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Re:Employees: looking for “the great boss who cares about th... by jasode on Wednesday February 24, 2016 @07:04AM (#11166080)
>It is a really interesting question why this is the case. Why should a business owned by a capitalist for their own benefit be able to outcompete a workers co-operative?

Because 99.9% of typical workers don't have the money to build the business.

Take for example, Google Inc. origins in 1998. Both L Page and S Brin came from upper middle class families but neither of their bank accounts nor their parents' bank accounts had $25 million to spend on a business. It's also doubtful if either family could have been approved for a $25m unsecured business loan from a bank. Likewise, Google's first 100 employeees also didn't collectively have $25 million. On the other hand, VCs like Sequioa and KPCB did have $25 million to invest. Later on, more investors bought IPO shares totaling $1.9 billion. There is no union of workers that can pool together that kind of cash.

Since a co-op by definition must be owned by the workers, the question is no longer "interesting" with a mysterious answer. Instead, it's tautological. If you look at the typical workers' modest savings as the ceiling for funding a business, it's obvious why they can't compete with businesses built by investors/capitalists money. While WorkersOwnedSearchEngine Inc scrapes together $30,000 from their owners-workers' savings accounts to buy a 5th rack server from dell.com, Google Inc. can use a fraction of its $2 billion war chest to buy an entire data center and also break ground on a brand new one.

Re:Employees: looking for “the great boss who cares about th... by spacecowboy_lon on Wednesday February 24, 2016 @07:22AM (#11166162)
That (access to capital) is the big issue for coops. I used to be a member of a UK coop in the technical space (poptel) and we did do some work with VC funding.

As long as the coop members have 50% +1 that ok but it can go wrong (thank you very much ICANN) as we found at poptel.

The other problem is the coop movement in general is very old fashioned and isn't really embracing technical changes. Which is a pity as if poptel had been brought out by the main uk coop we woudl have all had a very nice 6 figure payday.