[kiliantics]

I am a member of the local food co-op. While not a perfect model for society, I think it's a good example to provide some alternative to the system of work we all take for granted.

I want to be able to buy food at the co-op but only members can shop there. All members must do a work shift at the co-op in order to maintain their membership. This way, in principle, there is no labour cost or labour exploitation required to run the co-op (in reality there are a few full-time employees for certain jobs). I can choose the job I would like to do for my work shift and this way everyone who is working at the co-op wants to be there, has some satisfaction in doing their job and everything tends to run well. There are ways to make the less desirable jobs more palatable, though you'd be surprised how many people are only too happy to do the bathroom cleaning shift over other shifts.

In addition, every member is a part owner of the co-op with no one owning more than anyone else. So there is no exploitation of the consumer either. All money goes back into the co-op. All decisions are made by elected committees so everyone has a say in how things are run.

This co-op model is clearly less exploitative than standard labour relationships. And similar models can be used for other basic needs, like housing co-operatives, common in Europe, where people are collectively their own landlords.

It's really strange that all the comments in here take any question of an alternative as forcing us back to a hunter-gatherer state of nature kind of situation. Other models exist and have proven successful even at pretty large scales. The fact these are seemingly inconceivable shows just how susceptible we are to this mythology of work.

[nradov]

Co-ops are great, but they don't really work for any business that requires a large capital investment. Like farming might seem simple, but if you want to make it cost effective then you need a lot of expensive equipment like a $800K combine harvester. Where does that capital come from? It's tough to find members who can contribute that much money to join.

[michaelt]

There's actually something called a "Machinery Cooperative" where several farmers club together to buy a combine harvester which they all share.

Of course, it operates at a different level to the co-op kiliantics describes; you can't have 10 farmers share a $800K machine unless your mean member has $80K cash on hand.

[bluGill]

Except that all farmers in an area need the combine on the same day. Which is why a lot of farmers don't own a combine - they hire a crew that comes with not only a combine, but also semi trucks, grain carts and all the other special equipment needed for harvest. Then when your farm is done they move to a new area (north in North America) where the harvest is ready. However at the end of the day someone needs to pay the multi-millions of dollars that the harvest operation is.

[raptor99]

You know, I was going to poke fun of you at first, but I've had the thought and notion several times that it would be so nice if I could share equipment with other people physically close to me (neighborhood, area, etc). Most of the equipment that I do have or own sits unused most of the time, and I feel it would be nice for others to benefit from it as well at a reduced cost since we could all share it somehow.

[ninalanyon]

There are a number of large co-ops in Europe. For instance the Co-operative Wholesale Society in the UK which has over three thousand supermarkets, funeral directors, etc. It had a turnover of 11 billion GBP in 2023.

The Arla dairy business in Denmark and Sweden is also a co-op. It is the fifth biggest dairy company in the world.

[kiliantics]

It's definitely an under-explored area of business but I don't see why there couldn't be a scalable "co-operative" form of banking that could serve this need. Something like a credit union, which distributes the risk of investment among members without some added overhead that goes to investors. As pointed out in another reply, there are European countries with more established co-operative practices in agriculture and other larger industries and I believe this is partially due to sources of capital that are made available by the state for projects like this, so it is a form of co-operative/socialist investment.

[formerphotoj]

Great example, thanks. There must be realistic limits to scaling such models? Administrative, land to crop to member ratios, etc.? Exploitation/arbitrage must find its way in at some point where it becomes an economy... (Not trying to argue definitions, just thinking about practical governance to extend the model to practical human scales.)

[kiliantics]

Well if only we put as much energy into thinking about how to scale this model rather than the get-rich-quick startup/corporate model that typically just benefits investors, maybe we as a society would have good answers to your questions :)

[bluGill]

> This co-op model is clearly less exploitative than standard labour relationships

Maybe, but it also can be much worse. Any of your owners can exploit the situation via fraud and if they hide it well you won't know until the whole fails and you lose whatever your investment was. Co-op is still a good model for some things, but beware it isn't clearly any better and can be much worse.

In some cases co-op is more exploitive because they use the "you are a member" line and get you to believe it and so you don't even realize how bad it is.

When a co-op is good it is good. However don't fool yourself, it isn't always good. So long as you are not fooled they can work very well.

[raptor99]

Yeah, we'll have one guy who like, who like, makes bread. A-and one guy who like, l-looks out for other people's safety.