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Are Co-ops the Solution to Occupy Wall Street Woes?
Alternative business model called mechanism for democratizing the economy
It's a business model in British Columbia that controls more than $10 billion in assets, employs 13,000 people and returns all profits to members. The model governs enterprises in banking, housing, retail and health care. Fully one-third of British Columbians are members in at least one of the 700 operations operating in this model: the co-operative.
Doug Smith (behind) and Mark Parlett stock the produce section of the East End Food Co-op on Commercial Drive on Friday. The store's business model is that of a consumer co-op that is open to all shoppers, but provides specific benefits such as discounts to members.
(Photograph by: Ward Perrin, PNG, Vancouver Sun)
For John Restakis, executive director of the B.C. Co-operative Association, co-ops are a mechanism for democratizing the economy, something the folks participating in Occupy Wall Street or Occupy Vancouver could turn to as a solution to their grievances.
"The whole point of Occupy Wall Street is reacting against corporate structure and the fact that people have no control over the economy is what's at the heart of it," Restakis said. "Co-ops are a concrete way to address that."
Co-op Week in B.C. runs from today until Sunday and the United Nations has declared 2012 the international year of the co-operative to raise public awareness of this alternative business model and its contributions to poverty reduction and job creation.
"Co-operatives are a reminder to the international community that it is possible to pursue both economic viability and social responsibility," UN SecretaryGeneral Ban Ki-moon said on the UN website.
Anyone can start a co-op and any type of business could potentially be established as one.
Co-ops really do come in all shapes and sizes. Some, like housing co-ops, provide lowercost housing to their members through partnership with the government, which provides low-cost mortgages and sometimes rent subsidies.
Others, like credit unions, return their profits to the community in the form of grants or modest dividends to their members. Still others are owned by their employees, and still others are large, for-profit food growers such as Ocean Spray, Welch's or Sunkist.
Some are consumer co-ops like the East End Food Co-op, which is open to all shoppers, but provides specific benefits such as discounts to members.
All co-ops require a share purchase to become a member, all of them have a board of directors and must hold an annual general meeting, and the members always decide what to do with the profits.
Vancity and Mountain Equipment Co-op are two of B.C.'s largest co-ops. Vancity, Canada's largest credit union, has 417,000 members and boasts $15 billion in member assets. The credit union returns 30 per cent of profits to members or the community, where a bank owned by shareholders might return one or two per cent to the community, Tamara Vrooman, Vancity chief executive said.
"When I go and get service at a publicly traded company, I know that I'm buying a service, but the benefit of that service ultimately is accruing to someone else - to a shareholder," Vrooman said. "The benefits for our members as customers and the benefits for our members as owners are the same, and that allows us to be more flexible, it allows us to put more money back into the community more quickly and it allows us to be more responsive to individual members' needs."
Mountain Equipment Co-op is a consumer co-operative, celebrating its fortieth birthday this year. The business has $261 million in annual sales and has 3.3 million members.
Restakis says co-ops are often on the vanguard of new ideas, citing the local, organic food movement and alternative energy as two areas where coops have led the way.
"The co-op model is pioneering in some sectors; it's leading the field," Restakis said. "Co-ops are sort of like antennae where people actually get together to create a service or product that's not currently available."
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54 Comments so far
Show AllAs I've posted before, here in SE Minnesota my electric co. is a co-op. So is my telephone co. So is my major farm input supplier and grain buyer. I had nothing to do with setting any of them up as they were all begun before I was born. Sometimes a person is just lucky. Bravo to any of you who have the drive and stamina to be part of setting up your own.
THAT we can agree on worker owned and self managed co-ops are the future in my strong opinion.
I couldn´t agree more!!
Co-ops were common place in the 70s when energy prices spiked and basic necessities tripled in price. They only disappeared with the advent of KMarts, Walmarts and big box stores. It would appear they co-opted the co-op model. And we bought into it, without any assurances that we would see the same benefits.
Whole Foods is another corporation that attempted to co-opt the model, although many food co-ops have continued to thrive in some locations where Whole Foods opened stores.
