European Tribune - Community, Politics & Progress.

Where are the quakers and why chocolate?

by ceebs
Tue Oct 9th, 2007 at 03:11:23 PM EST

Reading Colmans elegant rant earlier today got me to finally writing the end of something I've been meaning to finish off from my half written pile for ages, so here it is. (and I finally have finished a diary so hopefully those of you who have been waiting for one won't injure yourselves with shock and surprise that I have finally finished one and posted it)

During the years following the industrial revolution a group of industrialists arose in the UK who ran highly successful businesses, but these businesses were not run entirely on an ethos of exploitation. the one thing they appear to have in common apart from a desire to treat their workers as human being s is their religion. they all appear to be quakers. Follow me below the fold to hear about them and to ask the interesting questions.

On ethical capitalism — promoted by Migeru

I want to talk mainly about two families in the chocolate industry and the ideas they espoused. the two families were the Cadburys and the Rowntrees.

The Cadburys ran a chocolate factory in central Birmingham. when they decided to expand instead of just throwing up another factory in the centre of the city, instead they opted for building an entire community out in the suburbs at what became the village of
Bournville

Loyal and hard-working workers were treated with great respect and relatively high wages and good working conditions; Cadbury also pioneered pension schemes, joint works committees and a full staff medical service. Indeed, the Cadburys were particularly concerned with the health of their workforce, incorporating garden areas into Bournville's plans, and encouraging swimming, walking and all forms of outdoor sports.
Later, George Cadbury bought 120 acres (0.5 km²) of land close to the works and planned, at his own expense, a model village which would 'alleviate the evils of modern more cramped living conditions'.

here was an entire business that was based around caring for its workers and yet it wasn't driven into the ground by firms competing by exploitng their workforce.

The next Family are the Rowntrees, another Quaker family of chocolate barons the head of the family was Joseph Rountree, after who the four trusts are named
the first is the Joseph Rountree foundation which funds research into social problems. Initially research into poverty was done by Seebohm Rountree, one of Josephs sons, who did groundbreaking research that proved that poverty existed outside the slums of London. At the time it was assumed that poverty only occurred in sink areas in London, Seebohm found poverty in York, and later research similarly in rural areas.

His religion impacted on his business practices and he believed that the existence of companies which paid low wages was bad for the "nation's economy and humanity". [16] With his father, Joseph Rowntree, a number of employee benefits were implemented including wage increases, an eight hour day and a pension scheme. In 1904 a doctor was employed to offer free advice to all employees and this was followed a short time later by the creation of a dental department with a resident dentist.

once again we have a company with an ethical approach to its workforce that was not immediately overrun by the extremes of capitalism.

So with these two examples, I ask where are the modern equivalents where is the modern large company that has a similar ethical outlook to its workers? and why did the production of chocolate result in companies with such a positive moral view?

. Home
. About
. Contact
. New User Guide
. FAQ
. Search
. Search (Google)
. Archives (Wiki)
Art, Economics, Energy, Environment, EU Politics, Mech & Tech, By Country

Username:
Password:

. Make a new account
. Reset password

Where are the quakers and why chocolate? | 39 comments (39 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Where are the quakers and why chocolate? (4.00 / 8)

The cynical view of course is that the chocolate business provided large excess profits through the exploitation of the cocoa producers at the time. Some might even say that's still partially a problem today.

Perhaps more constructively, what's distinctive here is that you had firms oriented around the goals of the owning family, rather than a diffuse (and remote) set of anonymous shareholders. The sadness of course is that both Rowntree (now owned by Nestle) and Cadbury entered the capital markets eventually and, arguably, lost their soul.

Possible firms who might be seen as still showing some alternative features:

John Lewis Partnership
Porsche (esp. their purchase of part of Volkswagen)
BMW (for all their failures with Rover, they did try)

ummm... I'm sure there are other examples from countries in Europe.

It's noticeable that I have one UK company and 2 German ones listed. The German system has allowed for greater survival of family firms, where in the UK they were forced into the capital markets more often.

