That's exactly what my last sentence is about. The extraction of surplus-value comes from having an economical/power/knowledge advantage: in my pretty ideal world the workers should have enough of those skills, or the ability to subcontract them.

If everyone was well educated and had the means to set up a business they wouldn't need someone else to seize the opportunity for them. The whole startup spirit is that of getting down to build a business, learning as you go, and I think the same applies to cooperatives. It's joining forces with your peers.

And this is just how most startups are born: two or more co-founders with a fair split, employees get equity etc. Why is this different?

I'm happy working a job right now too, just dreaming.

> The extraction of surplus-value comes from having an economical/power/knowledge advantage

Yes, this is called the division of labour. When not everybody has to know how to do everything, more things can be known and more things can be done.

Making a marketing plan and a website sounds easy to you, but why don't you argue that they are being exploited by the vacuum cleaner or detergent manufacturers' economic and knowledge advantage? Probably because designing and building a good vacuum cleaner or formulating an anti-allergenic organic cleaning detergent doesn't sound easy to you.

That's not what I meant. There is a gap in knowledge and economical power (and probably willpower/culture too) that "prevents" the workers from setting up their own business or marketing themselves more efficiently, it's not directly related to the division of labour.

btw I have a Communication Studies/Advertising degree and work as a front-end developer, so no, that doesn't sound easy to me ;)

Cleaning a one bedroom flat in one hour to a standard that people will pay well over $100 for is a specific skill set.

Building, marketing and running a company is a different specific skill set.

How is that not division of labour?

> so no, that doesn't sound easy to me ;)

Presumably a lot easier than building a vacuum cleaner.

The main difference between a standard business and a cooperative would be the sharing of profits - there's still the need for management/marketing/etc, which can either be done by one of the cooperatives or subcontracted, it doesn't disappear. That the maids don't have the skill set or the means to acquire it is exactly what I commented on originally. That is the gap. The extraction of surplus-value comes from having an economical/power/knowledge advantage.

If I had the means to build a vacuum cleaner (not that hard, you know software can be way more complex than that), but instead sold my project to Dyson, because they have the means to produce and market it, yes, I'm setting myself up to be exploited. It's an option. (drifting off-topic, but crowdfunding is changing that too)

Yes, I understand the principle. But deciding to form a coop, hiring a manager/marketer and being a partner in a company are all skills, and while valuable, they're just just as arbitrary to decide to teach in schools as knowing how to build a vacuum cleaner.

Also, where is the evidence of exploitation? Does this guy make more money than he would if there was profit-sharing? Paying a salary is profit sharing.

His point is that the owner shouldn't be getting any more than the workers. IE, they are all "equal".

This sounds strangely familiar...

I don't recall saying anything like that. Don't worry, I'm not going to eat your children.

This is way too idealistic for any adult to believe. Coops didn't even work in China[1]. In Brooklyn, NY there's a food coop [2](grocery store) run by people in the neighborhood. I believe the group has naturally separated in a minority of pushy organizers (i.e. managers) and the majority who put in their hours and go home. Coops could work if it didn't involve human beings.

[1] http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/01/20/145360447/the-secr... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Slope_Food_Coop

There are plenty of decades-old working cooperatives here. It's the standard business form for farmers in the countryside. It's just another business arrangement, nothing extraordinary. They get everyone's production and leverage their volume to get better deals than any individual producer could, then pay everyone a fair rate.

Upon reading the articles: that NY coop seems fairly successful, but the closest to that model around here is a just-opened Sam's Club :) You seem to have misunderstood the article on China: what made them successful and more productive was precisely working as a collective while being fairly compensated. Cooperatives have nothing to do with communism.

"in my pretty ideal world the workers should have enough of those skills, or the ability to subcontract them."

They are subcontracting those skills out to the person who is marketing and getting them the jobs.

At a very high cost (100% over their pay).

In this particular case, probably. But that's an issue because the workers don't quite have a 'i run my own company' mentality (even if it's not a company).

I saw a comment here months ago that said something like "I treat myself as an independent contractor, I just sub out all the work like getting clients/projects, taxes, billing, collections, hr and management to other people (my company) so I can focus on development". I've liked that mentality, and try to get others to think that way. Even if you don't adopt it, it's an interesting perspective.