During the 1970s I drove trucks cross country and Walmart's home state Arkansas did not allow truckers hauling loads from agricultural co-ops to drive in Arkansas. By 1980 President Carter stopped allowing states to enforce such laws.
Whole Foods is in no way a co-op; it is an ordinary for-profit corporaiton with employees (or for that matter consumers) having a say in nothing.
Two different animals.. Whole Foods Market is a private corporation and Whole Foods Co-op is indeed a co-operative.
I beleive that Ray was referring to the corporation.
He said co-opt ie present a superficial appliance of a "health food store," while gutting the positive substantive content of worker empowerment and replacing it with "Libertarian" greed and worker exploitation.
I am lucky the co-op movement is strong here in Michigan, Ypsilanti, Ann Arbor, and Traverse CIty, all have strong, functioning co-ops deeply rooted in the community.
Co-ops show us what is possible when you have systems that are geared to returning surplus value to all, rather than having it appropriated by a few private interests. In other words, it shows us the possibilities of socialism over the current inequalities of capitalism. In themselves, they are not a solution to capitalism. Only doing away with capitalism will fix our world.
That is one way of looking at co-ops if you want to be a doctrinaire Marxist. Another way is that they are worker owned and democratically self managed *voluntary* associations of people sharing the return from their labor, democratically controlling their work life, and selling on a market to assure efficient price setting. IMO I would rather NOT have the state involved as in your more Marxist take on it, and would prefer to see co-ops voluntarily adopted and funded by credit unions which are in essence credit co-ops. Violent "struggle" ala the Marxist model has created more problems than it has solved, OWS as diverse post partisan non violent, non hierarchical transition to a more cooperative, humane, communal, sustainable human scaled society is the future IMO.
More anarchists, less Marxists please!
guitarist,
Marx was an economist who knew that Capitalism could not work. Why are you so afraid of that message?
Because his idea that there needed to be a violent revolution led by a "proletarian vanguard," expropriating land, and "the means of production," caused MILLIONS of people to suffer and die, doctrinaire Bolshevism is the one ideology more destructive of human life than Nazism. The state led by the "inner party vanguard," NEVER "withers" as Marx claimed, it only grows and becomes the seed of tyranny. And no it isn't an easily fixable ideology with these serious flaws, and there is no need to try to fix it when there are solid left anarchist cooperative alternatives proposed by thinkers like Kroptkin, Emma Goldman, Lucy Parsons, Noam Chomsky, Murray Bookchin and Naomi Klein to name just a few off the top of my head. So no murderous Marxism is NOT worth fixing it needs to be thrown in the garbage with fiance capitalism/corpratism/imperialism and fascism as destructive failed ideologies.
U.S. crony state bank finance imperialist society is state CAPITALISM, and Marxist Bolshevism is STATE capitalism, both are failed ideologies that must be strenuously resisted in my strong opinion.
Jeesus! You know NOTHING about Marx - so please shut up before you make yourself look even more idiotic! You are mistaking Marx for a wildly carricatured Lenin. (The "state withering away" was Lenin). The Bolshevik Revolution was not violent - the Capitalist-run White Russian War on the Bolsevics WAS vilolent. And it was in the environment of perpetual punishing war from the west - first the capitalists, then the fascists, that monsters like Stalin are sustained.
Stop your bullshit lying Commie apologist, Trotsky and Lenin murdered thousands of anarchist sailors, trade unionists, and peasant farmers at Kronstadt, that WAS violent in the extreme,
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mhuey/TOC/KRN.frame.html
and will forever be a shame and a stain on those who shill for even non Stalinist Communism. You 6 "comrades" in any large city can lie to yourselves about the murderous predation of Communism, but that doesn't make it's bloody history any less true.,
What is it about people non violently sharing ,and engaging in economic democracy without need of inner party "vanguard" that is so threatening to Commies? Two can play 20 leading questions! Let me guess Commie you just happen to be a member of the "vanguard" who will rule us all with an iron fist if your revolution succeeds?
Sigh!
Your carricatured "Marx" is is unrecognizable from the Marx I am familiar with.
Marx said nothing about the state running anything.
Marx said nothing about "violent" struggle. Struggle takes many forms, and historically the violence almost always came from the bosses and their hired thugs.
