Even when I was living in a very liberal area, there were only a small handful of stores that advertised as worker co-ops. It’s funny too because those co-op stores were all incredibly popular and successful, so I don’t understand why they are so comparatively rare? The organizational structure seems simple to maintain, and has a high incentive for regular workers to go above and beyond since they directly benefit from the business being successful, so what’s the deal? I am speaking from a US centric view, so maybe things are different in Europe, but even with my limited knowledge I feel like they are relatively unpopular there too, but maybe not? I dunno.
It’s easier to get loans or investment if you can offer ownership of the business or its assets as collateral or equity. That’s easier to do with concentrated private ownership than with a business that starts as a cooperative with shared ownership. So there is a structural¹ bias in favor of concentrated ownership and away from cooperative ownership when starting a new business.
In some successful worker-owned businesses, the business started as a traditional private endeavor and then converted to worker-owned through the deliberate choice of the founders & workers. For instance, the Cheese Board Collective here in Berkeley started as a privately owned cheese shop which was then sold to its workers a few years later. It’s been a cooperative since 1971.
¹ That is, the system can have this bias, regardless of whether the individuals making up the economy have this preference.
The loan part makes a lot of sense, much easier for a bank to deal with a single person rather than a whole cooperative. Funnily enough, the Cheeseboard and Arizmendi were the two co-ops I was thinking of when I made this post. I was just musing about how in the Bay Area practically every small business has all the trappings of progressive politics (the signs, inclusivity, supporting various causes) but so few actually put their money where there mouth is and organize into co-ops.
Perhaps it’s worth pointing out that progressive liberalism and worker cooperatives are not as aligned as you might believe, but that’s probably too off topic. Worth doing some reading about though.