CO-OPS - THE BETTER BUSINESS MODEL FOR THE FUTURE

This unusual article, dated March 30th, is written by Sue Norris from the left-wing London Guardian. It was originally posted on the far left-wing blog BradSpangler.com.

In her report, Norris writes of four British companies that have been structured or re-structured as worker-owned worker-managed cooperatives. Each of these companies have had increase in revenue, decrease in employee turnover and increase in customer satisfaction over the years.

The major secret is in the bottom-up ownership and management that a co-op possesses. It retains flexibility in the uncertainties of a market economy. It inspires loyalty in the employees, confident they are appreciated more for their input. It generates better products and services for the local consumers, due to greater openness to their needs than the standard business model.

Distributism believes in and supports cooperative business ventures, along with small and medium-sized businesses. Government-controlled co-operatives, as set up by bloody dictatorships like Communist China, are a twisted mockery of the spirit of the cooperative ideal. Big government should get out of the way of the co-ops, along with it’s mirror image in big business. They should cut back on the over-regulation of them, much of it skewed in favor of conglomerates.

Congratulations to these four British companies for bucking the trend, proving in their own way that Distributism does work.