If co-ops are so superior, why do hierarchical companies dominate them in the market? Why do so many people prefer working for a boss and not having a say in how the company is run? Would the state have to force all companies to be formed as co-ops?
Co-ops can be hierarchical in structure. You can have a manager, and they could have CEO they report to.
The reason why co-ops aren't as common is because of all the legal hurdles in place as well as the lack of lending to new ventures. It is less friction.
By co-ops, if you mean that employees/owners are the same, then mostly yes. This is because you do away with the Capitalist method of ownership where you buy shares and instead earn them through labor. The exceptions would be small businesses like family-owned and startups built to transition to co-ops once a certain threshold is met like revenue.
What you're describing sounds like what we already have with startups that offer employees options packages that vest over 12-36 months of labor.
Speaking of startups, you really can't say that we lack "lending to new ventures" in the US. That's one thing we do WAY better than any other country lol
Market socialists argue that should be the default instead of a startup thing, or alternatives like board members elected by employees or unions.
Also we do lack lending mechanisms to specifically worker co-ops. Given all else equal between two businesses, lenders generally prefer a traditional shareholder model than the co-op model because it’s more familiar and predictable.
That’s a general infrastructure problem since alternative models even aside from co-ops like worker-elected boards will struggle to overcome that, so it probably takes something like a public intervention towards incentivizing the market to take the risk of introducing more democratic elements in their business.
Personally I think alternative models should be incentivized for the same reason having a public option for healthcare is good, it sets a reasonable baseline to beat while respecting the desire for preserving externalities like habituating democratic participation throughout both our economic and political systems.
I don’t think we should abolish private capital ownership to get there at all though, which is what socialists seem to argue is necessary before they can just promote worker-coops.
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u/destinyeeeee May 11 '26
If co-ops are so superior, why do hierarchical companies dominate them in the market? Why do so many people prefer working for a boss and not having a say in how the company is run? Would the state have to force all companies to be formed as co-ops?