[nickparker]

Can they, though?

The corporation isn't some money-sucking black box. It's dispute resolution, software development to match rides efficiently (Uber Pool is tricky), and advertising.

Yes, it also skims money off the top to pay for things like driverless car R&D, but is a small, likely disorganized co-op going to be efficient enough at all the above to take advantage of that margin?

[Kalium]

It's highly unlikely that a small, disorganized co-op is going to be efficient enough to take advantage of the situation and be able to out-compete Uber.

That said, the reality is irrelevant here. Jacobin is the kind of magazine where economic reality is treated as a suggestion, to be discarded as is convenient.

[svanderbleek]

That's how economic reality should be treated. Our own reality is primary. We will take back our lives. What Jacobin is working towards is admirable. We believe in progress, that a better way is possible, and that the current state of affairs is suboptimal. We should encourage alternative economic thinking.

[Kalium]

I am in favor of encouraging plausible, workable economic thinking. Jacobin is better described as leftist fever-dreams with roughly that level of connection to any reality.

Could things work differently? Absolutely. Are they going to work differently because some hack gets off fantasizing about how in abstract theory, the services Uber performs could be better performed by a co-op that pays workers more? No.

All the co-ops I've encountered or dealt with fall into one of three categories:

* Non-functional, incapable of making decisions or delivering value.

* Functional but completely unscalable. May depend on bizarro local economic conditions or be in one of the few cities where people are willing to pay 30% extra for pizza because it's a co-op.

* Function, scalable, and does not operate much like a co-op at the level of service delivery. REI falls into this category.

Uber works because it's functional, scalable, and reliable. You can go to almost any major city in the US, boot up your Uber app, and reasonably expect to get decent service. It is, abstractly, possible for a co-op to do that. You and Jacobin are completely, totally, 100% correct on this point. Things could be different and better for the people who Jacobin has decided matter.

In fact, we all live in a framework where such a thing is possible! If only someone was brave enough to put their labor where their mouth is. Maybe the propagandists at Jacobin could... nah. They wouldn't go for that. They much prefer theory.

[tanderson92]

> * Function, scalable, and does not operate much like a co-op at the level of service delivery. REI falls into this category.

No true scot? The definition of a co-op is a group organized to meet economic or social desires through jointly owned business. What does this have to do with any particular approach to service delivery? You appear to be defining cooperatives as some unworkable theoretical concept and then any actual successful example of implementation is an exception. Convenient!

Vanguard also falls into this category but is absolutely a cooperative.

[Kalium]

Workers at REI get sub-$12/hr. REI is structurally and technically a co-op. They are just a co-op that does not exhibit the benefits of a co-op that Jacobin would suggest will flow from being a co-op.

If it's structured like a co-op and exhibits none of the benefits of a co-op, what's been gained? I'm saying that co-ops generally have to sacrifice at least one of: structure, functionality, scalability.

[thatsso1999]

REI is a consumer-owned co-op, not a worker-owned one. The entire co-op is designed around saving consumers money, not making the workers more.

So yes, REI does deliver the benefits of a co-op to its owners - high-quality goods at a lower price than they would be unable otherwise be able to get. This is the entire point of a consumer co-op. Workers can also be member-owners of the co-op, and frequently are, but the benefits are geared towards getting better discounts on the goods REI sells. This is in addition to the implicit benefits of being an owner of the company and having a say in its direction.

[Nullabillity]

> If it's structured like a co-op and exhibits none of the benefits of a co-op, what's been gained?

At least you've cut out Wall Street and co.

[tomcam]

The definition you just gave for co-op also includes any publicly owned corporation.

[tanderson92]

The economic or social desire is met for the owners, not for others. Perhaps I should have made that clearer.

[tedmiston]

United Dairy Farmers based around Cincinnati is one co-op you might find interesting. They are an ice cream shop / convenience store / occasional gas station (I know it sounds strange) that has grown to ~200 stores in our tristate area. I wish there more info about them online.

http://www.udfinc.com/about-udf

The founder and family made Forbes' billionaire list.

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/10/S22J.html

[neffy]

and then there's John Lewis.

and a few others.

[dnautics]

You're confusing "economic reality" with "economic narrative". That's a superset of "capitalist narrative", "free-market narrative" (distinct from "capitalism"), and "socialist narrative". All parties (as you just did) spin their own stories about what ought to happen or why what does or should happen is morally justified, and all of these stories run up against the reality (measurable or unmeasurable) of coordination of supply, demand, and the interaction of voluntary and coercive power with that.

[Apocryphon]

A small, disorganized co-op, sure. A large, efficient one on the other hand...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

[dilemma]

Mondragon is a co-op by name only. If you look into how it's structured, its basically just a corporation with a twist. Source: The Ownership of Enterprise, available on Amazon.

[honkhonkpants]

I would say at this stage Uber really is just a money-sucking black box. The revenues they get from their commissions in established cities they pour into marketing and just flat out buying business in new cities. All existing drivers are working to expand Uber, and they do not benefit from that in any way. The point of a co-op would be to recapture the spread and put it back in drivers' and riders' pockets.

[peterwoo]

A flat rate could cover software fees and advertising. Dispute resolution should maybe be insured for each and every ride, but at nothing close to the ~20% cut currently taken.