Are worker cooperatives socialist, capitalist, or their own category?

Question

This question inquires about private ownership vs. state ownership. However, there is a 3rd category that may or may not be considered as private ownership: Worker cooperatives.

In the model of private or public ownership, where would worker cooperatives fit in? Is this ownership model closer to socialism, closer to capitalism, or is it its own category entirely? What political movements promote this form of ownership?

Bonus question that is probably off-topic on this site: Do worker cooperatives make up a significant (>5%) share of the economy anywhere in the world?

Answer 1

One could argue that cooperatives are not private ownership, but that would be futile. Such an argument would mean that owning stock could also not be private ownership.

Worker cooperatives are in effect private ownership as they belong to the members of the cooperative. They are closer to capitalism than to socialism because in a pure socialist world everything would be needed to be controlled by the government. A pure socialist world could not allow for cooperatives to exist as they are a step in the direction of capitalism.

The model is thus closer to capitalism as there are no rules that prohibit cooperatives from making revenue and that revenue increases the capital stock which in turn belongs to the members of the cooperative (or the stock holders). A cooperative is thus only a simpler form of a stock company.

Still mostly socialist parties promote this form of ownership as they see it as a first step of giving up parts of control over a company from a simple board to a wider population of members. Yet as has been shown above this is simply a question about how a company or a cooperative is governed and not about whom it belongs to.

Regarding the bonus question, I can't tell and a quick google search did not turn anything up either.

Answer 2

Worker cooperatives are independent of socialist/capitalist classification.

What matters to being socialist/capitalist is whether the workers in the cooperative:

1. Can retain the profit from selling whatever they produce (no matter how it's divided internally)

2. Can decide what and how to produce

3. Can elect (assuming they have 100% internal agreement) to sell the cooperative to ANOTHER owner, who will then be deciding how the place is run and getting the profits.

   • If the answers to all 3 are "yes", it's typical capitalism.

   • If the answers to all 3 are "no", it's typical hardline socialism.

   • Please note that in may nominally "socialist" countries, small cooperatives would have freedom to do one of the 3 (usually #1 only, or #1 and #2, but NOT #3).

Answer 3

The question by and large doesn't make sense as you are asking if the particular structure of what is in essence a company fits into a description of a type of governmental system.

For sake of argument if we treat a company as if it were a government then a workers cooperative would most closely resemble Communism. All workers have equal ownership and stakes in the venture. Many successful cooperatives are evidence that a communist system works well in small groups, however as the number of people increase they become harder to manage and degenerate into a typical communist regime.