Comment by Der_Einzige

Co-ops, employee owned businesses, and credit unions are antithetical to American ruthless capitalist exploitation. They are economically "inefficient" since they don't maximize the exploitation of their customers.

Also, what good products do any of these groups make (besides credit unions which are superior to traditional banks)? Sure I can go to winco for cheap groceries, but REI isn't exactly the bastion of quality that its buyers pretend it is (their stuff is cheap crap).

The sad reality is that if you, the customer, want a good product, you want the company who makes it to exploit its workers. This is also the real reason why unions died in America. All the US car companies are unionized and that famously caused US company workers circa the late 70s and 80s to be literally drunk/high on the job all the time (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fremont_Assembly) Meanwhile most Japanese car factories aren't unionized, and you get literally the most reliable and best fit/finish in the industry from doing it.