Despite this, there are actually lots of smaller firms in the UK run in ways that run a spectrum from
"amazingly ethical" to "only slightly better than a multinational."

At one point, the Body Shop certainly counted in the list. There are others I've read about, I'll have to dig around and see if I can remember them.

by Metatone (metatone [a|t] gmail (dot) com) on Mon Oct 1st, 2007 at 01:19:42 PM EST

Actually (4.00 / 4)

40% of European quoted companies are still family controlled, and are seen as better able to take the long view.

But you see every kind of behavior. Peugeot is seen as paternalistic, but it's still in a ruthless environment; the big retailers are all still family controlled in France but would not be noted for their social side.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

by Jerome a Paris (jeromeguillet@yahoo.fr) on Mon Oct 1st, 2007 at 03:48:54 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Actually (4.00 / 3)

Cargill and Koch came to mind from my oil days: and you wouldn't find more ruthless bastards anywhere....

by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Mon Oct 1st, 2007 at 03:56:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Actually (none / 1)

This is a major point of distinction between the EU and US. One interesting paper written on this is Political Determinants of Corporate Governance.

The claim I advance is that the large firm's ownership structure is too often analyzed as one arising solely from organizational imperatives and technical foundations. The political and social predicates that make the large firm possible and that shape its form can deeply affect which firms, which ownership structures, and which governance arrangements survive and prosper, and which do not.
To be concrete, much political analysis can be made to fit a principal-agent model. For ownership to separate from control, managers must be sufficiently aligned with shareholders. But the ways in which some polities settle conflict - or the ways in which the corporate players team up to work together - can affect the degree to which managers ally with shareholders and, concomitantly, how easy it is for ownership and control to separate.
Managers' agendas can differ from shareholders'; tying managers tightly to shareholders has been central to American corporate governance. But in other economically advanced nations, ownership is not diffuse but concentrated. It is concentrated in no small measure because the delicate threads that tie managers to shareholders in the public firm fray easily in common political environments, such as those in common in continental European in the late 20th century. Politics can press managers to stabilize employment, to forego some profit-maximizing risks with the firm, and to use up capital in place rather than to downsize when markets no longer are aligned with the firm's production capabilities; these political tendencies correspond closely to managers' historical tendencies, even in the United States. Since managers must have discretion in the public firm, how they use that discretion is crucial to stockholders, and common political pressures induce managers to stray farther than otherwise from their shareholders' profit-maximizing goals. Owners may be reluctant to turn the firm over to independent managers if managers would more willingly expand and make hard-to-reverse investments. The polity may refuse to give distant shareholders the tools that roughly align managers with shareholders, and it may denigrate the private means that align the two. And some of these political results are easily to implement in weakly competitive product markets, the kind of markets that give managers yet more discretion. Hence, public firms in such polities, all else equal, have higher managerial agency costs, and large-block shareholding has persisted as shareholders' best remaining way to control those costs. Indeed, when we line up the world's richest nations on a left-right political continuum and then line them up on a close-to-diffuse ownership continuum, the two correlate powerfully. True, the effects on total social welfare are ambiguous; such polities may enhance total social welfare, but if they do, they do so with fewer public firms than less socially responsive nations. These results strongly suggest that the corporate governance and ownership characteristics are linked, directly or indirectly, to basic political configurations in the wealthy West. European structures, for example, may link more tightly to Europe's late 20th-century politics than to technical institutions, and the technical institutions may derive from late 20th-century politics as much as anything else. We thus uncover not only a political explanation for ownership concentration in Europe, but also a crucial political prerequisite to the rise of the public firm in the United States, namely the weakness of social democratic pressures on the American business firm.

Roe also has a book out on this topic. At the turn of the (last) century, the situation was reversed with American firms being largely private and European firms more diffusely held.

All of which points to the existence of deeper forces at work that have little to do with the relative merit of American and European culture.

And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg

by ManfromMiddletown (manfrommiddletown at lycos dot com) on Tue Oct 9th, 2007 at 03:54:18 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Actually (none / 0)

To be concrete, much political analysis can be made to fit a principal-agent model.
For ownership to separate from control, managers must be sufficiently aligned with shareholders.

