Yes, big fan of Mondragon here, though I've heard they've taken some criticism for outsourcing some of their processes to non-cooperatives with poorer working conditions (perhaps in Mexico, might be wrong). But that aside I'm a big fan and suggest to anyone not familiar to read up on them!

Yes agreed, ESOP-to-co-op requires a big shift in power away from the top and against the managerial class's interest, which is hard to pull off. More often I've seen the family-owned or conventional corporation get converted to ESOP or worker co-op when the family retires or the company is in financial difficulty. A French glass company just did the latter

I meant any type of company that is engaged in a capitalist system, where you have to make profit just to be able to function. I'd say SCOPs necessary fall in this category, while worker cooperative may escape it, though this is just a simple opinion.

Pas de soucis ! It was quite a specific experience, so it might be useful to put in some context in here : it was a studio making apps and games, founded a decade ago, always has been a SCOP, they started being 3-4, and when i was here we were between 15 and 20. Also, i was first an intern, and then got a short-term contract : in both cases, i was not offered to participate as a share owner, you have to have a long-term contract for this. I also have a relatively short experience there (10 months).

One of the pros was there was a lot of discussion about most subjects. The fact it was a relatively small studio helped too, both for the number of people and the methods : open-space, weekly meeting with everyone, shared relaxing time (lunch, afterwork, teambuilding days, etc.). Even as an intern, i got to hear about most subjects, even general ones like financial state of the company or which projects to accept or reject.

Another one was the company values (not necessarily inherited from the SCOP thing, but when you do a SCOP it's more likely) : they wanted to do projects with a good social impact, and it was nice working on those. It is relatively limited though : since you have people and taxes to pay, you have to get profitable projects, and most of the time, they're not the one with the biggest social impact. Doing projects for banks or army led to some debate, and the temporary result was that it was best to work for them and still exist than just close the studio.

A con i heard from the share owners is how to handle shares when someone leaves the studio. Two options are either everyone buys them (but not everyone may have the money immediatly) or the person keeps them (but then you have someone who owns share and does not work here, so it may counteract the purpose of the SCOP). This question is even harder when the person is a founder and/or when the person has to leave involuntary (sickness or wrongdoing). I guess it's best to have it planned beforehand, but it would not prevent all the friction anyway.

Another con was the perception from the non-share owners : there were constantly 2-3 interns, and 1 apprentice. If you consider very low salary, least interesting tasks and no saying in the decision making, it was not that different from a classic studio. And from the owners point of view, it was kinda legitimate : there was not enough money to pay someone 100% for those tasks, they had to be done, and it would be quite weird/complicated to include people staying only 6 months in the decisions making, even worse for the shareholding. Anyway, there was some tension around this, but it's also due to the number of workers and the field of the company.

In general, it still is something nice. I'd say the main advantage was communication to my eyes : the more you can communicate about anything in the company, the better it is. It does not prevent some problems like overwork (it can even be worse since most employees feel some kind of responsibility) or toxic management (in the end, it really depends on your direct superior, when there is some hierarchy) : you have to come up with specific methods to counteract those (for overwork, they tried to track time and to make sure everyone was leaving at the end of the day, and for management, they were in the process of splitting it so everyone would have 2 managers to refer to, in case one was bad). But all of this is probably a (maybe not so) distant future if you're setting one up for two people, so it's probably not very relevant. Probably worth to discuss it now around a drink though, but not crucial.

There has been a lot of pyrrhic wins for the workers in France in the 70s/80s because deindustrialization was unfortunately unstoppable.

Ironically, as everywhere else a lot of those workers have turned to fascism, here’s a long but interesting article about this: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/mar/18/my-mother-the-racist

IIRC something similar happened in Italy when the PCI was still a serious force

Its still souless market fufillment. Instead of being exploited by some suit, the workers now exploit themselves, in order to survive in a market world

Done right, I suspect that employee owned stuff can be an effective tool for social change, as well as providing the option for better working conditions and pay. But its a tool, and all tools have limits.

But are investment systems not a capitalistic feature and thus will be rejected by anarchists?

Why would investment be considered capitalistic? Any neighborhood, shop, union, or council would invest in their futures if they're smart. There's all kinds of investment. I think the only kind anarchist would eschew would be the ones revolving around usury. The favorite of capitalists. Basically what's being discussed.

Why even have the principle of stocks? People have a contract at the company. You can calculate the profit sharing based on the ratio of contract hours + salary compared to the total.

Absolutely. Everyone should be paid fairly for their labor. Anything else would involve usury. Repayment of investment shouldn't be connected to wages in any way. You invest in your company and community because they already benefit you. Anything above wages and debt should be minimal and targeted towards maintenance and reinvestment. Chasing excess profit is absolutely the reason things are unaffordable and people can't afford to live.

Let's say I run a bakery.

Even if you put aside capitalistic characteristics like stock, etc., you need a way to quantify the "cost" of the equipment, the property, etc.

The only way it would be equal is if, for example, everyone brought their own table from home or everyone equally built the oven, and so on. But that's not going to be realistic.

Shares sort of makes sense even in an anarchist system. Let's say you bring a table from home. That could be worth 10 shares or something and then when you leave you could be compensated for, say 15 shares for the amount that table brought.

My original point is that I've wondered how co ops and the like deal with risk and paying for that risk. As I'm navigating a layoff, I've been debating starting my own business but would very much like to run it as a co-op but it doesn't seem right to me that someone that comes in after the business is running to get compensated the same for someone who risked more (e.g. early members, etc.)

I clearly need to do more research into this if I plan on making any serious headway with my business

It's not really the same, Migros is owned by the members of the cooperative, which are 2 million or so, way more than workers (100'000 or so).