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It's pretty nuanced and contextual. I guess the shortest way I can put it is that co-ops can ameliorate some of the worst aspects of capitalism and improve people's material conditions as well as serve as a site for radicalisation, but it can just as easily just operate as an otherwise ordinary buisness with no revolutionary potential. Also, unless the co-op is engaging in revolutionary activity somehow, eventually they will be subjected to the same intensifying competition all business do and so they must make concessions all the time (lower quality of goods, lower everyone's pay, abandon the co-op model, sell the business, etc ). Rosa Luxemburg wrote plenty on this in her polemic against the revisionist Bernstein, Reform or Revolution.
Wide spread coops in every sector would be way better than what we have, but coops don't have to be revolutionary nor do they have to seek an end to wage labor and private markets in the whole economy. Like how unions ended up not being all that revolutionary.
But people might actually develop some serious class consciousness if 50% of people worked in a co op, too. Hard to say.
Like a lot of tactics and strategy, it's probably best to support the growth of coops just like we seek to support unionization and just like we supported Bernie's campaign as a multi-pronged attack on capitalism.
I like taking a kinda syndie line on this one and just saying that whether or not co-ops are "good" as an ultimate goal, they represent the best dual-power structure we could have. If we have enough co-ops, we would see co-op unions pop up (think Chamber of Commerce). Co-op unions would then be able to coordinate and wield economic power independently of the current economic structures. Worker-led institutions wielding independent economic power is the prerequisite for anything more radical, and pushing for co-ops is the most realistic way I see for that sort of thing to be built organically.
Of course I'm pretty sure a couple steps of this would step over lines drawn by Taft-Hartley, which was one of the big arguments for backing Bernie. But "being illegal" isn't a good reason not to try.
Co-ops Good.
It's dual power. It's seizing the means (via competition instead of striking, but still). Co-ops are more durable than other orgs because they have the ability to sustain themselves. Every durable org is a step towards victory; every movement that fades out is meaningless unless it succeeds.
The most urgent problem with capitalism is the requirement for growth (literally, capitalists make their money through the increasing size of the businesses they own). Meaningless growth will inevitably kill us all, it's the same structural problem as cancer. We already see it with climate change. Co-ops do not feature a separate class of people that only make money by growth.
Duplicate work due to competition is a commonly cited down side. It is purely theoretical right now: there are not enough co-ops that they're competing for market share. I've seen workers lament that we're building the same tools that other companies use, request to reach out and share knowledge, and be shut down by their managers. Why would a worker-run organization is going to do this?
The biggest strategic problem with co-ops is that they only benefit people with jobs. They don't benefit the reserve army of labor, they can't get us to FALGSC. This is one of the reasons we need something in addition to just co-ops and unions. But even if it's not the full solution, every single job would be better if it was cooperatively owned, and we're not there yet, so we need more co-ops.
I've lived/worked in housing cooperatives for the past 8 years so I can speak to that.
What other people are saying here is dead on. In this instance it's better than a private landlord, but we are still subject to pressures from our capitalistic system and therefore can't afford do do things like offer free housing.
The org is dedicated to democratic ownership/management of housing and has tried to expand several times, but for the past 20 years hasn't succeeded in permanent expansion beyond its original properties.
Part of that is the dominance of private landlords and large developers building large apartment buildings. Part of it is high turnover inhibiting long-term planning at the organizational level. Part of it is that we don't accumulate much surplus money to fund such things; most gets out back into maintaining the ancient houses, or into granting temporary rent relief for residents that fall on hard times.
Finally, our org is fairly small (<50 people and < 20 per house), so at times individual personality clashes and petty conflicts can make things difficult, especially since everything is tied into people's day-to-day living conditions at home.
Ultimately I've coming out of it with the following views: In my utopia we have decommodified housing, of course. In the current capitalistic world, cooperative ownership/management of apartment buildings and/or collections of individual dwellings is better than private landlord/company status quo in that it allows sharing of funds and resources (like tools) and allows everyone a voice in decision making. Orgs larger than ours allow for more flexibility in labor/time/financial commitments from the members: 1/50 people unable to pay or do chores or not be an asshole is less disruptive than 1/10, etc.
good. theyre a great way to ensure participation at the local level and make people feel they have something in common with others. i dont think theyll be what sets the spark off but they definitely help out blacklisted labor.
Coops good, but not perfect. A co-op is pretty much always going to be better than a company owned by few people. Replacing every company in the world with co-ops would make things inherently more democratic, but it wouldn't really be socialism as long as the profit motive exists. Imo co-ops are best suited to be used in rural agricultural areas, where people generally want more autonomy and it's impractical to have state beuracrats keeping on top of everything.
If there's ever going to be a moment to sieze the means, co-ops could be incredibly useful. I think they're great (not perfect) and probably necessary so we can start getting our people into important industries.
