Even when I was living in a very liberal area, there were only a small handful of stores that advertised as worker co-ops. It’s funny too because those co-op stores were all incredibly popular and successful, so I don’t understand why they are so comparatively rare? The organizational structure seems simple to maintain, and has a high incentive for regular workers to go above and beyond since they directly benefit from the business being successful, so what’s the deal? I am speaking from a US centric view, so maybe things are different in Europe, but even with my limited knowledge I feel like they are relatively unpopular there too, but maybe not? I dunno.

  • treadful
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    1 year ago

    Sadly, my experience led me to believe that most people are more willing to work for someone telling them what to do than they are for themselves.

    I might argue that most people don’t really know how to handle autonomy. We’re all trained to follow orders and probably have to be trained on how to work otherwise. It’s a huge culture shock.

    I’m often not sure at what point my authority/autonomy ends and my boss’ begins. And we have a clean top-down structure.

    • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Being part of a co-op isn’t an autonomous situation. You have the responsibility of ownership, but you aren’t free to implement decisions as you see fit. You have to get buy-in from the group for anything you do.