AskProfWolff: How Worker Co-ops Can Lead to Revolutionary Transformations

A patron asks: "I would like to pose a question for @AskProfWolff. How can we organize diffused worker self-directed enterprises into explicitly supportive associations that can stand as alternative organs of power against global corporate capitalism? Further, how can we connect these mutual association with broad-based progressive social movements to product permanent revolutionary transformations in society?"

Follow Wolff ONLINE:

[texajp]

thank you prof wolff and democracy @ work

[VictorSchmidt]

I quite agree with Prof. Wolff that worker co-ops are necessary as an alternative for capitalist enterprises, but it's not suficient. Without a movement that can control the state apparatus and help the development of co-ops, it's never going to happen.
First the state, then the enterprise. The other way around is impossible.

[wanderingsteve]

I really like this! There is a disconnect with the left political activisam and workers industrial efforts in the UK. I cant see how one can succeed without the other! People like me build things we would like to build things as our part in the struggle. Could we not use a workers co operative network to establish at least the bare bones of an alternative economic model.

[LOKITYZ]

I'm a bit dense, I get the gist of how worker co-ops work but it's hard for me to grasp the details. How does one start a worker co-op? How does the day-to-day operation differ between a worker co-op and your average capitalist enterprise? What is the core aspect that makes worker co-ops a better option overall?

I understand that workers have more power and whatnot, but I understand that as a broad concept only, not in terms of the nitty-gritty details and its application. Like, if I were interested in starting a worker co-op, I'd have no idea where to start.

[itsclear]

There are a few hundred operating in the USA right now.

[cynthiasonmez]

Love from Australia ❤️ Monopolies which are unconstitutional have ruined Capitalism

[tomlee]

The fact is that free competition will lead to monopolies（The value law of commodity exchange）Large companies that monopolize capitalists have more resources and better engineers. They monopolize most of the resources. The petty bourgeoisie (or you can call it worker co-ops） cannot compete with it. Are we going to go back to the early stage of freely competitive capitalism? ？？We should directly deprive the current monopoly capitalists ‘s private ownership of means of production and carry out social production! And to do so, there must be a dictatorship of the proletariat.

[largastaemumen]

Cooperative Societies (Co-oP) are very popular in Western Nigeria. And people (small business owners and salary earners prefer it to bank).

They vary in composition, but generallly its run by people staying and doing business in particular area or working class members of an industry e.g.(not real names) Amazon worker Happiness Cooperative Society; Red Bank More Money Cooperative Society etc. And (the state) governments don't interfere but they yearly check on them to make sure they have have smooth accounting record.

Everyone contributes a set monthly amount and you can contribute more than the minimum if you can afford (everything is kept in your record), and can borrow to RUN BUSINESS or support business only.
Then (cooperative) pool of money is used(for the most part) for property (especially landed properties)investment and the interest shared based on what each members have.
Some cooperative used it to invest in certain big businesses that can assure return on investment.
But THEY DON'T BUY STOCKS AND ALL THOSE finacialized scams.

[patrickdehertogh]

Who works a menial job. Who pays rent and all the other bills.
How can I help to stop this monetary system? What is something I could do? I'm sure t.mobile will not let me pay my phone bill by mowing someone's lawn. I have nothing of value to offer. But I can labor. That's all I got. But all I think of the things I need. Would be I could labor for food? Or am I totally missing this point. We need large groups of people who actually have something of value that some barter system could be started.
So I guess the reason I chose to write this . Is for comment
I feel very sad at the state of us humans. And we need a start
In the right direction to meet are potential. Or we really have failed. I'm willing to listen to any ideas for a start. That's my 2 cents.

[clarestucki]

There is nothing inhibiting the formation of co-ops in this country. Why do we not have more of them?

[johnbuckner]

Good plan; the climate is right for a third party to show the appeal of worker-owned Co-op startups...A party that represents labor, doesn't depend on the centralization of wealth & power, and is willing to expose the favoritism of crony corporatism. Bet it'd pull a lot of people from both sides of the aisle if you could somehow avoid ideological labeling.

[auferstandenausruinen]

If Co-ops are to prove themselves to be a more advanced mode of production in the current bourgeois society, they need to succeed in the competition with the traditional capitalistic corporations, especially against the multinational behemoths. It would be extremely hard to achieve such a goal, since the market, as a capitalistic apparatus, would tend to distribute the capital towards the more competitive, i.e., more exploitative enterprises which could extract more surplus from the workers to generate more profit. In a worker-owned business, it's harder to democratically redirect more surplus into reproduction, expansion and the R&D section of the enterprise than a decision from a dictatorial boss or board, since such a decision would damage workers' own benefits. So IMO, the Co-op wouldn't become a dominant economic force and henceforth have dominant political influence, with the capitalistic market still in motion, unless the workers decide to exploit themselves harder than a private enterprise at their own consensus.

[grantgre]

I like this idea of co-op capitalism or co-ops but I need to research it more because you can say an idea that sounds really great but when it comes to practical matters just like in capitalism it turns out it didn’t work out. So we need to find out what is the historical context of these so-called co-ops and do they really work in the real world and what are the pitfalls of the co-ops? No system is perfect right? I wish the professor would give a lecture on the practical application of co-op systems in the past like he’s done for capitalism etc.

[russelljohnson]

Bless prof wolff for reading Gramsci so I don't have to

[santoshkumarpal]

Dear Professor,
The Epoch media has published a huge audio book titled The Spectre of Communism (or like this) which is one-sided attack on communism. Would you a critical review of that?
...S.K. Pal, India

[darrelldavis]

Worker Coops are just good business. They maintain loyalty, they are more profitable, and keep the firm-leadership in tune with the firm's trajectory. In Yugoslavia, it was vulnerable because without central planning the already industrial north went one direction, positively; while the agricultural south did not grow as much. No direct agenda at industrial agriculture or proportionality was made giving reactionary nationalism room to grow.

Many say they Coops can exist in capitalism, but they can only exist in name. Capitalism incubates cooperative firms from one another, and forces them to be about their individual cooperative and not looking towards the macro-economy. Capitalism prevents the development of Coops into higher stage collectives also.

So socialism is weird too. The form of socialism that has actually existed has been both governmental and statist. Because of the geopolitical situations imposed on anti-capitalist set-up, worker's democracy is...meh; I mean yeah give the working masses power; but terrorism is terrorism; dealing with it and beating it back is not a democratic process. A cooperative sector in an anti-capitalist set-up that isn't subordinated to plans, the party, et cetera(Keh-teh-rah) leaves one vulnerable to awful, awful, awful outcomes. I shouldn't say weird, because socialism exists in stages. Low and intermediate stages, don't lend itself to as much worker's democracy as defined by a non-hierarchical, non-managerialist set up. SOEs in anti-capitalist state-run economies have democratic practices for workers.

[jakobsmith]

The only problem I have with worker co-ops in the long term is they maintain the profit motive, I would hope the longer these co-ops exist and the longer the revolution goes on that they would begin to phase out the profit motive.

[rdg]

The discussion leads one to wonder whether it is too late to transition to a worker coop society where one assumes capitalist consumption will continue to thrive. At the same time we have a dangerous global population growth and Climate Change crisis which will derail our moves towards a more equitable wealth distribution. We need a priority degree of energy put into saving the planet first - then the utopian future may follow!

[santoshkumarpal]

Would you/your team make a critical review with data of the said book?
S K pal

[bulu]

Worker co-ops can work only if it is based on çapitalism .ex if it is based on the principle of profit and loss, and demand and supply free market. if it is based on socialist system like distributing all wealth generated to the workers then it can't work.