It is my case that the Principal/Agency conflict is irrelevant when "Capital Providers" and "Capital Users" (eg managers) share production and/or revenues through membership of a "Capital Partnership", using a US LLC or a UK LLP to do so.

In a partnership model "shareholders" and management/staff - or maybe Capital and Labour - work WITH as opposed to FOR each other.

In other words, conventional Companies/ Corporations are obsolete.

by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Tue Oct 9th, 2007 at 04:05:32 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Actually (none / 1)

That seems in the least unduly utopian short of a situation in which the company is owned outright by it's employees. And even in the case of the Mondragon cooperative, there are issues with different classes of shareholders.

And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg

by ManfromMiddletown (manfrommiddletown at lycos dot com) on Tue Oct 9th, 2007 at 04:08:53 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Actually (none / 1)

That seems in the least unduly utopian short of a situation in which the company is owned outright by it's employees.

As I said, Companies/Corporations are obsolete: a US LLC while called a Company is in effect a partnership.

A UK LLP while called a "Partnership" is legally a corporate body (like a "Corporation") with limited liability.

And, 'er, that's it: an LLP's governing protocol need not even be in writing.

With such "open" partnership-based entities anyone may be a member, whether:

(a)Operating members(formerly known as "Directors" = "costs" and "employees" = "costs"); or

(b)Capital members - financiers (formerly known as either "shareholders" = "owners" or "lenders" = "costs"); or even

(c)Suppliers (formerly known as "costs").

It's not easy to free your mind from the shackles of "Corporation"/ "Joint Stock Limited Liability Company thinking...they are NOT the only game in town.

And even in the case of the Mondragon cooperative, there are issues with different classes of shareholders.

.....because it's a genetically modified form of "Corporation" and hence an "Organisation" which inevitably takes on a life of its own and suffers from the "Principal/Agency" problem of all companies.

by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Tue Oct 9th, 2007 at 04:31:08 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Actually (4.00 / 2)

That paper is woefully inadequate, ignoring as it does, the role of the German banking system (for example) in providing family firms with financing that in the US (for example) tends not to be available without going down the shareholding route.

by Metatone (metatone [a|t] gmail (dot) com) on Tue Oct 9th, 2007 at 05:30:08 PM EST
[ Parent ]

At one point, the Body Shop certainly counted (none / 0)

If Jon Entine's reporting is to believed, Anita Roddick was full of shit from the get go:

Roddick's Body Shop: An Empire Built on a Ruse?

(You have to actually email Jon Entine in order to get a copy of his much referenced "Shattered Image: Is the Body Shop Too Good to Be True?".

The key to culture is religion. Daniel Dennett @ TED (Feb 2006)

by marco (cowannar at gmail punkt com) on Tue Oct 9th, 2007 at 09:18:45 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: At one point, the Body Shop certainly counted (none / 1)

Unless there are other, more reliable sources for such claims, I wouldn't trust Jon Entine. He is a member of the American Enterprise Institute and an editor at NGOWatch, a propaganda tool set up by the AEI to fight NGOs (like Human Rights Watch) and undermine their influence.

"Ne te courbe que pour aimer..." René Char

by Melanchthon on Wed Oct 10th, 2007 at 02:51:49 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: At one point, the Body Shop certainly counted (none / 0)

Hmmm. That might explain why there didn't seem to be many web pages criticizing The Body Shop that did not reference Entine's writing, if indeed Entine's piece was a fallacious piece of AEI propaganda.

Having said that, Scott Simon broadcast this piece four days after Anita Roddick's death when NPR had broadcast a laudatory obituary of her, and so he presumably had time to reflect on the merits of Entine's 1994 article, about which he says:

It is one of the most devastasting investigations I have ever read.
Mr. Entine established that the products The Body Shop called "100% pure" were in fact only about 1% so. They were mostly made from cheap cosmetic petrochemicals which The Body Shop did not list on its store signs. Scientists pointed out that ingredients like avocado, banana, green apple, and grapefruit would rot within days without chemical preservatives. <...>
Dame Anita scolded a meeting of the International Chambre of Commerce for not boycotting products from China. When Jon Entine got to ask her why The Body Shop bought packaging from Chinese manufacturers, she said, "I was talking about what business should do, not what we actually do. My job is to inspire. But we have a bloody business to run, after all."
The Body Shop famously advertised that its products weren't tested on animals. But Jon Entine pointed out that most of the ingredients in its products were tested on animals. So it changed its trademark phrase from "Not tested on animals" to "Against animal testing".

