Comments on: Disrupting capitalist democracy

By: Mike Riddell

Mike Riddell — Mon, 13 Feb 2017 06:36:14 +0000

A co-op of co-ops sounds like a great idea. If you’ve ever been to the Co-ops Uk Congress you’ll perhaps come away with a different feeling about whether or not such an idea is possible.

The co-op movement is still a bit factional. It’s still riven with pain over the Co-ops bank disaster, a car-crash that continues to unfold. The fact that Pennycook its saviour has walked away doesn’t bode well.

I am a fan of the principle of co-operatives but there’s something about their design that could be improved upon.

By: Shaun Bartone

Shaun Bartone — Fri, 10 Feb 2017 14:37:50 +0000

There is nothing inherent in this model that prevents a coop from maximizing profit for the members of the coop, or monopolizing the market. There is nothing inherent in this model that discourages discrimination or promotes equality based on race, gender or other social factors. There is nothing inherent in this model that limits impacts of production/consumption on the environment, that limits the over-extraction of resources or the mismanagement of waste. The model so described does not exhibit feedbacks from the environment that regulate the production/consumption cycle, nor does it operate by norms that would regulate interactions with the environment. Coop platforms are not inherently moral or environmentally sustainable.

By: Shaun Bartone

Shaun Bartone — Fri, 10 Feb 2017 13:15:05 +0000

“To top it off, co-ops are not driven by the extractive, profit making motive, making them less prone to boom and bust. Instead they are normally designed to benefit communities with the long term objectives of sustaining life and increasing well-being through the emerging values of sustainability and fairness which allow life to flourish.”
False conclusion. There’s no evidence here that the members of a coop are any less motivated to produce a profit shared amongst their collective selves, or to monopolize a market. Concentration of wealth can still happen amongst collectives. Moreover, there is nothing inherent in the system so described that is any more incentivized to limit recourse extraction, reduce waste and protect the environment than a standard corporation. The model still does not include feedbacks from the environment or norms that would regulate the production cycle.