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A Cooperative Economy: The Time Is Now
I am impressed by the amount of knowledge in our communities. There are countless skills among those who are currently unemployed and underemployed and those who have been laid off during this recession.
In more and more businesses, the tasks and responsibilities are being piled up on smaller staffs and overworked employees, many of whom find themselves increasingly fed up with top-down management that doesn't appreciate them.
In fact, much of our recession can be attributed to the lack of input from workers and small businesses. Our economy has been at the mercy of too few hands over the last several decades. Now many folks are using whatever skill they have to get by in a world with fewer local jobs and many, many underemployed people.
Why should so much talent go to waste?
This is a perfect time for a cooperative economy. Considering the disproportionate struggles faced by women and people of color during a recession, the cooperative economy presents an opportunity for all people, to leverage more power by making themselves the bosses, sharing ownership, and taking a collective approach to good management. Many people have already been let down by a top-down corporate or non-profit model in a recession-ridden society. Now is the time to rebuild the system, and build a society founded on justice, dignity, and respect for people and the planet.
Finding Opportunity in Crisis: Inspiration From the Road Ahead
I was really inspired by the power of community in supporting local economies through a recession when I first visited Detroit in 2008 and again in 2010 for the US Social Forum. There is much more than a depressed economy in Detroit. There are pockets of vibrant community. There is food growing. There are queer-owned, women-owned, cooperatively run businesses getting together. And while there may be great stretches of empty blocks, between them, there are farmers markets, and neighbors who talk to each other. There are older communities and advocates working alongside young and aspiring activists and entrepreneurs. This is what I think of when I hear Detroiters refer to "opportunity in crisis."
Austin is doing far better, financially at least, than Detroit. But when it comes to competition in a cutthroat time of depressed profit and wages, women, immigrants, and people of color are getting the raw end of the deal left and right. Many in the city feel underemployment, under appreciation or both.
In this sense we are primed for an alternative. And the good news is, while any big, social or economic grassroots movement is a "marathon", so to speak, we are witnessing big change over the last couple of years. 
Black Star Pub & Brewery
Austin has already birthed more than one worker-owned cooperative business in recent years. Black Star Co-Op Pub & Brewery opened doors in the summer of 2010, with a large banner outside that reads "Community-Owned Beer." A consumer cooperative (owned by the community it serves) and also a worker-coop (run by its employees), Black Star is attracting a full house of business seven days a week. And the byproducts their brewery produces? They make great dog biscuits! Sold at the pub and at farmers markets and stores around town—green and delicious products for people and their pets.
Red Rabbit Cooperative BakeryRed Rabbit Cooperative Bakery has launched this year and is making donuts with local and organic ingredients. Their donuts also happen to be vegan, but the target audience includes meat and dairy eaters, since anyone can enjoy a good donut. The founding women of Red Rabbit used to work at a major grocery store chain bakery. They decided to take their skill set elsewhere, and make decisions collectively, so as to be truly appreciated as workers and owners. They started using all-natural, vegan, locally and organically derived ingredients, and using sustainable, environmentally friendly practices to create delicious donuts now being distributed all around town. Their demand is growing, and they are in the process of opening their own storefront, a green, worker-owned bakeshop.
One of the most beautiful things about building the movement for worker-owned businesses is that cooperatives, on principle, work to support each other. While Red Rabbit started small, with donuts, they are expanding to breads and other goods, and now sell sandwich loaves to Black Star Co-op Pub & Brewery as the Pub's menu expands. Black Star also collaborates with Third Coast Workers for Cooperation, an organization helping to develop green, worker-owned business and educating the community about the cooperative movement. Black Star helps the organization out in fundraising initiatives, so that TCWC can continue to offer free and low-cost assistance to emerging worker coops. All three organizations strive to make every element of the work green, local, and sustainable. And economically, a local support system offers more sustainability than the disconnected, global, corporate alternative. Much like the cradle-to-cradle ideology protects our natural resources, keeping our money in a cyclical change of hands that stays in our community and promotes justice and sustainability, is the way we will change the world, one town at a time.
