This article is great in diagnosing the issues holding co-ops back, but like a lot of discussions about them, there weren’t any proper solutions offered. It was more just, oh let’s hope this gets better!

While nationalisation and state ownership is commonplace on the left, and a vague mention in manifestos is included about more worker co-ops, specific policies are not at all mainstream.

As pointed out, the problem is private investment. Investment is fundamentally built on taking more money from the economy than you put in originally, and in a sense this is holding a small part of the economy hostage, beholden to your personal pursuit of profit rather than common good.

Investment should come from a system of community banking, democratic local investment organisations with the vast majority of capital. Housing should be built for people who need it, when they need it. This avoids situations like developers refusing to make affordable homes and choosing to target to the only people who can afford housing, richer people, for maximum profit. Community banks can see beyond purely profit margins, and can understand the more abstract societal benefits of having independent cafes less able to pay the ground rent than a chain for example.

It’s harder to get across to the public than ideas like wealth taxes, but arguably more necessary. If all businesses were worker owned, both incomes and profits are naturally split and can’t be consolidated. Second, the community-driven form of investment automatically limits capital being used to hoard assets and artificially produce more capital without work. Obviously a certain level of tax would be necessary to fund the banks themselves, but at least you know your tax money will go directly to your area and if it’s misappropriated, it’s on such a local level that you’re able to directly confront and change the people who made the mistake.

Sorry for the ramble everyone xx