I guess I did not question the veracity of this piece, first of all, because I (perhaps too blindly) trust NPR and Scott Simon.

But also because I know someone who has worked at AVEDA, another "all natural cosmetics" company, for fifteen years and who has explained to me how excruciatingly difficult it is to find combinations of "organic" ingredients that not only are effective but that can last without chemical preservatives long enough to be sold and used. He did not mention The Body Shop in particular, but he did say that it is so difficult to produce truly "pure" products that false marketing -- as Simon and Entine accuse The Body Shop of -- is pretty common in this "all natural cosmetics" industry.

But Entine's article was written in 1994. It is possible that The Body Shop changed its ingredients and/or its marketing/advertising to be technically honest, beyond just changing its slogan from "Not tested on animals" to "Against animal testing". (I admit though, I cannot find any corroborating sources to verify that The Body Shop's slogan formerly used to be "Not tested on animals".)

(By the way, another possible explanation for the lack of critical coverage on The Body Shop might be the fear of litigation against anyone that challenges its integrity.

According to a 1994 New York Times article:

The company's do-good image has been challenged from time to time, and the company has a reputation for responding aggressively. After a critical documentary by Britain's Channel Four, the Body Shop filed a libel suit in London and won a $425,000 judgment.
Last weekend, the Body Shop distributed a six-page dossier on Mr. Entine, raising questions about his reporting techniques and saying he was conducting "a single-minded campaign of vilification" against the company. Earlier this year, the company threatened to sue Vanity Fair magazine, which was then considering printing a version of Mr. Entine's article. Vanity Fair later rejected the article, and people there said the decision was not determined by the Body Shop's threats.
In its statement today, the Body Shop said it was "reviewing" its legal options in response to the Business Ethics article.
"The Body Shop's goal here is to isolate this as a story between me and them," Mr. Entine said in an interview.
Body Shop's Green Image is Attacked

Incidentally, Entine's article was apparently printed by NationBooks in a 2007 anthology titled Killed: Great Journalism Too Hot To Print, which may be why the only way to access Entine's 1994 article is to email him for it [i.e. copyright issues].)

The key to culture is religion. Daniel Dennett @ TED (Feb 2006)

by marco (cowannar at gmail punkt com) on Wed Oct 10th, 2007 at 05:44:08 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: At one point, the Body Shop certainly counted (4.00 / 2)

bruno-ken:

I admit though, I cannot find any corroborating sources to verify that The Body Shop's slogan formerly used to be "Not tested on animals".)

I have a vague recollection that that is true, and that the materials used by them have been in use either for long enough not to need testing, or have been tested by someone else long enough ago to be outside patent and so usable. I seem to remember thinking when I heard this that it was pretty much Sophistry. but that their argument was that they weren't going to cause any more animals to be tested upon, which is fair enough. I have a feeling that They were made to change their claim as rival companies could test the constituents on animals which would make their claims untrue.

Life should consist in at least fifty percent pure waste of time, and the rest doing what you please.

by ceebs (bunchofwankers (at) gmail (dot) com) on Wed Oct 10th, 2007 at 06:09:08 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Where are the quakers and why chocolate? (4.00 / 9)

Interesting Diary ceebs.

It was not just chocolate the Quakers got up to:

Robert Owen

New Lanark World Heritage

provides plenty of material for the next ET Scottish gathering. (plus Solveig tells me there's a really nice hotel etc on site)

In Norway

Hans Nielsen Hauge

was an outcast from the established Lutheran church, and indeed imprisoned for years because his proselytising was in breach of the law.

