United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives

Cooperatives by themselves represent little pockets of socialized labor where profits aren't channeled to the capitalist class and thus serve socialism by essentially depriving capitalists of profit.

As Bernstein put it, "Here is an instrument by means of which the working class can commandeer a considerable portion of the social wealth which would otherwise serve to increase and thus strengthen the propertied classes, and this without direct destruction of life and without recourse to the use of force." However, cooperatives can also be part of larger worker-led organizations, like the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives, the Mondragon Cooperatives in Spain, or the Emilia-Romagna Cooperative System in Italy.

These become networks of cooperatives to feed off each other, to collaborate and lobby for their own interests.

And financial institutions aimed at cooperatives like Seed Commons in the US or the Caja Laboral in Spain can help fund them.

I know the skeptics love their spreadsheets, so let's roll up our sleeves and look at the data.

The United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives has actually published a series of case studies showing that decision-making speed can improve dramatically when the people who are on the front line get to approve operational tweaks without waiting for a distant board to sign off.

Think of a bakery that needs to adjust its oven temperature on a cold morning, in a traditional corporation that request might sit in a queue for days.

In a cooperative, the baker can make the call on the spot, keeping the dough rising and the customers happy.