Thoughts on “How to Unlearn Capitalism through Cooperative Ownership”
Hi everyone! Hope you are doing well.
Here are my thoughts on “How to Unlearn Capitalism through Cooperative Ownership,” discussing an interview by Willa Köerner (WK) of The Strange Foundation with both Austin Robey (AR) and Danny Spitzberg (DS), where they discuss how to apply shared ownership and co-operative models to the web.
You can find the article here.
My thoughts will track the questions asked by WK in the interview.
Interview
How are you each involved with cooperatives? Can you give us an overview of what got you interested in coop structures?
I like how both DS and AR got involved with cooperatives.
Both describe how people can get into cooperatives without a direct interest in the cooperative model. Additionally, how, through some insights (DS’s from building a café and AR from reading Ours to Own and Hack), that people can arrive at the cooperative model.
When you say there’s a lot of potential for cooperative models to be applied to the web, what do you mean exactly? What’s the potential there?
I think where the platform cooperative model can really change things up on the web is where users can be producers and consumers (produsers) at the same time, and as AR noted, ensuring that the value generated by users can be captured by users, and aligning user incentives with the platform owner’s incentives via shared ownership (i.e., decentralizing control of the platform’s governance).
Another good point and I think an area that needs further investigation is the mindset (not necessarily entrepreneurial, but maker-centric or organizer-centric) of platform cooperative developers and how it may differ from the mindset of a traditional entrepreneur.
I concur with AR that the cooperative model can help alleviate some of the social issues on the web (and tech in general), but since the web is a sociotechnical creature, I would say that platform coops are a good start but should also be combined with a decentralized/federated technical solution (e.g., blockchain cooperatives like Kleros or Nexus Mutual, Mastodon instances like Social.coop).
How do you actually develop a coop? The idea of shared ownership obviously sounds very “la-la-la, we’re all holding hands and sharing ownership.” But in reality, people have a lot of different motivations and perspectives and opinions. How do you make everyone get along and work together?
AR made a great point here. Cooperative developers should constantly be working on organizational structure, even from the project’s early stages.
DS also makes a good point about how the 7 cooperative principles are either hit or miss. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing as people create cooperatives for many different reasons, and most people have not heard of the 7 cooperative principles (or cooperatives as an organizational model).
I think the 7 principles can be helpful, but that a cooperative should add its own set of principles to contextualize the cooperative’s needs.
What does an “effective business” look like in coop terms?
AR made a good point here that organizational effectiveness for cooperatives is different from traditional investor-owned for-profit companies.
In traditional investor-owned for-profit companies, the goal is maximizing investor value (i.e., making the largest return on investment). In cooperatives, the goal is maximizing utility to members.
In my opinion, I think cooperative organizational effectiveness can be described as:
- Serving the interests (i.e., utility) of members (internal stakeholders),
- Serving external stakeholders or causes that members want to support, and
- Ensuring the cooperative remains operational
Do you think that coops fit into capitalism, or do they operate more outside of it?
This was an interesting question. I really liked DS’s response to this question describing the negative correlation between the number of cooperative start-ups and when more money starts to jump into the capitalist market economy (or at least when deregulation kicks in).
How hard is it to actually start a coop? Like, let’s say that as of today, I decide I want to start a coop. Assuming I stay committed to it and put in the work, when will I actually have a running coop?
AR made a great point here that cooperative development is really about getting people to co-operate and collaborate together, and that this process only goes as fast as the relationship-building and collective learning processes.
When you were saying you have to unlearn a lot of things as you start a coop, what does that look like?
AR made good points here about re-thinking the growth process of a tech company and having to re-defining (or unlearn societal notions of ownership) ownership.
The discussion on what ownership is, and what rights come along with ownership, are very important. Additionally, I think this is an area where cooperatives and cooperative developers can educate the general public about how ownership affects society and the economy.
