[HCoop-Discuss] Financial situation

[Michael Potter]

On Tue, May 01, 2007 at 09:51:12PM -0400, Nathan Kennedy wrote:
> Here I think you are off-base.  If I understand it correctly you fear 
> that HCoop's current "power structure" is planning on leveraging their 
> incumbency and system knowledge into paid positions for themselves.  

As I said before, I don't know what other people are thinking, so I
could easily be wrong. Fear is the wrong word for my concerns. After
several years in academia, I've learned to question other people's
motives.

Probably a better word would be 'perplexed." Hcoop was advertised as a
cooperative, but from what I can see some of the planning is more
corporate in nature. For example, corporations grow as fast as
possible to stay ahead of their competition, but cooperatives tend to
implode when they grow quickly, or they revert to a more authoritative
structure. Another issue is that when taking in members rapidly, poor
screening of applicants and rapid changes in group makeup can cause
instability.

Also, there's the question of unequal member contributions. Note
Principle 3 here:

http://www.ica.coop/coop/principles.html

This is why I ask questions. Are we a co-op or a standard top-down
organization? 

-- 
Michael Potter
mpotter at hcoop.net