I think the biggest failure of the US of A's educational system is the the lack of vocational and trade schools, many BA and BS positions could easily be filled by vocational graduates.......puters come to mind. As long as employers demand de-greedy employee's I don't think this will ever catch on.

Not nearly as sucessful as the worker owned cooperatives begun in Mondragon. The economic and dignified success of a system which unites property rights and labor rights is remarkable.

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

Those kinds of schools clearly don't have the same cultural respect as they do in places like Germany. I believe it is partly a cultural consequence of capitalism which values capital over labor.

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

When they become a significant player they'll be a model people will flock to. What is a significant player?

If it makes more money per unit effort for the cooperators than a company model makes for its shareholders.

Bot

Maybe so. Or it could be an outgrowth of American culture rather than a creator of it. Darned if I know how one could differentiate cause and effect.

B

One way is to consider who controls the culture. The ones that do almost always portray their social class in a more positive light than other social classes.

The cooperatives are more successful on precisely that crtieria.

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

That would be the media elite?

Got a graph on Mondragon growth?

Welcome to the information age! No longer will you be able to go to school, get a degree, then get a good job that will take care of you for the rest of your life.

That is old industrial age thinking.

Social security, 401k's and the such are ancient and out dated. 20-50 years from now they will not be around, nore with companies pay for your retirement.

Going to school is good but everyone has a degree, they don't mean as much as they used to.

Money and ideas move and fast, why pay someone in this country $100k a year when someone in Asia will do the same job for 1/2 if not less? With the free information exchange of the net and other technoligy money and ideas flow around the world extremly fast. If country A raises their tax's corperations and money will flow to country B.

In the new and wonderful Information age you must move fast and work with your mind. The middle class is dieing and the gap between the have and have nots will increase.

The industrial age was fun but the information age is much better!

__________________
2006 CL500
2009 C300 4matic
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

I think one of the big problems is people's misunderstanding of the service concept. I constantly run into people who think it's beneath them to "kiss ass" as they say. They think customers are difficult or fussy and they think it's undignified to listen to their needs. Can you believe I was told by a kid at the VW dealer that I was being difficult because I always expected to walk in and get my oil changed? Hello? There's nothing like having someone walk in with bucks to spend and having no way to take it.

The other problem I see is that people are content with their own mediocrity. So you've got a job, what else do you do? I was at X'mas and I felt more alone in a crowd of 20 people than I was this morning skiing around the frozen lake. Of the million things we could have done nobody was interested in a single thing or had started reading a new book in the 10 years I'd known them.

Never believe it's beneath you to flip some burgers and always strive to better yourself. It's a simple formula that's worked for my wife and I. It should work for most people.

__________________
You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows - Robert A. Zimmerman

Someone has put together a set of links on Mondragon:

http://www.sfworlds.com/linkworld/mondragon.html

I'm sure the growth data is in there. Once I find it, I'll post it separately.

The book by William Whyte from Cornell is pretty good--'Making Mondragon'

The one by Sharyyn Kasmir--'The Myth of Mondragon' points out some of its cultural weaknesses.

Here's some growth data from ondragon's home site:
http://www.mondragon.mcc.es/ing/magnitudes/evolucion.html

One of their most impressive statistics is the success rate of new cooperatives. They have had very few failaures whereas the failure rate of capitalist small businesses is very high (70%?). This is a great increase in efficiency.

In regards to the general topic of this thread, to my knowledge, no worker owned business has ever voted to export its own jobs.

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

This looks interesting but all I could read online was teh abstract and intro.

Re-engineering and participation: organisational change in Irizar S. Coop. 1 Katrin Simon, Mikel Olazaran, Eneka Albizu 2 University of the Basque Country Public University of Navarra

Abstract Irizar is the second largest luxury coach manufacturer in Europe, with sales in 45 countries. This company forms part of the MCC group (Mondragon Cooperative Corporation Ð Mondragon Corporaci—n Corporativa), which in turn is made up of more than 100 autonomous cooperatives located in the Basque Country. IrizarÕs development has been spectacular: it has changed from being a clearly indebted company facing closure in 1991 to being the winner of the EFQM (European Foundation for Quality Management) prize in the year 2000. A radical change in the concept of the company has taken place based on radical and structural improvements (re-engineering). The paper analyses the role of business process re-engineering (BPR) in the change experienced in Irizar, its implementation process and adaptation as a Ômanagement modelÕ.

The change project has materialised in spectacular improvements, which manifest themselves in various indicators, but above all it has generated a process and culture of change, which again sustained the BPR project. 1. Introduction Irizar is the second largest luxury coach manufacturer in Europe, with sales in 45 countries. This company forms part of the MCC group (Mondragon Cooperative Corporation Ð Mondragon Corporaci—n Corporativa), which in turn is made up of more than 100 autonomous cooperatives located in the Basque Country. Since its foundation in 1889 Irizar has been located in Ormaiztegi (Gipuzkoa), a small village of 1,200 inhabitants. In 1963 it changed from being a limited company to become a cooperative company, in which the workers are also owners of the company, participating in the management of the enterprise through a General Assembly of members 3.

Go to the link I edited in and browse their own site.

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

What used to be middle class: a cozy 1500 sq. foot house, 1 TV, a fairly new 6-cyl. Chevy with crank-up windows, maybe a window AC unit in the bedroom. Today that seems like near-poverty. The middle class now aspires to champaigne tastes and upper class conveniences. Try even finding a new house with 1500 sq. feet, or just a basic stereo system without 15 different concert hall effects. Everyone is moving or being pushed upscale, and many are being squeezed to the max. financially in the process. Apparently going into debt is preferable to living the old dull middle class lifestyle.

__________________
1985 380SE Blue/Blue - 230,000 miles
2012 Subaru Forester 5-speed
2005 Toyota Sienna
2004 Chrysler Sebring convertible
1999 Toyota Tacoma

By the way, the Pope beatified the wrong Spanish priest named 'JoseMaria' from the same generation. Josemaria Escriva founded Opus Dei (he supported Franco in the Spanish Civil War). The Pope made him a saint a couple of years ago. JoseMaria Arizmedriatta(sp) founded the Mondragon Cooperatives (he was opposed to Franco). He's the one that shold have been beatified.

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

Yeah, I did and followed one link to that paper. I'm not so much interested in a descrption per se as I am in seeing how folks try to make objective comparisons. I mean for the paradigmatic corporation, large or small, we have a fairly clear understanding of what we mean by economic success. I am curious to see how that analysis is done on the MCC's.

It's an interesting phenomenon, no doubt about it. I wonder if the success that the coops in Basque country are experiencing will continue. Will any fail, and how does that happen? If they don't fail then I don't see how the current paradigm can compete with the MCC's in the long term. Except perhaps through manipulation of laws---politics. But if some do fail, then that also is interesting. Is it at a similar rate to traditional corporations? Etc.

B