If we could erase our collective memories, and just start fresh in a new society that didn’t have capitalism or coops defined, do you think people would be naturally more capitalistic, or naturally more cooperative? [Laughs]
I think DS had an interesting response. Though, I wonder how we could work on socializing a more collective mindset in children early-on? Maybe courses on co-operation and cooperatives in K-12 schools?
Coops tend to be heralded as this radical new model. But in reality, it’s an old model, and maybe one that’s more aligned with how we would naturally make things happen outside of the conditions of capitalism. So how come they’re so rare these days? Is it that they can’t compete with the Darwinian social order imposed by kill-or-be-killed capitalism?
DS makes a good point here that co-ops are not a new model but a formalization of commons-oriented labor practices in Europe during the industrial revolution. An even older version of co-ops would be the rise of the modern university model in Bologna, Oxford, and Paris in the early 1000's.
AR also makes a good point that whether a co-op can exists changes in the context of technology (or the tech industry), and more importantly, in a digital society where knowledge is king. The lack of information on co-ops is definitely a reason why we do not see more co-ops in tech and in other sectors.
Co-ops, especially in the case of platforms (multi-sided markets), can help align platform owner’s interests with platform users and resolve many of the governance issues we see on digital platforms such as YouTube.
So we need to shift the idea of ownership from “something that I materially possess for the benefit of myself,” to “something that I possess as an investment in myself and my community?”
AR makes a good point here about a need to educate the general public about the difference between ownership and non-ownership models.
One thing that still feels like a big barrier to entry is how long it takes to set up a coop, since there’s so much admin work involved in organizing people, setting up the bylaws, and all that. If I was thinking about starting a coop, I would be intimidated by that upfront work — especially since I could be putting in a lot of time without any compensation. Maybe that’s a capitalistic way of thinking about it, but it also feels like a question of survival, you know? A lot of people can’t afford to put in all that upfront work without getting compensated for it.
Maybe 1-click co-ops 😆? But on a serious note, this isn’t something that should necessarily be done fast in the first place because governance issues down the road are hard to resolve. As AR mentioned earlier, it should be done at a pace that works for the people involved in the project.
Though, I think that this process can be expedited by meeting with a co-operative developer, or using a development toolkit such as the Platform Cooperative Development Toolkit (I think this is still a work in progress) or the Platform Design Toolkit.
And as AR mentioned, using alternative currencies (i.e., value signaling systems) early on such as timebanking, a community currency (maybe making Ampled Dollars), or mutual credit among cooperatives (e.g., Open Credit Network), can help people recognize multiple kinds of value (and recognize varied contributions). I think this is extremely important in co-ops because co-ops are their own small communities, thus precipitating the need for recognizing how people can contribute to the community in ways beyond monetary contributions.
DS also makes a good point that at the end of the day, the most important thing is how the members cooperate with each other.
For people reading this article who are interested in pursuing a coop model for their own business or organization, where should they go? What should they read?
This is a tough one because cooperatives are usually created to meet the needs of a specific community.
AR and DS both note that the best ways to start a co-op would be looking for a co-operative developer, reviewing case studies on cooperatives, or emailing current co-operators about their project (such as AR and DS).
I think these are all good options and should be pursued by those who want to develop a cooperative.
Though, I think some general indicators in an organization or industry that can be used to determine whether a cooperative can work includes:
- the existence of strong hierarchical structures,
- the value being captured by a few stakeholders or brokers significantly outweighs the production costs,
- the existence of useful free and open source software,
- whether workers can work independently,
- where there is significant information asymmetry among stakeholders,
- whether workers are allowed to express themselves within the organization,
- start-up costs are centered on labor and time (or are relatively low for founders), and
- worker (or consumer) desires beyond monetary compensation.
Lingering Questions
- Do cooperative start-ups need a currency designer?
- Do cooperative start-ups need an organization designer?
- Is the mindset of a cooperative developer different from a traditional entrepreneur?
- Is the socialization of a scarcity mindset a main driver for the lack of cooperatives in the USA?
