Usually the problem with work at home businesses is isolation, lack of resources, inability to achieve “economies of scale”,etc.
Yesterday, someone lead me to check out this entry at Wikipedia on the Mondragon Corporation. It’s like no “corporation” you’re used to hearing about. Started in 1956 with 5 employee owners, in under 50 years, quite a transformation had taken place:
At the end of 2008 it was providing employment for 92,773 people working in 256 companies in four areas of activity: Finance, Industry, Retail and Knowledge. The MONDRAGON Co-operatives operate in accordance with a business model based on People and the Sovereignty of Labour, which has made it possible to develop highly participative companies rooted in solidarity, with a strong social dimension but without neglecting business excellence. The Co-operatives are owned by their worker-members and power is based on the principle of one person, one vote.
Mondragon is a network of employee owned and operated cooperatives who network together to achieve economies of scale and help each other reach their economic goals. That way, people’s labor isn’t simply another “commodity”:
In general, wages at Mondragon, as compared to similar jobs in local industries, are 30% or less at the management levels and equivalent at the middle management, technical and professional levels. As a result, Mondragon worker-owners at the lower wage levels earn an average of 13% higher wages than workers in similar businesses. In addition, the ratios are further diminished because Spain uses a progressive tax rate, so those with higher wages pay higher taxes.
Of course, this is talking about factory settings but could some application be made to work at home businesses so people in a given area could help each other improve their business and income?
How could a network of home based businesses do this? It’s worth thinking about. If you know of working examples, I’d like to hear about them… please leave a comment.
You can read more about Mondragon here…
(Warning: the people at this magazine who tout “Mondragon” don’t seem to realize that this model is the exact opposite of the state sponsored socialism they seem to support in the US!)
Bob Firestone on June 18th, 2010 at 7:46 am
It’s a cliche but TEAM stands for Together Everyone Achieves More. When 10 people work together that $200 ad suddenly becomes $20 each. Splitting the cost and benefit of costs especially marketing costs can open doors that would be closed for those who choose to walk alone.