You seem to be a victim of the propaganda machine's deliberate conflation of Marx with Lenin (and sometimes even Stalin).
I don't expect you to pore through both volumes of "Capital" and the "Grundrisse", but please learn at least some facts about Marx and Marxian economic analysis.
And it is exactly the Democratic Party-like "moderate" aspects of the OWS movement that worry me. Has everyone forgotten that when you are trying to get 50% of something, you start by demanding 100%?. Otherwise, you are entering into the negotiation (in this case a broad dailectical one) in a position of already having made huge concessions!
I have read Marx fool, he DOES specifically mention the "vanguard" "dictatorship of the proletariat" being a "temporary" worker's "dictatorship," that one idea has caused as much suffering and death as the racial ideology of actual Nazis.
"It is very difficult for the Marxist-Leninists to make an objective criticism of Anarchism as such, because by its very nature it undermines all suppositions basic to Marxism. If Marxism and Leninism (its variant which emerged during the Russian Revolution) is held out to be the working class philosophy and the proletariat cannot owe its emancipation to anyone but the Communist Party, it is hard to go back on it and say that the working class is not yet ready to dispense with authority over it. Lenin came up with the idea of the transitional State, which would 'wither away' over time, to go along with Marx's "dictatorship of the proletariat." The Anarchists expose this line as counter-revolutionary and sheer power-grabbing, and over 75 years of Marxist-Leninist practice have proven us right. These so-called Socialist States produced by Marxist-Leninist doctrine have only produced Stalinist police states, where workers have no rights, and a new ruling class of technocrats and party politicians have emerged, and the class differential between those the State favored over those it didn't created widespread deprivation among the masses and another class struggle. But instead of meeting such criticisms head on, they have concentrated their attacks not on the doctrine of Anarchism, but on particular Anarchist historical figures, especially Bakunin (Marx's main opponent in the First International).
Anarchists are social revolutionaries who seek a stateless, classless, voluntary, cooperative federation of decentralized communities based upon social ownership, individual liberty and autonomous self-management of social and economic life."
http://libcom.org/library/anarchist-vs--leninist-lorenzo-ervin
See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictatorship_of_the_proletariat
"In the Chapter II: Proletarians and Communists of the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels outline the role of a communist party as a proletarian vanguard party:
The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the lines of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement.
The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all other proletarian parties: Formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanguard_party
I utterly condemn that, and in my strong opinion it makes Marx unfixable, Proudhon and others tried to warn the International that Marx's theories would lead to tyranny to no avail.
http://www.inclusivedemocracy.org/dn/vol6/roemheld_proudhon.htm
If you REALLY want to get into this I can go into the detailed history all day, but that day will have to be Friday as I am busy all week. Anarchists are NOT moderates we seek the overthrow of BOTH the state and finance capitalism through peaceful means and their replacement with co-ops, and LOCAL enterprises like farmers markets selling in a peaceful communal Agora.
FUCK both the capitalists and the statists!
The communists/marxists played the anarchists for tools and fools in spain during the 30's. Nevertheless, I do not know of any successful, longterm examples of anarchist principals in action beyond limited small scale experiments. Ie; less then a 100 or so individuals...
Feel free to enlighten me if long-term anarchy has succeeded anywhere.
Spain is key, the anarchists CNT Union ran the transportation and communications structure of an advanced city for a year before first being crushed by Commies, and then the fascists. Fuck the Commies they are the enemies of any free locally self ruling people in my strong opinion. Orwell lays out what happened in Spain well in Homage to Catalonia which is available to read in full online.
I would also argue co-ops ARE mini examples of left anarchism in action so add the 80,000 strong Mondragon co-op in Spain (a legacy of the Spanish civil activism IMO) and the ever expanding food co-ops around the world and Linux operating system used in some of the largest scale servers in the world. People claim anarchism isn't practical, but I would claim that it is fact ultimately practical as it is about just getting things done without the encumbrance of either the bureaucratic state or the greedy destructive bankers and corporations. While many armchair Marxists are sobbing over the loss of the murderous Trotsky, many co-op oriented anarchists are DOING things like organizing co-ops, Food Not Bombs, Earth First chapters, assisting OWS, etc, etc.
