Where’s your real world evidence of all these benefits of coops?

Because I would love for it to be true.

Well workplace democracy has only been tried in a few corporations. If you want an interesting business case look into Semco Partners in Brazil:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardo_Semler#Semco_1990%E2%8...

There is academic research on this too if you're curious but it's mostly in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

But yes, there isn't much "evidence" because this system hasn't been tried en masse; however if you look at our current neoliberal hellscape, it's pretty hard to imagine it doing worse. Also neoliberalism wasn't really "tried" either, it was thrusted upon us by a group of individuals that wanted it.

One thing to keep in mind is that society can change quite quickly if you want it to. I'm sure the children that died working in factories during the 1800s never imagined such a society where children are valued, cared for, educated, and protected but it did happen.

It has happen before and it can happen again. It only happened because people were willing to fight for it.

The rules are allowed to be changed at anytime if we deem so, a better world is possible.

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jimbokun 19 hours ago | parent [-]

“We are sure it will work because it’s never been tried!”

I believe the Germans have had success with including labor representatives on corporate boards. Maybe we can start there.

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mplanchard 18 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This is a shallow dismissal of GP’s point. The point is more, “we aren’t sure it won’t work because it has never been tried,” which is much less of a straw man to argue with.

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jimbokun 18 hours ago | parent [-]

No.

There was an unequivocal claim that it will work better than our current system.

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sarchertech 18 hours ago | parent | next [-]

They said

“Acting like centrally planned dictatorships is a good form of collaboration is just so off base. There's no reason to think that introducing democracy into the work place wouldn't immediately benefit both workers + customers.”

That sounds more like there’s no evidence that it won’t work than an unequivocal claim that it will.

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AnimalMuppet 18 hours ago | parent [-]

Well... there is historical evidence that centrally planned dictatorships are not a very responsive form of government.

Now, corporations usually have the problem of competition, so if they aren't responsive (or at least responsive enough), they get out-competed by those that are. Is that enough to make them different from governments? Perhaps, but I don't know.

	▲	shimman 15 hours ago \| parent [-]
		If you don't think there are competitions in dictatorships you are extremely sheltered. The competition in a dictatorship is whether you stay alive or not, just like in a corporation is whether you become homeless and die or keep a roof over your head. That's just neoliberalism baby!

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mplanchard 18 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Could you quote that? I don’t see it.

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shimman 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Why does this argument never apply to neoliberalism?

That was never put to a vote but it still thrusted upon a country where the results are what you would expect: the worse income inequality ever seen in the history of the nation, life expectancy has increased, deaths of despair have reached record highs, more children go to bed hungry, healthcare is being ripped from civilians, and corporations are legally allowed to poison and kill civilians (health insurance companies with their death panels, manufacturers causing cancer valleys) with zero legal repercussions.

So yeah maybe we should actually go the extreme into the other direction, if democracy is good enough to lead nations it's good enough to run businesses. If you're a worker IDK how you would argue otherwise. Being able to keep your boss/leadership accountable by voting for them out seems like a win for every workplace metric imaginable.

Imagine how better of a company Meta would be if Zuckerberg wasn't allowed to waste billions accomplishing nothing. In a just society he would have been voted out, but in a neoliberal society he is granted an insurmountable amount of wealth.

I'm sorry but this society sucks and acting like we can't do better, be better is beyond pathetic.

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jimbokun 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Based on what you say, it should be easy to find data showing the superior performance of coops for employees in terms of wages, benefits, profit sharing, etc, right?

Health care is a different topic and yes, socialized healthcare systems seem to perform better across the board.

	▲	shimman 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Where is the data that neoliberalism helps people? Like can't you see how stupid this argument is? Current system is terrible for the vast majority of workers, but we aren't allowed to change this system why exactly? Especially regarding a system that was never discussed or debated? God damn this is pathetic. What you are doing is like the number one tactic elites use to squash any ideas of creating a better world. The idea that opponents of neoliberalism have to recreate all aspects of society and consider every potential edge case isn't realistic, and it's not how systematic change actually occurs. Once again, the Q is this. Where is the evidence that neoliberal economics has helped Americans? Income inequality is at its absolute height, along with deaths of despair. I'm sorry but why are you personally defending such a sick society? Did you vote to implement neoliberalism in the 1970s or what? Where you the one who told Ford to tell NYC to suck it?