Lots of people being sacked, redundantised, etc… due to the GFC (allegedly). In the past those who are regulars will realise I have been an advocate for cooperative business models. So ask yourself this would a coop put off a staff member for no good reason? short answer no.

So is the answer to make all business a device owned by the community? Well probably not. but the bigger issue is how businesses are perceived. xyz Co put off x No of staff oh woe is the state of things, they are bad guys etc…

Here is what I see are the real issues here, outsourcing, and diversification.

If a Co outsourced all but it’s core activities, things would not fall far in one organisation. and if they diversified they would not be relying on one income stream. Lets explore that.

Co a sells widgets and makes a profit, the profit goes into an investment fund and they buy property to rent out. They get another income stream. In producing the widgets for one market they recognise a different target market needs a similar widget, and they can do it with a few tweaks, therefore they develop another income stream. So with the profits being (hopefully) greater, they can put more into other investments e.g. term deposits with a bank.

That’s the basics folks, make some, add some, make some more and so forth. The aim being if one goes down, the biz is still intact to some degree. it’s simple but it should work. If it was a cooperative then it might just work better with the right foundation and philosophy supporting it.