I'm sorry but this is kind of silly. Bakunin acted horribly at the First International. He formed a secret society that the International asked him to disband. He pretended that he disbanded the secret society, yet didn't. He then formed a secret society within the secret society, where a handful of people worked behind the scenes to direct that secret group. I read a decent amount about this a year ago or so. He said himself that he would direct this secret group because he and his inner, inner circle were the true revolutionaries. I am not making this up.
As far as anarchism is concerned, I am closest ideologically to anarchism. There are many examples of anarchism in practice, or at least policies that were articulated first by anarchists whether or not the participants have any idea. The social movements of Latin America, the worker run cooperatives in the region, in Spain, Britain, participatory work places, even the general assemblies of OWS. You could point to the participatory budgeting of Porto Alegre Brazil, Kerala India & hundreds of other municipalities around the world. A number of candidates ran on and won in Chicago on that platform.
Having said that, those types of experiences & institutions have to be built up and people have to be organized over a number of years. Until the institutions of that society can replace the institutions that exist now, I think social programs and regulations, things like that, should be in place. I am an anarchist, I am a socialist. I can't back or oppose policies, in the reality of the world I live in now, based on how they would work in a different society. Noam Chomsky agrees by the way Guitarist.
Still think economics is "bourgeois" Guitarist? What about Robin Hahnel, Michael Albert, Proudhon & Diego Abad de Santillán? AK Press is releasing a new book early next year on libertarian socialist economics. Personally, I don't think you can criticize capitalism until you understand the system, which requires studying economics. I can't think of many people better than Marx as far as describing how the system works. You, I, don't have to agree with everything he says and we don't have to agree with his solutions, but you are missing out if you ignore Marx's economics. It's your loss. Bakunin appreciated Marx's intellect even if he didn't agree with the man. Open minded, logical people don't see the world so black and white.
I never said "economics" is bourgeoisie, I said Marx's "dictatorship of the proletariat" is a fatal flaw in his theory and makes it utterly unsavable. I will take my economics from EF Schumaker and Herman Daily thanks!
No, I said in another thread (which you obviously forgot) a few months ago that I was an economist and you said, clear as day, that economics itself was "bourgeoisie". I then got you to change your mindless attack to say that SOME schools of economics are bourgeoisie and some aren't. You couldn't counter the fact that many anarchists (like Hahnel, Chomsky) pay lots of attention to economics and some are economists themselves, so you had to ditch another one of your simplistic attacks. You come across as a shallow thinker. Like the libertarians who call everyone but themselves statists, or authoritarian. Very simplistic, very black and white. I don't believe for a second either that you have read tons of Marx either. Anyone can link some Wikipedia article. I could be wrong but I could give a damn what you think.
State centrlist Marxism is the opiate of the crassist, who is "simplistic," again? I keep forgetting...
P.S. I said Prodhoun and not Bakunin, reading comprehension fail much? Commies are just looking for leaders to follow some of us have confidence enough in our abilities that we don't need leaders and know communities can do it, itself using consensus based processes. OWS is going to be in the forefront in this regard and those of you who don't get it shall be left to breath our dust.
"But instead of meeting such criticisms head on, they have concentrated their attacks not on the doctrine of Anarchism, but on particular Anarchist historical figures, especially Bakunin (Marx's main opponent in the First International)."
This is what I was responding to genius. Bakunin said some interesting things but so did Marx. Bakunin DID act very shady and authoritarian himself at the First International. His plans had nothing to do with decentralized democracy. He wanted to direct a close group of radicals like a red dictator himself.
Anarchism is not a philosophy without leaders, the leaders just don't use their knowledge or passion to build up power for themselves. If they know something about a subject, if they have accumulated a lot of intellectual capital, they share it with others. Monopolizing knowledge gives people power so they share their knowledge with others, allowing them to have intellectual self defense. Someone can lead because they accumulate lots of intellectual power. You wouldn't lead in that regard. You'd be the one with a black mask, mouthing off cliche platitudes and attacking others you didn't see as intellectually pure, like in this thread. If you are talking with people that you disagree with, or those that disagree with you, and want to be taken seriously try showing respect for people's opinions. If you care about anarchism then think about how others will think of your philosophy if you act like an aggressive prick. Would YOU listen to or be convinced by someone attacking you and calling you names, especially if the name calling was mindless and simplistic? I'd tell you to get back to your sophomore philosophy class, or the local coffee house. P.S. Come up with better arguments to match your arrogance.