The most exciting thing about discussing this work right now, is that more folks are realizing that this model can apply to their situations. Again, skilled people, underemployed, who know these businesses, are the perfect candidates to get together and organize their collective skills into local, economic power. It could be a valet company, a restaurant, a bike rental business, a car body shop, a construction team, insulation team, house-cleaning cooperative. The possibilities are endless, and in a town like Austin where the service industry employs a huge sector of our population, the possibilities stand to be lucrative.
Without getting too carried away, we must dare to dream up a new reality. Reviewing the disappointments of national news can only get us so far, but if we can immerse ourselves into transforming local business, then we can address movement building from a much more inclusive and meaningful place. When our communities are empowered by belonging to a movement that they see is growing with success, then we will be even more ready to plunge into the national dialogue. But this time, we will be empowered by our own local successes.
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28 Comments so far
Show AllThe idea, like many ideas that come from leftist liberal progressives, is a good one, a goal that would be well worth achieving. The problem, as with most if not all of the problems facing humankind, is implementation motivation. How do things get started moving in the right direction? I suppose it could spontaneously combust from below, but pinning hopes on that happening seems to me to be a dangerously naive notion. It would take political leadership, politicians off the campaign contributions grid who were dynamic and exciting enough that mainstream media could not ignore them. Unfortunately, I know of no one like that in the present mediasphere. Maybe Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Dennis Kucinich and public figures of that sort could succeed in leading the way. But they would need others at all political levels thinking the same way and campaigning against the Esblishments money machine elections system.
I hope it happens but being that I am my sign-on name, I can't find it in me to hope too hard.
I agree. It takes big name pols like you mentioned, or some unusual event. Think of the Murdoch scandal. It's been going on for years. The only thing that got it into the MSM big time was that one of the phones hacked was a dead child. I.e. it was so hideous. Same with getting press for ideas like those presented in this article. I'm afraid it's going to take a big bad event, like a Palin/Perry/Bachman presidency to wake entire communities up to possibilities like co-ops.
It gets started by people rolling up their sleeves and working their asses off to build cooperative institutions. Sitting around waiting for charismatic politicians or spontaneous combustion should certainly feed your pessimism.
this right here...
In all your comments in this thread, I'm attracted to your absence of excuses, victimhood, defeatism. Bravo. Loved the article, too.
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Exactly!!
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I disagree.
"The problem, as with most if not all of the problems facing humankind, is implementation motivation. How do things get started moving in the right direction? I suppose it could spontaneously combust from below, but pinning hopes on that happening seems to me to be a dangerously naive notion. It would take political leadership..."
You are ascribing to the same paradigm that has caused society problems over and over again. What we need is for people on the local level to lead, leadership from national politicians and mega-corporations is tyrannical at worst and off the mark at best. From an ecological standpoint, local leadership makes sense. With the oncoming energy and environmental crises, living within our regional habitats or ecology will take first position.
Instead of looking at what motivates someone on the local level to take this leadership, let's look at why someone would want to stay with the status quo. First of all, it's easier. People don't have to take responsibility for decisions, as the decisions are made for them, and in the end they can just blame somebody else. They don't have to use their energy coming up with creative solutions, they can just choose from creations made by others. They don't have to actually work with others and resolve conflicts with others. They are told that if they allow others to have power and wealth that is many times greater than their own, that they too may have the opportunity (however small) to have the same.
On the other hand, when people are given autonomy, when their creative ideas are at least listened too or even helped and encouraged to be worked on, they take on ownership of what they are doing. They do things for purpose and often do them better as they care about their work. Working within an organization like this takes more work, more effort, it takes people that are willing to take ownership of their work and responsibility for their actions, but I believe people will want to do this as it will make them feel like they themselves have purpose in contibuting to the whole.
Here's a great RSAnimate on this subject
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc:
Health care in America is much more expensive & less available because it is a FOR PROFIT industry. Drugs are extremely overpriced & the insurance companies care about your health as much as they care about the stuff they just expelled into their toilets.
back pain relief |predicting back pain
So I heard someone write that if we all stopped shopping at WalMart, they'd have to close their doors and go out of business, but then where would all the people buy their toilet paper from, K-Mart? If everybody quit shopping at big box corporate stores, and shopped only local stores, would there be enough toilet paper on the shelves in the short term? If a full and complete boycott of the stores put them out of business in America...Oh, wait, corporations are making a killing in other countries around the world...and I hear they wipe their butts too, perhaps not all with the Koch brothers assets...
