Reply #23: Co-ops are not as common as they should be...

[Solon]

My Grandmother and one of my Cousins are part of an energy cooperative, an electric utility, where both workers and customers(in their case customers) are members. They seem to be gaining a little bit, hell, I never even heard of cooperatives until just a few years ago, outside of television shows about New York City and co-op apartments. But they still aren't as common as they are in other nations like Spain.

ON EDIT: I think the key isn't whether the business in question is profit driven or not, but rather how its structured internally, publicly traded corporations can be considered, generally, to be driven by an aristocracy, but they are called shareholders rather than nobles. Small businesses, that aren't publicly traded are more like miniature fiefdoms or totalitarian dictatorships, with the conduct of the business and all the power(and wealth) accumulated being given to one person, the owner.

Non-profits can be just as authoritarian internally as for profit businesses, so that isn't necessary the issue, co-ops can, again, be either non-profit or for profit, the difference between them and "traditional" businesses is that they are more democratic in the power and wealth sharing internally.

Also, another thing, just because a business is structured as a dictatorship, such as a small business, doesn't mean its horrible to work for, a "benevolent" dictatorship is possible in this scenario. Its not right, however, because all the power is still vested in one individual or a small group of people. This is inequality by default. The dictator in question may be a nice person, but they are still a dictator.