"OWS is going to be in the forefront in this regard and those of you who don't get it shall be left to breath our dust."
Wow. How brave of you to come to a site filled with people INVOLVED in OWS, a site supporting OWS, and tell people they could be left behind. I deal with people like you all the time. You are what make me embarrassed and reluctant to admit to people I am an anarchist. They always say something like "You aren't going to wear a mask, smash in a Starbucks window and talk about "smashing the state" are you?". No, I have to say, I know what I am talking about, I acknowledge complexity and am a thinking adult.
No I believe in non violence and your last paragraph is a straw man ad hominem slander. You however are an elitist who says:
"Someone can lead because they accumulate lots of intellectual power"
who claims to be an "anarchist" but who I suspect is in reality a stealth authoritarian socialist who sees himself leading the people he perceives as helpless masses from an inner party "leadership" position. OWS has a new model that is way beyond what you can fathom with your antiquated top down hierarchical paradigm WIlber, where everyone has a voice using a consensus process. This is very close to the vision of anarcho syndicalism anarchist historian Rudolph Rocker speaks of in his classic book AnarchoSyndacalism.
http://www.spunk.org/library/writers/rocker/sp001495/rocker_as1.html
Who is the person here not substantiating their arguments with referces? I keep forgetting...
I find 9 times our of 10 self proclaimed superior intellects are in fact weak thinkers with a chip on their soldiers who feel the need to self advertise. Truly profound thinkers who have complex wisdom to *share* are usually humble like Noam Chomsky, who often admits he does not have all the answers. So forgive me if I am not impressed by your pretentious, self indulgent, and self serving puffery Wilber. ALL the self proclaimed intellects here have shown themselves to be be deeply flawed seekers of followers whether they be New Age charlatans like a certain person who shall not be named, or unctuous stealth authoritarians like "Wilber."
What the hell references do you have? I am a damn anarchist, I have read Daniel Guerin, Diego Abad de Santillán, have Ricardo Flores Magon's anthology, read Emma Goldman's Mother Earth anthology, Alexander Berkman, Chomsky and Robin Hahnel (whose work convinced me to not drop economics as a study). Aren't I just great. It is funny that you keep talking about being an "elitist". Tell me, how many working people know a damn thing about 19th century anarchists? How many have even HEARD of the damn Socialist International? You talk about these obscure 19th century radicals and talk about complex social theory and then turn around and call others elitist. It is illogical to the extreme. Next time you meet an actual working person who has no knowledge of Bakunin, a person who doesn't identify them self as an anarchist or even a radical but wants to get involved, you mention your knowledge of Kropotkin, Bakunin, Proudhon and the like. If you think they wouldn't think of you as an intellectual or whatever the hell you are trying to call me then you are out to lunch. Like I said, you aren't too deep a thinker.
"who claims to be an "anarchist" but who I suspect is in reality a stealth authoritarian socialist who sees himself leading the people he perceives as helpless masses from an inner party "leadership" position. OWS has a new model that is way beyond what you can fathom with your antiquated top down hierarchical paradigm WIlber, where everyone has a voice using a consensus process...I find 9 times our of 10 self proclaimed superior intellects".
My god, where to begin. For one, I am involved in OWS, went to two general assembly meetings and plan to go to more. I am inspired by what I see. I have to say though, I am getting tired of the I'm more radical than you types I am coming across. They are as fuzzy headed as you. I am moved more by the working people who are getting involved who know nothing about anarchist history, socialism, capitalism, or any other lofty philosophies and ideas. They know something is wrong, they want to learn and get involved. THEY, not you suburban, middle class radicals, will be the ones to move this forward.
