Democratic Socialist

[passiveporcupine]

67. What about the employee owned co-ops in Germany?

Last edited Sun Aug 16, 2015, 09:36 PM - Edit history (3)

they are not owned by government, but instead by a group of employees. They are governed by a group of employees. Decisions are made to benefit the society they are in, and themselves. They are a social capitalist endeavor. The employees are "owners" of a private enterprise, but not run by a board of directors that are responsible to wall street, nor are they run by a CEO who makes 300 times what the median employee wage is. They are not a "everyone is equal" business where they all earn the same wage. Those wages are decided by the employees.

Richard Wolff talks about these a lot. When enough people who are jobless in Germany decide to pool together to start a business, the government pays them a certain amount to get it started. It is not owned by the government. It is a private company, but it is a co-op.

We have co-ops in America too. My local power company is a rural co-op, and my credit union is a co-op.

Patagonia, a large apparel manufacturer based in Ventura, California, has organized itself as a “B-corporation.” That’s a for-profit company whose articles of incorporation require it to take into account the interests of workers, the community, and the environment, as well as shareholders.

The performance of B-corporations according to this measure is regularly reviewed and certified by a nonprofit entity called B Lab.

http://robertreich.org/post/94260751620

Companies don't "have" to go public and become responsible to shareholders. They can and did run on stakeholder capitalism, until shareholder capitalism took over.

edit to correct robert reich to richard wolff...sorry I have dyslexia with these two names.