What is less well-known is that he founded businesses all over Norway, wherever he went (deriving no personal benefit), and was probably one of the principal catalysts for the transition of Norway from an agrarian society.

by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Mon Oct 1st, 2007 at 01:51:31 PM EST

Re: Where are the quakers and why chocolate? (4.00 / 4)

Owen was a really fascinating character. Solid industrialist, competent thinker, self-destructively incompetent political activist. Although the third one of these is what is most commonly remembered, I found his writings interesting in that he put together a clear and coherent notion of cultural determinism well before the idea caught on, and put together an interesting argument that the main problems of the industrial world were caused by the cultural conditioning of the laborers and managers alike.

by Zwackus on Wed Oct 3rd, 2007 at 01:50:50 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Where are the quakers and why chocolate? (4.00 / 8)

A diary! Hooray :)

The Cadbury family was used as an example of the roles of women in a historical context for one of my social policy modules. The women were initially heavily involved with the running of the company and in later generations were forced to take a backseat and were excluded from working because it wasn't the done thing for women anymore. This is how they later became founders of philanthropy and then social services in Britain.

But partly the approach (and I've read this about someone else who owned a textile factory and can't remember who it was) was to provide a workforce that were willing to be loyal and work hard and the Cadbury's could see that a decent standard of living was of benefit in generating this. I imagine religion was heavily involved as well. Was Bourneville teetotal? Ridding society of it's evils was largely behind the philanthropic approach, and provision of accommodation and their own village helped to ensure greater control over the workers.

The bloke who owned a textile factory actually set up a creche and a school providing education for the children of the workers. But this wasn't entirely selfless because it was expected that the children would go to work in the factory after a certain age, and they would be better educated, better workers. By ensuring children were in school, it enabled the parents to work longer hours and not need to take time off.

Two sides to the coin I suppose I am saying. In that the motives behind reducing inequalities weren't entirely selfless and religion was often used to control. But then again, the conditions for workers were much better than they could have expected elsewhere.

Ad astra per aspera

by In Wales (inwales aaat eurotrib.com) on Mon Oct 1st, 2007 at 02:19:22 PM EST

Re: Where are the quakers and why chocolate? (4.00 / 3)

Try and remember about the textile business -- the textile industry has always been hard on its workers, so a counter-example would be interesting..?

When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Mon Oct 1st, 2007 at 03:04:00 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Where are the quakers and why chocolate? (4.00 / 3)

I think it was connected with the same module as the Cadbury's. Will go back through the book when I have a chance. Unlikely to be tonight though
* waves thesis around *

Ad astra per aspera

by In Wales (inwales aaat eurotrib.com) on Mon Oct 1st, 2007 at 03:08:28 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Where are the quakers and why chocolate? (4.00 / 3)

The aforementioned Robert Owen's mills at New Lanark were a comprehensive live-work community, wherein laborers were reasonbly fed and housed, their hours were regulated, and their children educated. It was a marvel of the time, but Owen sold the mills to raise money for his utopian projects in the US, the complete and abject failure of which largely discredited him.

by Zwackus on Wed Oct 3rd, 2007 at 01:53:26 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Where are the quakers and why chocolate? (4.00 / 8)

There's a good note here on Alice Clark of the Clark's shoes family firm. The Clarks were Quakers and ran an ethical company.

Alice Clark was also a feminist and a historian. I have (and have read with great interest) her book on the Working Life of Women in the Seventeenth Century.

When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Mon Oct 1st, 2007 at 03:00:18 PM EST

Re: Where are the quakers and why chocolate? (4.00 / 2)

The Clarks were Quakers and ran an ethical company.

They still do.

Other companies that have quaker origins:

Lloyds-TSB
Barclays
Price Waterhouse
Swan Hunter
Huntley & Palmer
Fry's

Abraham Darby was a quaker and the Wedgewoods were Unitarians, so a significant fraction of the Industrial Revolution is down to quakers or their fellow travellers.

