Welcome to European Tribune. It's gone a bit quiet around here these days, but it's still going.
Display:
What on earth are you talking about?

Waitrose, Gore-Tex, and various Euro co-ops haven't been "captured by various management groups."

And they're certainly more economically effective than corporate welfare queens like Boeing.

But do please keep waving your concern trolling around in the vain hope that it's going to persuade someone.

If nothing else, It's a useful education in how not to do rhetoric successfully.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Sat May 28th, 2011 at 11:20:25 AM EST
[ Parent ]
the Left would rule the world.

The same 5 examples over and over.

by rootless2 on Sat May 28th, 2011 at 11:33:39 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Those examples happen to utterly demolish your point.

Where's your proof that ¨all co-ops become managementised?¨

You have none. You pulled that ¨fact¨ out of your ass, stated it as reality, and hoped no one would notice you were bullshitting.

Is it harder to start and run a co-op than a corporation? Undoubtedly. Co-ops are unserious and don't follow the proper capitalist respect for class hierarchy, so banks and VCs are inherently biased against them.

But that's a damning and flameworthy indictment of the uselessness of banking, not of co-ops as a viable business model.  

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Sun May 29th, 2011 at 09:52:52 AM EST
[ Parent ]
They don't demolish anything. Obviously we all know about examples - Gintis even mentions the hoary example of Mondragon  and clearly, you didn't bother to read before lecturing. And nobody said "all co-ops become managementized" - that's something you made up - or "pulled out of your ass" to use your own phrasing.

I'm sure capitalism is shaking in fear at the continued existence of an upmarket grocery store co-op, though, so I await the revolution ASAP.

by rootless2 on Sun May 29th, 2011 at 10:20:18 AM EST
[ Parent ]
"Not work so often" would rather imply that they barely work at all - in spite of evidence to the contrary.

Whether the product is up-market grocery sales, bicycles, or off-shore wind, the point is the same - the co-op model can work in spite of a hostile environment, and will work even more successfully in a supportive one.

Since your primary point is that "the left has no alternatives" you have no credibility on this. The left does have alternative narratives, and has done for decades.

What the left has lacked is the political muscle and media air cover to put those alternatives into practice against power structures that use violence, lies, intimidation, infiltration, propaganda, and noobs posting on message boards to make their points for them.

The last time the left had that muscle to change the culture we had state pensions, state healthcare, massive investment, and the welfare state.

On the next iteration we'll have more of the same, and sustainable participatory finance and business as well.

The fact that the so-called centrists are going to have to be elbowed out of the way to make that possible is an unfortunate but temporary inconvenience.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Sun May 29th, 2011 at 10:48:08 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Actually, what it appears "the left" has is an over ample supply of self-righteous vanguard mentality and an even larger store of excuses for failure.

You couldn't elbow a centered package of organic Hampshire lambchops aside.

by rootless2 on Sun May 29th, 2011 at 10:59:28 AM EST
[ Parent ]
And you'll be posting a diary with detailed proposed solutions of your own soon?

No, you won't, because you're only here to concern troll, and undermine the idea of the left as a viable and valid political movement.

You have no solutions, no proposals, no constructive criticism, no new ideas, no facts, no insights, and no innovation to offer - only misdirection, huffing and puffing, and clumsy rhetoric.

So - good luck with that.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Sun May 29th, 2011 at 12:35:57 PM EST
[ Parent ]
truly a hapless rejoinder. The left of "fall into line or be denounced as a troll" is history repeating itself, first as authoritarian parties and then as a ridiculous social club.

Go find someone else to bully about the right way to speak, I'm not in the market.

by rootless2 on Sun May 29th, 2011 at 01:00:54 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Display:

Occasional Series