martin: What barriers to entry which are not in essence hampering of performance?

Performance for whom? Of course barriers to entry hamper — or, often, simply prevent — the performance of (would-be) new entrants. But not of incumbents. That’s what makes them barriers to entry. But let’s suppose it’s true that, if both clear a barrier to entry, worker-managed firms outperform other-managed firms. Still, that doesn’t tell you whether worker-managed firms and other-managed firms are equally capable of clearing the barrier. If not, better performance won’t be enough to secure greater prevalence. So it goes in markets where peaceful competition and entrepreneurial discovery are politically inhibited.

Imagine you have two tracks for two teams of sprinters, the Reds and the Yellows. Both tracks have a hurdle just after the starting line. Now, the Reds can all run faster than the Yellows. But most of the Yellows can jump hurdles, whereas only a few of the Reds can. Now, if they went racing on an even track, the Reds could beat the Yellows every time. When they go racing on a track with a hurdle thrown at the start, the Reds who can make the jump will still beat the Yellows who can make the jump. But the Yellows will win most of the races, because no matter how fast the Reds could run only the few who can make the jump can stay in the race long enough for their running to matter.

martin: Why don’t they apply to the worker-owned firms in the article?

Typically they evade some of the relevant barriers to entry by reorganizing an existing capitalist-owned firm into a partially or fully worker-owned firm, by means of an ESOP buy-out — rather than by starting from scratch with a new operation. But there are a lot of barriers involved in that mode too — it’s a huge headache from a legal and logistical standpoint, and very expensive; it’s effectively not even an option unless you already have a huge publicly-traded firm with a hefty budget for lawyers and accountants. Etc. Why does it ever happen? Well, because barriers to entry are hurdles, not force fields. They are difficult to clear, and to the extent that they are difficult entry will (ceteris paribus) be less prevalent than it would otherwise be. But that doesn’t mean that it will be nonexistant. Some of the Reds can make the leap. But the question is why they should have to.

Through barriers to entry?

crispy: "it's not like, looking at these names, you're wondering about the players' race"

Only because white folks got so boring in the past couple centuries. Back in the day the Puritans had this down -- speaking of the Lord and punctuated names, we'd be remiss if we didn't mention Praise-God Barebone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praise-God_Barebone

And if that's not enough for you, well then there is always his son. . . .

Nicholas If-Jesus-Christ-Had-Not-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned Barebon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Barbon

doubt that slavery is what Academic Monkey meant by dealing in people….

Probably not. But it does seem to be one of the most prominent examples in “historical societies.” That, and family relationships — which of course have their own sort of violence and their own fettering “bonds.” I am not being fair here, of course, but I do think it’s important to remember and to stress that, if we are supposed to be viewing this historically, those non-monetary ways of “dealing” with each other could offer their own kinds of shittiness and inhumanity — to say the very least. But to the extent that that’s true, I wonder how much the problem really is a problem either with monetary or non-monetary relationships — and how much it is a problem with the social or interpersonal context within which those relationships occur.

Well, there are plenty of historical societies that dealt in people rather than money….

I agree that people often use money to make excuses for doing shitty things to each other. On the other hand, I hear that dealing in people had some problems, too….