Banks hardly ever give loans to worker-owned cooperative start-ups in the United States.
The Small Business Administration’s rules prevent it from helping most employee- and consumer-owned cooperatives, even though Congress specifically asked it to. The result? Co-ops are largely cut out of the mainstream financial system.
www.propublica.org
This capitalist system is rigged. They don't want workers/consumers, creating cooperatives and competing with capitalists in the marketplace. Cooperatives are scary as hell for capitalists. We start a cooperative with ten other people, not because we intend or even want to become millionaires or "rich", no. We do it for job security, to work in a better environment where there's more accountability between management and the "managed", and to provide our community with a good product or service. We have more control over what is produced and whatever profits are generated by the business. We get to have a say, a vote, on how that money is reinvested. We're not just "employees" or "wage slaves", we're worker-owners. We have to attend meetings, and classes about once a week, to learn about the business and the products that we produce. We have to educate ourselves. There's a sense of pride, commitment, purpose, and community among the workers, that doesn't exist in the vast majority of privately owned companies.
We can compete in the marketplace, even if our business isn't that "profitable", as long as we can pay our bills and salaries. A profit or surplus is great to have and we should make a profit, but in hard times, we can survive, and stay in business, even without a profit, as long as we make enough to pay the bills and our salaries. Our bottom line is different than a regular business. Privately owned, for-profit enterprises don't function that way, they need a profit or they die. We're more robust and competitive because we didn't start the business to get rich, we started it for the reasons I mentioned earlier. More money is reinvested into the company. Better equipment, bigger facilities, more workers, amazing customer service, product warranties, happy and healthy workers..etc.