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.

  • @[email protected]English
    16•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.

    • @[email protected]English
      8•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.