at least in starting stages, if not throughout the life of the company.

[Endstation]

@SherryVapors

Well, if you study the history of Mondragon, you'll see that of course leaders played an important role. But they were ELECTED. That's the difference from a capitalist company.

[CanadianoftheCoast]

This illustrates the power of Co-operatives.  Thanks for posting!

[gennadiysdengi]

anyone knows song names?

[Sahibsocialist]

workers of the world unite! this is why im socialist! and its possible!

[DailyBrusher]

Socialism is more the government running the world place. Mondragon is more like anarcho-syndicalism, where the workers manage themselves. I prefer the latter!

[TheLibertarianzye]

@Sahibsocialist

You do realize that you socialists could have done this since the begining of Capitalism, right?

There is nothing in Capitalism that prevents people like you from forming voluntary cooperatives with your own private property anytime you want.

[Christ724]

@TheLibertarianzye Market socialists have been trying to advocate this idea but the problem is that 'capitalists' don't like free markets and try to get the state to prevent them springing up as to keep their exploitative hierarchies in power.

[rnick321]

Good video, good comments and a very important and timely subject matter. This is the way forward!!!

[zafiro8]

no hay forma de encontrar este documental en en español??

[CinetopiaNet]

Instead of conning taxpayers into inflationary bailouts for corporate-government racketeering, the Treasury should publicly disclose the bankruptcy of the Big Three automakers, the Federal Reserve Corporation and other private and unlawful monopolies that destroy our economy. The assets should be owned and operated by employees as done like Mondragon.

[jbryant13]

I couldn't agree more CinetopiaNet. GM could be bought by the employees through an ESOP - run democratically like a Co-op. A career structure could be put in place to teach people a trade rather than being a "nut turner" on an assembly line. We squander our "wealth" in the name of "profits"

[cleansteve18]

The ESOP is not a quick fix. United Airlines went bankrupt under it in 2002. They only sold 55% of the company to their workers and the still contracted management. The way the board and rules of the firm are setup is crucial to success.

[jbryant13]

I agree. Enron was also an ESOP. I think it requires the employee ownership - transparency through open book management - and employee involvement in the management. There is a book that explains how this can be done called the "Great Game of Business" by Jack Stack. Here's a YouTube video about it

watch?v=Do9zeFpBoPI

[cleansteve18]

Jack Stack nice. That's a cool story. I could see some problems with that though. What if the company is near bankruptcy won't workers try to find new jobs?

[jbryant13]

Probably - but if there are no jobs (like now) they might be more prone to think about this as an option. I'm thinking particularly of the auto workers right now.

Stack's company was a subsidiary of International Harvester that was losing money and was going to be closed. They had no option - it was buy it or be out of a job. It's a real success story, and now he has a consulting company that teaches others how to do it and avoid the painful mistakes they made at the beginning.

[Independentminded1]

no dude that's the beauty of co-ops the democracy in the work place, rather than mace layoffs to make up for lost profits which inevitably leads to closing of businesses, the worker\shareholder get to vote on hour cuts & pay cuts week by week this is why mondragon unemployment rate even in the worst of recessions go's as high as 0.6% as a result lower crime rates higher wages better than Eisenhower's 1953 unemployment rate 2.92 lowest on record so bankruptcy is rare thats why I love this system

[TheLibertarianzye]

@Independentminded1

The problem with the system is that the risk is distributed among all shareholders, one bad decision or a bad vote and the entire company suffers.

[wort148]

@TheLibertarianzye

When businesses fail or skip town, whole communities are devastated. That is not just the problem with *this* system but with an autocratic or bureaucratic hierarchical social structures too, only with a cooperative system people actually had a say in making the decisions for better or worse. It's the socialization of risk and the socialization of profits rather than the socialization of risk and the privatization of profits like you get with actually existing capitalism.

[tomblack2112]

@TheLibertarianzye And this is different from the current state of corporatism how? Oh yeah, CEO's are all highly educated and can make decisions about the inner workings of a company based on marketing charts and Sun Tzu's Art of War, e.g. Lehman Bros.

As far as being able to do this from the beginning, you're right. Just didn't think we needed to. Put my trust in the wrong people I guess.

BTW, Adam Smith would have cringed at the thought of enduring incorporation. Smacks of mercantilism.

[roberthennecke]

@tomblack2112 Adam Smith would also have unlikely to have been a latter day proponent of forced labour aka the Foxconn gulag archipleago.

[Independentminded1]

@TheLibertarianzye name a company under the current system that has not sufferd? there system has worked for 6 decades with the same unemployment rate witch is to say almost 0,if it ant broke dont fix it, and why should one bad decision in the current system effect 95% while the other 5% that caesed the problem in the first place reap the benefits? dont buy in to the propaganda bro look in to the history of our economic system

[ProNorden]

Exactly. And in whatever 'highly impaired market' industries without sufficient competition, we can establish a National Co-op or two to insure a functioning, competitive market.

[jannikmt]

@CinetopiaNet what 3 ato makers vw,bmw,audi? or the crapy ones ford chevy and mwm?

[bookstar77]

Excellent documentary!