Comment on Why don’t more people start profit-sharing companies or co-ops?
jagged_circle@feddit.nl 1 week agoIf EU “credit unions”:
- Are not nonprofits,
- Everyone with a bank account isn’t an equal member and voter in meetings,
- All members aren’t given the opportunity to present proposals and decide how to spend excess revenue
…then it seems like that’s the problem
MrMakabar@slrpnk.net 1 week ago
Credit unions are a type of cooperative bank. The key is that anybody who opens a bank account becomes a member automatically. That is not the case for other types of cooperative banks.
jagged_circle@feddit.nl 1 week ago
What you’re describing is not a cooperative.
The definition of a cooperative is where they’re Democratic and decisions are made collectively by all members.
MrMakabar@slrpnk.net 1 week ago
Customer and member are not the same thing. A member owns a share of the business and has a vote, with cooperatives having one vote per member. That makes it different to company stock. For consumer cooperative like credit unions, most customers will own a share in the company, but it is not a requirement. For example when you withdraw money from a credit unions ATM, you are a customer of the credit union, but are not necessarily a member. There also are workers cooperatives, where the workers of the company are the members.
Also cooperatives are meant to benefit their members, which makes them different from charities.