If worker cooperatives are such an old concept (and they appear to be)...

If worker cooperatives are such an old concept (and they appear to be), why did socialists seemingly ignore them until recently?

Because they're shit and don't work. Read Luxemburg.

Wot.

There was a bigger emphasis on unions and gaining political power.

But they did, Britain for example has even a coop party.

I mean recently as in the last 40-50 years or so.


Elaborate.

Because until de-industrialization began in the west it made more sense to try and unionize all the already employed workers rather than try and cultivate alternative employment models.

This

Socialists never ignored them.

What you are really asking is why Socialists always considered co-ops to be goal, rather than the method.

Answer should be obvious, if you read Marx.

I don't see how in particular.

wut

Because the long-lasting motive of the socialist (and anarchist) movements were more than just introducing a more democratic economic unit or empowering labor, but rather overcoming capitalism altogether. There was therefore a much bigger focus on trying to swing the already existing places where socialists and communist the right way, although this failed.

Coupled with the fact that the more serious, scientific socialists and anarchists alike all saw co-operatives (but also unions) as recuperative to the logic of capitalism or merely with one hand fixing one side but with another hand destroying the other side of the problem (unions empower labor against capital, but are refomist in nature meaning they passify the proletariat, and co-operatives only change the hierarchical coordinates of the workplace which mask the fact that they turn its employees as perfect capitalists).

...

You can't get rid of capitalism by making everybody a capitalist. Democratically sructuring the workplace doesn't get rid of the other insidious elements of capitalism like commodity production, market competition/participation, consumerism and wage labor. It's essentially putting a new coat of paint on capitalism.

Read Bordiga.

But with that logic we got regime after regime of failed state capitalism. How did so many self-proclaimed socialists get so carried away with that and fail to pay attention to the microeconomics?

Can you summarize?

What you're describing is the insidious elements of markets, not capitalism.

Reformists also seek to overcome capitalism, do Leninists not want to abolish Capitalism either because they call for state capitalism first?

Dumb fuck.

forgot to turn off my shitposting flag

Co-ops were never the goal, even now, you fucking retard.

the most stupid thing there is

if to my workplace came some lefty smug prometheus and said "you are free now! you are now a workers cooperative! procreate, reproduce, multiply!", I would subtly tell him to fuck off.

coops are retarded
I don't want to deal with business running, seeking clients for fucking steel beams, wtf

more so, good businessman tries to cut costs and maximise profits
how can you cut costs?
increase productivity above average
and cut wages

there you have your fucking conflict among shareholders
if I'm a welder, don't you dare cut my wage, bcs I'm so important for production process
cut Johns the mechanic wage for all I care

and anyway, why do I not have a share in an oil company?
I don't want share in this shitty firm, I want share in a highprofit company like SHELL!

He never even specified whether or not it was "a goal" or "the goal" but you immediately thought it was the latter since the presence of tankies triggers you so hard.

Markets aren't inherently bad on their own, but when production is centered around a market a la capitalism, then those problems arise

First step in the incrementalist path toward a fully automated post-work society


Lol

there are way better theorists on this topic

if I'm a welder, don't you dare cut my wage, bcs I'm so important for production process cut Johns the mechanic wage for all I care
What if the co-ops are required to have a voting procedure for the budget where your individual vote for lowering the remuneration for particular tasks only counts if you are also up for doing that task at that lower remuneration level you recommend?

Look at the post again fuckwad,

Yes, he left out the article before "goal", but the fact that he said "the method" implies he meant to say "the goal"

So.

because
doesn't make any sense

Are you literally retarded?

For ML co-ops are a "socialist mode of production", i.e. part of intermediate goal that is Socialist state. And the endgoal is Communism.

Co-ops become a method only when you achieved Socialist state. I.e. control over the Means of Production. They cannot overcome Capitalist state. They do not magically grant you MoP.

What is there to derp so hard about?