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The Promise and Limitations of Worker Co-ops; Gar Alperovitz on Reality Asserts Itself (4/5) (Original Post) BelgianMadCow Jan 2014 OP
Interesting discussion. JDPriestly Jan 2014 #1

JDPriestly

(57,936 posts)
1. Interesting discussion.
Mon Jan 27, 2014, 08:31 AM
Jan 2014

But, let's remember that, while one of Mondragon's subsidiaries failed due to the low wages in China, that is just one part of Mondragon. Think of all the companies in our country that have failed due to those same low wages, that same competition that uses labor paid very poorly in order to turn a profit for the few at the top who own the company.

One failure at Mondragon is nothing compared to the many, many companies that have gone bankrupt in the US over the past 20-30 years.

The good thing about capitalism is its flexibility including the fact that it allows for companies to rise up and then die off. When I look at my garden, I realize that the process of new growth maturing and then dieing to leave room for another crop, more new growth is part of the process of life.

The failure of one of the companies of Mondragon at a time when the country in which it is located is going through a serious economic crisis may just be a sign that the cooperative business form is quite healthy. A state-owned enterprise in a socialist country would be propped up in spite of its lack of feasibility in my opinion. It was that failure to respond flexibly to changes in technology, scientific development and the world economy that caused the downfall of the USSR. (The list of the problems in the USSR's system is too long to discuss at this point but its inability to respond flexibly to change was major.)

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