AskProfWolff: Venture Capital

A patron asks: ""Hi Professor Wolff, I would like to ask you: Does venture capital have a role on a coops based economy? And, if so, how would that work?"

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[rosaluxemburg]

My mother, father, brother and his girlfriend are all sick...this is a nightmare 🌹😥✊

[Dwamak]

Happy Birthday Prof. Wollf ^_^ We love and appreciate your work <3 Please take care yourself, stay safe <3

[Jski]

How did I just discover Richard Wolff? I’ve recently shifted my ideology radically further left, well kind of. I’ve always been a “social Democrat” but I reject the entire idea of the current system we have in place and this rejection has only furthered as the years have passed. Thank you Professor Wolff for being a refreshing voice in an echo chamber of suffocating chatter.

[katiekane]

In my grandparents time, defaulting on a home loan was almost unheard of. Our whole system is too top heavy, middle management makes the decisions, increases our costs & skims the profits for the owners. We have WAY too many MBAs, their actions contribute little but cost plenty!

[dyrectory_com]

Dr. Wolff, re: off-shore banks. "Why do off-shore banks exist?", "Who does it benefit?", "Who runs these off-shore banks? "Are the any neutral third parties overseeing off-shore banks?" "Should they be allow to exist?", "What is the history of off-shore banks? Who can open up open up an off-shore bank? ❓


P.S. I don't expect you to answer. I posed these questions to get viewers thinking.... 💡

[gordonstewart]

Good point Professor. The raw material provider of masks, gowns etc...in Nanaimo Canada was I believe a co-op after years of losing money as a business enterprise and were going to stop or shut down . The workers in effect raised the company from dead and today it certainly sounds like they have a good business. For their efforts of supplying critical material to American manufacturing Trump at one point decided to not allow even a small percentage of the finished product to be sold in Canada . I don't know how it turned out but there was a resolution which likely could have been reached without the threats initiated by Trump.

[nthperson]

Another element to this process of starting up a business is the availability of tangible assets to offer as collateral. Individuals starting a worker cooperative might be asked is to put up the equity in their residential property as security for their pro rata portion of the loan.

[danieljones]

Thank you Professor Wolff. This presentation does help me to understand the ways that a "Worker Owned and Operated Business" can get started. I suppose that all of the examples could be used simultaneously.

Question: Has it ever been done, that an arrangement for a "One Time Return" of the original investment, plus a profit dividend, be the way of a Worker Owned Company paying back an investment? I guess it would be "first come - first serve" about this arrangement. Meaning the first to invest (under this type of plan) would be the first to receive their "earnings"...as the company begins to show a profit?

[unrulyObnoxious]

If any of you is interested, read up about the Caja Laboral Bank and the Empresarial Division of Mondragon. It is likened to a research lab. Just as a scientific research lab institutionalizes the garage inventor, the Empresarial Division institutionalized entrepreneurship, by providing not only the capital, but also market research and guidance for your worker-owned start-up. They produced a much higher success rate than the typical success rate in a capitalist start-up environment.

[jgalt]

So, the real short answer is: there is no difference which is why "democratic workplace ownership c0-ops" don't
get funding....but the fun part is "imagining" the democratically constructed business plan?

[neilwalsh]

The startup question and workplace democracy is something I'm very exercised by. A complex question?

[charlesalan]

I support Professor Wolff @ Democracy at Work at Patreon, but Historically Capitalists would rather kill workers than cooperate with them. I wish him well in his endeavors. “Labor’s Untold Story “ by Richard O Boyer and Herbert M Morais.

[anthonycox]

As I understand venture capitalism the investors are not so much interested in an income stream as a capital gain. This means that it is expected that the business if successful will be sold after a certain number of years. Possibly by going public.

[BBBarua]

I wonder why Capatilist automatically worried about labor participation when UBI, Universal Basic Income, was mentioned. In any field of business, capitalists need workers to expand their businesses.

[younggypaik]

Thank you, Prof. Wolff! You're our guiding lights. Worker co ops is a great idea! I would like America have a different economic system, something other than this tyrannical abusive and exploitative capitalism. We need to put an end to this system: put it in a coffin to be floated and carried away in a river for its funeral.

[vinnieramone]

worker co ops could also join together to finance each others operations

[kathleenwilligreen]

Excellent well done Excellent 👏👏👍🌠🙏😇🌏🌎🌍

[adotters]

With the United states printing dollars like its monopoly money, do you see usd devaluation as a global currency below a dollar? For example, in crypto currency i noticed tether at .96 cents which is backed by usd a couple weeks ago when the markets started crashing. Just curious on your thoughts on this.

[yttean]

The workers' coop will work but in that kind of business venture 'profit motive' is ranked way below the list of priorities in the business plan hence the venture capitalists will stay away in Most situations.

[jgalt]

Understanding Marxism and Socialism...by the numbers. ( the price of knowledge )


These books carry price tags of $25 and $30. for 100 pages and 150


the e-book price of Marxism is profits after pdf formatting costs are recovered.


Printing costs for 100 pages can be had for 1000 copies at $2.50 or less and for 150 pages at $3.00 or less.


Shipping and tax are


Wolff is using lists the profit margin at about 50% on a 200 page page paperback @
and Lulu does all the these books are both smaller, while the prices much $10
and $15. to the profit a little sweat equity would improve this maybe a
good co-op opportunity, or worker