All the caveats about ethical consumerism aside, it feels good if you can buy from a coop – because you can pretty much guarantee that the money they make will go towards something else ‘good’, in a ripple effect.
@neil I learned today that ace hardware is a retailer co-op, I don’t think that means the actual stores are horizontally run. I get so confused about how there are “co-ops” that don’t have horizontal structures but like define it as how shares are distributed among the company- like WinCo, the shareholders are the workers but there still lots of hierarchy. But I was still glad to hear it is MORE democratically run than other hardware stores and made me wanna support my local ace hardware.
@neil I learned today that ace hardware is a retailer co-op, I don’t think that means the actual stores are horizontally run. I get so confused about how there are “co-ops” that don’t have horizontal structures but like define it as how shares are distributed among the company- like WinCo, the shareholders are the workers but there still lots of hierarchy. But I was still glad to hear it is MORE democratically run than other hardware stores and made me wanna support my local ace hardware.