-- #include witty_sig.h

by silburnl on Wed Oct 10th, 2007 at 05:26:10 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Where are the quakers and why chocolate? (4.00 / 4)

Hi. This has nothing to do with chocolate and business ethics. Though I think that calling Cadburys "chocolate" is incorrect. Technically, they make confectionery. In fact, it's downright illegal to call some of that stuff chocolate in the US! (Seriously.)

Anyway, this is completely off topic. But you'd written a diary asking for book recommendations for your library, and I gave you a snotty answer. Well, I was reshelving some books a few days ago, and came across one and thought, "Everyone should have this book." Then I remembered your diary. So, Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities. Get it.

"This is nothing compared to how Putin rigged Eurovision."

by poemless on Mon Oct 1st, 2007 at 03:38:42 PM EST

Re: Where are the quakers and why chocolate? (4.00 / 5)

Ah that was A day when I was getting snotty answers from everywhere in real life, so don't let it worry you.

right so that's another book to go on my list.

As for the chocolate definition, there is a similar situation in parts of europe.

Life should consist in at least fifty percent pure waste of time, and the rest doing what you please.

by ceebs (bunchofwankers (at) gmail (dot) com) on Mon Oct 1st, 2007 at 05:07:12 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Where are the quakers and why chocolate? (4.00 / 3)

I've always maintained that such companies (and co-operatives) were squeezed by political hostility from both right wing shareholder capitalist interests as well as those on the left whose marxist based views made them explicitly hostile to such organisations.

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Mon Oct 1st, 2007 at 05:41:38 PM EST

Re: Where are the quakers and why chocolate? (4.00 / 3)

I think there's an element of that, but the practical issue is that Co-ops have:

(a) always found it difficult to raise the capital they need for development, being reluctant to borrow (even where banks are willing to lend) and being able to offer only limited returns to equity investors;

(b) suffered from a governance structure which, while "democratic", tends to be bureaucratic, risk averse, and subject to capture by management (very few of whom combine entrepreneurship and cooperative ideals).

by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Mon Oct 1st, 2007 at 07:26:55 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Supid Question #56 (4.00 / 5)

Why were (are?) Co-ops reluctant to borrow?

by Nomad on Tue Oct 2nd, 2007 at 03:44:19 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Supid Question #56 (4.00 / 5)

Risk.

by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Tue Oct 2nd, 2007 at 02:48:09 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Where are the quakers and why chocolate? (4.00 / 5)

Let's reverse the question:

Instead of why would you have an ethical business person, how about why would Quakers form businesses?

I believe that in part the answer is that Quakers were forbidden access to things like academia and government because of their religious beliefs.

There weren't a lot of other choices. Modern day quakers seem to be rather heavily into academia and government and rather lite on business and self employment.

As far as chocolate goes, alcohol was heavily frowned upon.

We are for Justice and Mercy, and Truth and Peace, and true Freedom. Edward Burroughs 1659

by edwin on Mon Oct 1st, 2007 at 08:45:49 PM EST

Re: Where are the quakers and why chocolate? (4.00 / 6)

I can't come up with a modern day example, but I think that means I don't know much about modern day businesses (I work for the state) so....going back a bit in time, in Italy, we have the Olivetti brothers.

I tried to find a decent link, but none seems to exist. They keys were:

The workers were respected and offer MAJOR advantages (e.g.--a limousine--the Olivetti limousine--to pick up the about-to-be-mother, and then flowers delivered to her bedside
The workers' canteen, excellent food at decent prices
Creches, summer facilities for the kids, all at minimal prices or no prices. Benefits of working for Olivetti
A family structure--with the agedness and death of the great mind, smaller minds followed
No-one doing any work for hours at a time. Taking pleasure in graft
Seriously bad business decisions; moving away from quality; quality there, but crappy production, or crappy this and that
Policitical figures take over. Tangentopoli. High level graft. The end of Olivetti.
Casa-integrazione. Two years on a full salary, no job, go! Enjoy! Retire at fifty-eight. Full salary until the pension kicks in.

So I think the family model dies with the patriarch or matriarch, unless wider values (the co-operative! Chris and co-operatives should get on--but they don't, it seems--he's a positivist, I had one too many beers, and...co-operatives...running as LLPs, why not?