Besides that, I never said I had a superior intellect. You know a lot about anarchist history, correct? I would think as an anarchist you didn't learn about anarchist history to shout down people on the left who you didn't like or agree with. I would assume that you too have accumulated a lot of intellectual capital on some subjects, like anarchist history. You, and I, are not any more intelligent than anyone else, we have simply read books and we have been exposed to ideas they haven't. I would think, hope, that in between sticking your nose up to people not sufficiently anarchist for your tastes, you spread that knowledge around (assuming your attitude doesn't put them off or annoy them). You introduce books to people, you do teach ins, you spread the ideas of anarchism. Otherwise, what is the point of learning so much about anarchist history? Doing that allows others to think for themselves, to have intellectual self defense, to think of the world and these issues form a new perspective. If you don't spread that knowledge around you have a monopoly and whenever an issue connected to anarchism comes up you will become the person to go to. THAT gives you power, not teaching others. If you taught others they don't have to come to you, they have that knowledge thanks to you. Teaching them disperses power, it doesn't give you more power.
Chomsky, by the way, is the person who gave me the idea. He did this himself, he talked about people in unions and radicals who were able to get an education doing this (so workers who couldn't afford college could get access to some of the knowledge they otherwise wouldn't). He, in one of his interviews, gave a specific example, Lancelot Hogben.
Hogben was a socialist who became a well known statistician, amongst other things. He acquired a lot of knowledge about mathematics and wanted to teach working people the subject. So he taught them directly and wrote a book called Mathematics for the Millions, aimed at teaching working class people. Was he an "elitist" for doing that guitarist?
Here's Chomsky about the man. He says EXACTLY what I am saying: http://www.mrbauld.com/chomsky1.html
A final point, something I've written about elsewhere (e.g., in a discussion in Z papers, and the last chapter of "Year 501"). There has been a striking change in the behavior of the intellectual class in recent years. The left intellectuals who 60 years ago would have been teaching in working class schools, writing books like "mathematics for the millions" (which made mathematics intelligible to millions of people), participating in and speaking for popular organizations, etc., are now largely disengaged from such activities, and although quick to tell us that they are far more radical than thou, are not to be found, it seems, when there is such an obvious and growing need and even explicit request for the work they could do out there in the world of people with live problems and concerns. That's not a small problem.
The rest of what you said is just nonsense. I am sorry but you come here and attack people and your thinking is shallow as a kiddie pool. Oh, and Chomsky in case you haven't noticed has been doing speeches and interviews around the world for groups and movements he approves of. He has a lot of knowledge and spreads it around the best he can. People like you seem to realize that with anarchist titans like Chomsky but god forbid someone think they know something about a vital subject like economics do it to much smaller groups for the same reasons. There's a difference between horizontal decision making structures and shouting down people who have learned something about a subject. You seem to come across as anti-intellectual when you aren't busy showing how much you know about intellectual matters yourself. It seems, in the multiple times I've tortured myself by conversing with you, that you are a bit of an intellectual bully who doesn't like losing arguments.
Oh, and by the way, Commondreams keeps our posting histories. I can find the conversation we had if you'd like and link it here. You DID say economics in general was bourgeois and you (after talking about complex social theories and obscure 19th century radicals) turned around and called me an elitist intellectual. You also confusingly attacked me because I was in graduate school. Don't know how that doesn't strike you as a bit logically disjointed. Co-ops are important institutions that shouldn't have an ideological purity test. Such a freedom loving person. Smash the state and anyone who isn't as radical as me! And smash intellectuals, other than myself!
Look I have gone down to my occupy with food and have attneded a general assembly and education committee meeting. Ann Arbor Occupy is encouraging the homeless and ALL people to participate so spare me your holier than thou I am a graduate student AND "just folks" (debating fallacy) lecture, mmmK? And I am not "suburban," I am living with my family and working in my families landscaping business in working class Ypsilanti Michigan a community with 20% + real unemployment, you on other hand are a privileged graduate student, so spare me your own purer than thou activist attitude hypocrite!
