Working Collectively Beats Working for a Boss
a great article on cooperatives aka democracy at work, the alternative to capitalism
"Cooperative enterprises are more stable than conventional capitalist enterprises, are more productive and create jobs that are more sustainable. And although the temptation to see coops as a magical solution to the ills of capitalism should be resisted, that they are better for workers than top-down enterprises shouldn’t be any surprise."
"Why wouldn’t we be more productive if
we were working for ourselves and had a say in the running of the business rather than toiling within the traditional concept of having to accept orders from above by people who have no interest other than squeezing as much out of you as possible?"
italy relatively killing it with the cooperatives. i remember hearing after world war II, the governments of the americans and the brits rolled in italy and were appalled that large portions of the italian economy were not capitalist anymore, and run cooperatively.:
"the French and Italian governments provide support for cooperatives and this accounts for the relatively higher number of coops in those two countries. The Co-operatives UK report estimates Italy has at least 25,000 coops, France has 2,600 and Spain has 17,000, compared to only 500 to 600 in Britain"