Worker ownership of the means of production: the people who do the work own the results of their labour--spread as widely as possible, and what are the results? Should those who work in the oil industry spend their evenings breathing in exhaust fumes?

Heh hack cough ouch!

Should those who dig coal spend their afternoons breathing in the fumes from coal-powered electricity stations?

And are they members of a co-operative?

Equal shares for equal input, where "input" is a multi-layered and complex beast but has to do with inside-outside interaction...

I suppose the modern day Cadbury types are--heh, according to A Swedish Kind of Death, some of them are financing free software, or maybe there are some high-tech companies that are operating as co-operatives, enlightened--but no more capable of taking on the huge monoliths of industrial production than you or I....too small, and destined to be too small unless we all become equals in the input/output...

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Wed Oct 3rd, 2007 at 07:22:47 PM EST

Re: Where are the quakers and why chocolate? (4.00 / 2)

Tangentopoli

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Wed Oct 3rd, 2007 at 07:30:41 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Where are the quakers and why chocolate? (4.00 / 6)

Worker co-operatives can run into problems once they get bigger than a certain size. You inevitably need someone making the strategic decisions, and it can stop being co-operative at that point - or the decisions stop being made.

I've been thinking that one answer is to create a cellular economy. All entities are small co-ops. All trade with each other. No one works for anyone else. Co-ops and individuals leave public work records so that their successes and failures can be rated by anyone who wants to work with them. People are free to join or leave on a project basis, and money - effectively royalties - are paid out accordingly. Setting a limit on size and encouraging mobility means that monopolies become impossible, although useful IP can still quickly be propagated across all cells and will feed money back to the originators.

There are some obvious problems with this - e.g. it's not very handy for industrialised production, unless you make for some special exceptions. But there's something appealing about an organic approach that I think is worth thinking about in more detail.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Tue Oct 9th, 2007 at 03:51:40 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Where are the quakers and why chocolate? (4.00 / 3)

Spot on. Working with not for.

And it's the use of simple organic and scalable legal protocols that enable the sort of "chaordic" structures you refer to.

Not an "Organisation" but a network of individuals "self organising" non-hierarchically towards a common purpose within a consensual framework agreement.

A "managing partner" who may be delegated ("management upwards") a leadership role, and receive an agreed proportion of revenues for so doing, is an essential element.

by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Tue Oct 9th, 2007 at 04:13:22 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Where are the quakers and why chocolate? (none / 1)

I've been thinking about an organizational model very much along these lines. Except that these time/goal-limited, project-based "cells" would operate within a larger "mutual aid" network, by which I mean, they would all pitch in some flat percentage of revenues or income to a shared "welfare" or "insurance" pool, to cover medical insurance, temporary relief when work cannot be found or operations go in the red, and -- maybe more ambitiously -- to invest in other "cells""co-ops""projects" that are economically promising but also respect the operating principles and values of such network.

(Actually, Chris, I have been meaning to write to you about how such a networked cooperative entity could be structured using the Open Corporate model.)

The key to culture is religion. Daniel Dennett @ TED (Feb 2006)

by marco (cowannar at gmail punkt com) on Tue Oct 9th, 2007 at 08:54:38 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Where are the quakers and why chocolate? (none / 1)

Drop me a line, by all means. It sounds as though the Scottish/Nordic work I'm doing with Solveig may be very relevant.

by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Tue Oct 9th, 2007 at 09:09:07 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Where are the quakers and why chocolate? (none / 1)

Thanks very much. It's still half-baked, as every time I take it out of the oven, people I ask to taste it sputter all over it. But maybe it's time I bounce it off you to see if it's even close to realistic from a legal structure point of view.

The key to culture is religion. Daniel Dennett @ TED (Feb 2006)

by marco (cowannar at gmail punkt com) on Tue Oct 9th, 2007 at 09:22:43 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Where are the quakers and why chocolate? (4.00 / 4)

The Hershey's chocolate company in the US did the same thing.

Odd.

Maybe it has something to do with ready access to the product?

