If, for instance, technology shifts over time such that a large-scale corporate system becomes optimal, the capitalistic society can shift with it. And if technology changes so that the optimal situation becomes a much large set of smaller, nimbler competitors, which is probably where we're currently going, we don't have to have a bloody revolution to permit new organizations to be adopted. And at no time is there a contradiction between a co-op, a centrally-managed company, a hierarchy-less Valve-style company, and a non-profit all operating in the same space.

I worry about coops in the business world for the same reason. They have limited defense against massive corporations that decide they are enemies. But that's true of any small business.

By my reading, this is an overstatement. My understanding, having dug into the issue a bit some years back, is that he was skeptical of the reporting; arguably overly skeptical, and certainly incorrect in retrospect, but that's not quite the same thing as supporting or condoning.

What I find amusing about John Lewis is that although they are employee owned they are actually a key part of respectable middle class life - even more so their upscale Waitrose supermarket chain which has close links to the Royals (the Duchy Originals brand was started by the Prince of Wales and is now exclusive to Waitrose).