The Chocolate Thing: Gooey dark chocolate chips baked into a soft roll. Scone of the Day: Today’s was a mouth-watering pear and blueberry. Sourdough pizza: Roasted red bell peppers, red onions, goat cheese, rosemary oil. Savory and alive-with-flavor provolone-olive bread. These are but a few of my favorite treats at one of my local bakeries, the Arizmendi Bakery Cooperative, which I will really, really miss when we move east. There’s simply nothing like this place.
SF Weekly named Arizmendi the Best Bakery in 2003. SF Bay Guardian readers named it the best in 2002. And for good reason. The worker-owned co-op not only produces some of the most amazing baked goods I’ve ever tasted, but it does so consistently. Arizmendi is employee owned, so the people behind the magic of this bakery are more committed to excellence than the employees of say, Noah’s Bagels, probably are.
I think worker-owned cooperatives are wonderful and much more in line with how a society should function. Everyone wins. No one is at the bottom. Every person takes out what he or she puts in. Imagine what a better world (or at least country) we’d live in if corporate America didn’t allow for the richest one percent to profiteer off the backs of the lower and middle classes. Perhaps that’s a bit of idealism and bordering on socialism. But why not have more cooperatives? They wouldn’t have to interfere with the American dream of building wealth through one’s own hard work and perseverance. There could exist a balance. Then maybe we wouldn’t have any more Enron or MCI Worldcom or Tyco scandals. And the people who work for thirty years to build their 401(k)s wouldn’t get screwed by the greediness of a few individuals at the top.
2 responses so far ↓
1 anonymous coward // Dec 4, 2003 at 9:36 am
Not so sure. The output function does not have to be linear with respect to input. You are arguing in favor of a monotonically increaing function. I think overall the American society already rewards its talented, hard working and lucky citizens than the rest of the world do with an exponential output function. How you sell yourself (using talent, effort and luck) determines where in this exponential function you are.
Oh well at least we both believe in money. 🙂
2 Jose Luis Martinez // Dec 4, 2003 at 10:30 am
couldnt have said it better.