Privileged? I just got majorly sick, have nothing, am going into debt hoping I can get a steady paycheck, with a newborn son. Yeah, I am rolling in the dough. I am not "purer than though", I am responding to YOUR arrogance & aggression towards others. You have attacked me in the past and are aggressive with people here. Seriously, not even trying to debate. We have said what we want to say. You need to relax when you speak with others and drop the slogans. I realize that I have been rude towards you, I can't lecture you and act like a jerk myself. Still, there is a way to argue/discuss ideas without screaming and throwing around tired cliches. It also doesn't make sense to attack me for trying to help others in my own way. As I posted in my link, Chomsky said the same thing. I don't think I am above anyone, I also don't feel guilty about knowing what I know and wanting to share it with others. I think its telling I am even having to debate this with someone calling themselves an "anarchist". Should people stop teaching each other? If I spread some knowledge about economics and another person shares with me their knowledge of, say, ecology, is that a bad thing? Is that "elitist"? There is no way you could interpret what I said as me thinking I'm king $hit. There is also no way you could talk about a 19th century radical French philosopher and not be an "intellectual" yourself. Sorry if that makes you angry. If you are an anarchist you will share your knowledge with others and you won't think of yourself as better than them because of it. They will probably have something to teach you as well. I was rude to you, I got a bit personal myself. I'll save my energies for people I need to battle on the other side. Bye bye.
Worker-owned co-ops, in the Mondragon model or the Argentine worker-expropriated-close-business co-ops are good models.
But unfortunately, there is nothing in the organization of consumer co-ops that give the worker a fair shake. A few years ago, the other East-End Food Co-Op in North America treated an IWW union organizing effort quite viciously - even hiring a union busting lawyer. Untimately, there was a vote, but in an incredible dirty trick, the co-op somehow inserted an alternate phoney union (with dues of one penny a paycheck), this split the majority 20-21, the alternate union then dissapeared, ending the effort.
Ultimately, the rich, bourgeois, organic-foodie liberals in the co-op board were no different than the Koch Brothers.
I have never heard of such a thing, do you have a link to prove this? If so that is NOT a true workers co-op operating under the Rochdale Principles. :(
You described the story line of Orwell's "Animal Farm".
I think its called "collective capitalism"
I know that I must be missing some very important distinction somehow, but could someone please explain for me exactly how co-op "members" differ from corporate "shareholders" and how that differentiation, in turn, would be preferable to straightforward public ownership in common, as with essential utilities and services like water, power, health care and "mutual" insurance funds for example.
Or is it just a branding/labelling issue like "pinko commie socialism" and the application thereof?
Several ways, one member one vote in a co-op v.s. shareholders where the wealthy person can own the majority of shares, also a true co-op is a democratically controlled work places where work place rules are determined democratically by the worker owners, and profit is EQUALLY shared among the worker/owner/members in a real co-op. And there is no state involved so no bureaucracy and other failures of state centralism, so yes co-ops are different and better than both share holder controlled corporations and state controlled enterprises.
A true co-op operates under the Rochdale principles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochdale_Principles
So, if I understand the principle correctly, on the basis of one member one vote, my $100.00 deposit (or loan) entitles me to as much say in a co-op's management as your $1,000,000.00 deposit.
I guess that's fair in a way, but I kinda doubt that it's going to appeal to many wealthy people. Sounds a little too much like real democracy itself as practiced by certain "un-American" states.
"The whole point of Occupy Wall Street is reacting against corporate structure and the fact that people have no control over the economy is what's at the heart of it," Restakis said. "Co-ops are a concrete way to address that." This in not the whole point of OWS as I see it. It is also about a corporatist state directing our nation's policies. We need to truly democratize every institutional structure that effects our lives, not just the economic ones.
Having worked in a co-op and also participated in the board...yup, collective co-operative capitalism. We were a 501c9 and made a profit that was then split to the members. Still profitting off consumers and doling money to the elitists. I don't care much for the hippie yuppie mindset of the main co-ops I have dealt with. A true co-op gives the employees real jobs with real good hourly wage and insurance. The management does not take extra than anyone else. An hour of work is an hour. The consumer gets the bottom line real cost of the item withOUT being gouged cause the board wants a new sign, or a new look. People who can't afford food can volunteer and earn the right to buy at wholesale cost of goods. Why should a group of people make more money off those who can't even afford the membership fee? Sometimes as much as $100 so they can by at 5% less and get a BONUS off others in the end? Nope, capitalism at its usual.
