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No I haven't.
But I expect that the search for people who want to participate in an expanding cooperative is the bigger problem.
Do you know of a cooperative that wants to issue bonds?
I recommend learning a bit about the subject before arguing about it. Cooperatives don't issue bonds because nobody is going to buy these bonds.
Or cooperatives don't issue bonds because they believe that nobody will buy them.
It's the perfect investment for people who don't want to participate in the usual capitalism.
If you ever try starting a coop you'll find out how hard it is to get investment in practice. It's kind of hilarious that you think nobody thought of these obvious things to try before you.
It's not new but also not tried in a convincing way.
I believe that it is possible and that it's worth trying until a working combination is found.
What do you base your claim that this has not been tried in a convincing way on?
Ok, you were convinced. I mean the search for how to finance cooperatives should only be done when investors don't hesitate to buy cooperative bonds.
The reality is that it's much more difficult to get the initial funding for a coop than a traditional company, and it's not that lots of people haven't been trying different approaches including the hare brained schemes you floated many times. The fact that you just keep repeating something that's demonstrably false means that there's no point continuing this discussion. Have a good day.
We simply talk about different things. Initial funding comes with different risks.
I think established cooperatives should issue bonds for expansion.
New cooperatives cannot issue bonds because nobody can judge the risk. They have to do a startup and sell shares in a company that owns the assets. But why should the founders limit themselves and do the opposite of Zuckerberg and give their influence away by just owning one vote in the participating cooperative?
Again, you're not the first person to think of this. In practice, it turns out that it's much easier for traditional companies to secure funding under the financial capitalist system. That's the world we live in. Lots of people are trying to run cooperatives in all kinds of different ways. In some cases, like Mondragon, they do manage to grow big, but in general systemic pressures favor capitalist structure.