From Chocolate.Org

Chocolate is a psychoactive food.
Placebo-controlled trials suggest chocolate consumption may subtly enhance cognitive performance. As reported by Dr Bryan Raudenbush (2006), scores for verbal and visual memory are raised by eating chocolate. Impulse-control and reaction-time are also improved. This study needs replicating.
A "symposium" at the 2007 American Association for the Advancement of Science - hyped as a potentially "mind-altering experience" - presented evidence that chocolate consumption can be good for the brain. Experiments with chocolate-fed mice suggest that flavanol-rich cocoa stimulates neurovascular activity, enhancing memory and alertness.
Chocolate contains small quantities of anandamide, an endogenous cannabinoid found in the brain. Sceptics claim one would need to consume several pounds of chocolate to gain any very noticeable psychoactive effects; and eat a lot more to get fully stoned. Yet it's worth noting that N-oleolethanolamine and N-linoleoylethanolamine, two structural cousins of anandamide present in chocolate, both inhibit the metabolism of anandamide. It has been speculated that they promote and prolong the feeling of well-being induced by anandamide.
Chocolate also contains tryptophan. Tryptophan is an essential amino acid. It is the rate-limiting step in the production of the mood-modulating neurotransmitter serotonin. Enhanced serotonin function typically diminishes anxiety.
One UK study of the human electroencephalographic (EEG) response to chocolate suggests that the odour of chocolate significantly reduces theta activity in the brain. Reduced theta activity is associated with enhanced relaxation.
Phenylethylamine is itself a naturally occurring trace amine in the brain. Phenylethylamine releases dopamine in the mesolimbic pleasure-centres; it peaks during orgasm.

H'mmm

Perhaps we need to fund a chocolate company in order to derive useful and scientific data?

Och nu den svenska kocken bakar en Alaskan älg jägare. Bonk! Bonk! Bonk!

by ATinNM on Tue Oct 9th, 2007 at 11:52:18 PM EST

Re: Where are the quakers and why chocolate? (4.00 / 4)

ETopia's Open Corporate: chocolate production, sale, and consumption for, er, research purposes.

When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Wed Oct 10th, 2007 at 02:24:44 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Where are the quakers and why chocolate? (4.00 / 2)

Hmmm...that's an Open Corpulent then...

by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Wed Oct 10th, 2007 at 04:59:33 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Where are the quakers and why chocolate? (4.00 / 5)

It is said that the Quakers came to the new world to do good, and ended up doing well.

I think the treatment of workers, and customers, arose from from the Quaker testimonies of simplicity, peace, integrity, community, and equality. This lineup is sometimes acronymed as "SPICE", but this is sometimes frowned upon as pushing dangerously close to a creed.

Simplicity, from the (un)decoration of meeting houses, to the way of life, dress, and speech of Friends, meant among many other things an avoidance of intoxicants. As success in a consumer business meant, at the time, mostly brewing and distilling, this closed off the most profitable businesses. Hence, chocolate.

A great many Quaker fortunes in the US were based on retail. Here, the integrity for which quakers were known, caused quaker stores to have innovations like posted prices that were the same for everyone, and the accurate return of change from purchases. It was said that you could send a child to a quaker business and not get cheated.

Equality was a Quaker belief that meant that women could have an equal voice in human affairs, and, after a lamentable delay, that quakers put aside slaveholding, and worked to end that institution.

Community was taken seriously by Friends. It may have arisen from the fact that early Quakers were often in prison for not paying war taxes, insulting the established Church, or refusing to take off their hat for the local bigwig, and that their families had to be taken care of.

There is much to be said on this topic, but that's about all I have time for now.

by dmun on Wed Oct 10th, 2007 at 09:35:06 AM EST

Re: Where are the quakers and why chocolate? (none / 1)

Thank you

Life should consist in at least fifty percent pure waste of time, and the rest doing what you please.

by ceebs (bunchofwankers (at) gmail (dot) com) on Wed Oct 10th, 2007 at 03:52:10 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Where are the quakers and why chocolate? | 39 comments (39 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Go to: [ European Tribune Homepage : Top of page : Top of comments ]