[ryanwaggoner]

So what's stopping this from happening now? The existence of other firms where employees own 0% shouldn't negatively impact worker-owned cooperatives, right? If anything, coops should be at an advantage because no one is sucking out all their value!

So why don't we see more of that?

[twoquestions]

My theory: corporate tyranny is commonplace and accepted, and a democratic (or more likely, a republican) workplace is new and different, and a lot of people are rightly suspicious of building their lives on a new and possibly unstable foundation.

Also the law is set up assuming the firm will ultimately be run through a single point of authority, and if you want to run the place as a coop you'll face investor uncertainty and legal difficulties.

Most of all, the US culture doesn't have much in the way of cultural norms for a firm like this. We have centuries of experience working in a hierarchical style workplace, but people don't really have manners for working in an democratic firm, and there would have to be a lot of time and energy spent on cultural factors that a conventional workplace doesn't have to.

Does this make any sense at all?

[fallingfrog]

It's hard to raise money for such a business, because venture capitalists typically aren't willing to loan a new business money- they want ownership equity for their money. And at that point it's no longer employee owned. In fact small business loans specifically exclude any new business from consideration- established businesses with documented profits only, thank you very much. So usually employee owned businesses start out privately owned and then the employees buy out the original owners at market prices. I think there is hope though- there are financing options for cooperatives starting to appear here and there, still on a very small scale though.