Go to the cooperative worker sites to pick a system. There are plenty and many are designed with the 99%ers in mind.
http://www.usworker.coop/front a place to start
Good comments. You are describing my local Food co-op to a "T".
Go back to my earlier comment where I describe what happens if the workers at food co-op try to organize a union...
The fact that several doctrinaire stare centralist Marxists have attempted to co-opt an item about peaceful non statist co-ops is troubling to me. :(
OK what started this fight? Well there was one guy in here and everything was fine, and then this other guy came in, and somehow an argument started. Does a successful co-op involve people cooperating with one another? Good luck with that! By the way, there is way to much name calling on these posts. Good Day
Even better...join or start a local time bank! One time dollar = 1 hour. It's not taxable. Volunteering counts for hours. Great system to build community. See if your city or town has one. It's awesome and totally accessible for everyone. It is not a barter system. If you have earned a time dollar you can spend it with anyone in the time bank. Love it!
Our co-ops in Michigan are doing well. If anybody is interested in organizing a new co-op, I can help.
Joel Welty, Executive Director
MICHIGAN ALLIANCE OF COOPERATIVES
JWELTY@POWER-NET.NET
989-561-5037
Thank for actually DOING something to make work place democracy and equality a concrete reality without need of the state. I agree Michigan co-ops rock, Ann Arbor, Ypsi, and Traverse city all have strong local rooted co-ops who not only show cooperative principles by DOING, but have always been helpful to local activists. The Ypsilanti co-op was very generous when I asked for a food donation for Occupy Ann Arbor yesterday. See Commie *theorists* sniping from the sidelines, this is what it's about actually DOING activism without need for the coercive state or predatory banks and corporations.
The word 'cooperatives' is first noted around 1500 AD originally derived from 'co' = 'together' + 'operatives' = 'stakeholders'. The context was the displacement of the 'guilds' as the primary economy of Europe by Aristocratic run hierarchal companies. Aristocrats with their armies of religious chauvanism amassed great wealth at the time through wars and pilfering in the middle-east so as to command and control their home countries as well. 'Kingdoms' from 'kin' = 'family' were never meant to be hierarchies but originally networks. There were systematic checks and balances in the very ancient indigenous systems, which were broken through agricultural enslavement and war compared to polyculture orchards and whole society empowerment. Like many words co-op was a recall to the time of universal progressive ownership in the specialized trades organized into into guilds. Co-op like many words has lost its original meaning through centuries of misuse and perversion. One member / one vote was the final straw once institutionalized as the state co-op board definition, perverting co-op opposite to its original sense of lifelong growing of ownership from youth to elder in each specialty. Around the world 'indigenous' (Latin = 'self-generating' peoples have likely cultivated progressive ownership in 'Production Societies' similar to the guilds for hundreds of thousands of years. Indigenous society is the heritage of all human-kind even though we have been alienated from our own roots and the wisdom of the First Nations here. Petr Kropotkin in 'Mutual Aid' 1905 describes the guilds of Europe and Siberian Asia www.indigenecommunity.info
Co-ops are the logical choice to break the back of share-holder capitalism. Given the entrenched power in Wall Street and other such streets, this is not going to happen soon, but it can happen IF the groundswell of global rage can be properly focused.
Co-ops have been in USA for yonks. At last count I saw, a few years ago, there were over 11,000 in USA alone. Here's a partial list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_employee-owned_companies . There are a number of sites about co-ops, one of which is here:
http://www.ncba.coop/ncba/about-ncba
Hi All:
I have worked at, been a member of,served on boards of directors, of cooperatives over the last 40 years.
Reading some of the posts brings back not so fond memories of anarco/commie wars that have raged at many failed co-ops over the years.
I as a cooperator believe in community.
The cooperative model in its many forms does provide one answer to the troubles that OWS brings in to sharp focus.
One share equals one vote.
I would hope that the followers of Marx would take their dictatorship of the prols
somewhere else. You have an article talking about potential solutions to how society can organize, and bling, lets have boring arguments about 19th century theory.
Building community works at cooperative's.
Wolfie
Thank you I agree 100%.