DiscussMormonism.com

Here for discussion and consideration is a business or economic system that definitely beats straight communism and has already proved that it can be useful and profitable improvement on the standard or rigid capitalist economic model. It also enhances individual freedom and the self-worth of workers.

I recently had the opportunity to visit Mondragon, Spain to immerse myself into the world of worker-cooperatives. Since its founding in 1956 by Father Jose Maria Arizmendiarrieta, Mondragon has become the world’s largest and most advanced cooperative economy. Today, it consists of 98 cooperatives with more than 80,000 employees in areas of finance, industry, retail, and knowledge development.

Mondragon operates under the values of participation, innovation, social responsibility, and cooperation. Workers in Mondragon have the right to participate in a democratic decision-making governance structure. They are given skill trainings and social safety nets to ensure sustainable employment. And they experience a work culture of solidarity and alliances. While the rest of Spain struggled to maintain economic stability after the Great Recession of 2008, areas around Mondragon remained fairly unaffected.

Although Mondragon offers numerous benefits through its distribution of wealth and power, the model is not entirely absent of inequities. The Mondragon Corporation has over 266 business and cooperatives, in 32 countries. But only 98 of those are federated cooperatives, while the rest are international production subsidiaries. Workers in those other locations are not members of the cooperatives, and thus do no participate in democratic governance. This structure has created a group of people, who aren’t owners, but whose labor Mondragon now depends on.

I also noticed a lack of emphases on social and environmental impacts. In Mondragon, all cooperatives must allocate a minimum of 10% of their net profits to the co-op’s social fund used for community investments. There is a need to address societal and environmental issues, and that it is everyone’s responsibility to do so. Mondragon has been slowly making changes to take on a larger role in pushing for equitable changes locally. There has been an increase in the number of women in managerial positions, conversations around using green energy in their R&D facility, and the development of a social transformation team.

By the end of our tour, I was amazed by the complexity of Mondragon’s principles and mechanisms. It has been successful in creating a democratic, sustainable, and secure living environment for its members. Although it may not be the perfect utopia many envision, there is room for growth and change. Marjorie Kelly—an amazing author, champion of local and democratic economies, and a co-founder of Fifty-by-Fifty—also participated in the study tour. She informed me about her work on mission-led employee-owned firms and their potential as the next generation enterprise design that could be key to building a just economy. Imagine the power of employee-ownership as a lever for creating social, economic, and environmental changes. That’s the type of future that I see my generation striving to create.

See also:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

The Mondragon Corporation is a corporation and federation of worker cooperatives based in the Basque region of Spain.

It was founded in the town of Mondragon in 1956 by José María Arizmendiarrieta and a group of his students at a technical college he founded. Its first product was paraffin heaters.

It is the seventh-largest Spanish company in terms of asset turnover and the leading business group in the Basque Country. At the end of 2016, it employed 74,117 people in 257 companies and organizations in four areas of activity: finance, industry, retail and knowledge.[4] By 2019, 81,507 people were employed.[3] Mondragon cooperatives operate in accordance with the Statement on the Co-operative Identity maintained by the International Co-operative Alliance.

I saw this this morning before heading out for a day of family events and just got back to it. The date it was established jumped out at me as it was during Franco's rule of Spain whose fascist party had fought a bitter civil war against communists and Basque nationalists. Seemed odd to me. Looking into it, it appears Mondragon was a Catholic collaborative with Franco's blessing seeking stability and favor in the industrial north.

I'm curious what aspects of their model appear realistically viable for broad adoption?

It was founded in the town of Mondragon in 1956 by José María Arizmendiarrieta and a group of his students at a technical college he founded. Its first product was paraffin heaters.

Hmmm. That quote from the article is taken verbatim from Wikipedia. Here's what Mondragon says in their outward facing information:

On 14th April 1956, whilst many people of Mondragón were discreetly and rather warily celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Second Republic, Father José María Arizmendiarrieta was blessing the foundation stone of Ulgor, a company with a name which drew together the identity of the founders: Luis Usatorre, Jesús Larrañaga, Alfonso Gorroñogoitia, José María Ormaechea and Javier Ortubay.

They had to wait almost three years until May 1959, as Jesús Larrañaga recalls in the introduction, for the first bylaws of Talleres Ulgor to be approved.

Father Arizmendiarrieta and Ormaechea went on foot from the old building of the Escuela Profesional, today Mondragon Eskola Politeknikoa, to the piece of land known as Laxarte, where they had already bought a plot for 27 euro cents (45 pesetas) per square metre. Ormaechea was in charge of methodically measuring out the plot and a fortnight later building work started on the MONDRAGON Experience’s first production plant: a 750m2 two-storey concrete structure.

The Escuela Profesional, today Mondragon Eskola Politeknikoa, came of age with the upgrading of Vocational Training which passed from the Ministry of Labour to that of Education and Science, thereby regulating that training with official recognition.
In the early years of the Profe, the money to maintain it came from the “Ministry of Education, Provincial Council, Chamber of Commerce, Provincial Savings Bank of Guipúzcoa, town councils of Mondragón, Arechavaleta, Escoriaza and Oñate”, local companies, family men and associates.

At the end of the year, by order of the Ministry of Labour, members of cooperatives were excluded from the General Social Security System. This decision of the Ministry was decisive in setting in motion the actions aimed at creating what is today Lagun Aro, a Voluntary Mutual Benefit Organisation. Lagun Aro was the co-operative response to a lack of protection.
The first year of female students at the Escuela Profesional also began their studies and at the same time, a chemistry course aimed especially at female students was also started.
Regarding training and education for women Father José María wrote at the time: “It is a big mistake that women do not enter vocational training on a general basis, nor take part in retraining and in-service training processes opening the way for professions which are rejected today as unsuitable”.

(1959) was the year in which something fundamental for the future of the incipient MONDRAGON co-operative movement took place: Father José María Arizmendiarrieta invented Caja Laboral Popular.
What makes Caja Laboral different from the grassroots co-operatives is the mixed composition of its social bodies, based on both worker-members and representatives from the associate co-operatives. In accordance with its suprastructure nature, which Caja Laboral has had from the start and during its subsequent development, the representatives from the co-operatives have the majority in its social bodies.
For more than twenty years the cooperatives would guarantee with 25% of its share capital all the new credit co-operative’s operations. Likewise, in the early years all of Lagun Aro’s financial reserves were fully deposited in Caja Laboral Popular.