I say this loving this article -- what a good work! Community over competition. All those unempowered, out of work people can regain their power by becoming self-reliant, like back in the old days before WWII (or even just in the 1800') when there weren't big box stores, and most people survived being able to live on their own on a small family farm. You laugh now, and I do too: can you imagine a nation of farmers today? People have lost 3-5 generations of knowledge on how to live -- today all people know is go to work and launder their labor through a corporation so that when it comes out of the wash it is in the form of packaged goods they sell you in the big box.
Today, of 308 million Americans, less than 1% can survive and live without having to get everything they need from stores, and that 1% still does a lot of shopping and fuel purchasing compared to the Waltons in the 1930's. Self-reliance is the one great capacity that has eroded over the last 60 years, go ask the nearest teenager playing video games to go make dinner -- first they'll bitch about having to pause the game, and then they'll not know what to do unless it's go to fast food or raid the fridge for leftovers.
Like my goats, Americans are happy to be fed hay, corn, oats and barley (OK, not the hay) and be put up in their stalls at night to be let out the next day. First-world conveniences have made for a fat and lazy population the has a sense of entitlement to comforts brought by the corporations daily. What, I have to grow my food, build my house, take care of my self? Are you kidding me -- next you'll want me to raise my children too, so that they can learn to be self-reliant! Where's my hot running water, where's my electricity, where's my toilet paper!
Working within the system to build worker-owned means of production is a meaningful goal if you are talking about running the family farm, but once you get wage earners together in a small or large industrial setting (even a doughnut shop), some are going to game the system, some are going to work harder than others and some are going to feel like they are carrying water for others. All industrial or collective work outside the family farm is fraught with difficulty: up until recently, perhaps 150 years or so, people had to make the family farm work. Since then, there has never been a skill set developed to make industrial-business-collective work succeed without the few lording over the many, and I don't think humans can ever make it happen, outside the family farm.
Working within the system to build worker-owned means of production is a meaningful idea, period. People all over the world are not waiting for politicians or others to believe in cooperative economics, people are building cooperative economies.
A cooperative economy is NOT about individual and family self-reliance a la 1800's pioneers. Look at the Mondragon Corporation, the most successful worker-owned enterprise in the world, a modern multi-billion dollar technological, education, service, financial and retail conglomerate that continues to grow, continues to provide guaranteed employment and education for all worker-owners, continues to be profitable, and continues to be an inspiration and model for cooperative developers worldwide. The United Steelworkers are engaged in long-term strategic planning with representatives from the Mondragon Corporation to develop models for worker-owned industrial enterprises in the USA.
Look at the Arizmendi bakeries in the Bay Area, a growing group of successful worker-owned enterprises inspired by Mondragon and named after the local priest whose ideas and organizing launched the Mondragon cooperatives.
Look at Isthmus Engineering and Manufacturing in Wisconsin, "a full service engineering company that specializes in the concept, design, and build of custom automation solutions." Not exactly 1800s rugged individualism, and they take no military contracts, as is true also of Mondragon.
Look at the Evergreen Cooperatives in Cleveland, creating sustainable jobs in devastated neighborhoods blasted by the collapse of the US industrial steel economy. Three businesses up and running with more in the pipeline.
Look at Equal Exchange, the hugely successful fair-trade worker co-op that buys from producer co-ops and sells largely to retail consumer co-ops, explicitly working with a group of retail consumer co-ops through their P-6 program to build a growing network of co-ops that do business with other co-ops.
Look at the project i'm involved with in Seattle called SLICE, Strengthening Local Independent Co-ops Everywhere, explicitly working with co-ops and cooperators from around the Pacific Northwest to build a regional cooperative economy.
The Austin cooperators written about here, working with directors and managers from the thriving Wheatsville (consumer) Co-op in the Austin Cooperative Think Tank, are not waiting on you or anyone else to believe it is possible. They are organizing to develop a cooperative economy. Your belief in the futility of cooperative economics and the inevitability of "the few lording it over the many" is simply defeatism.
i should add the work of the cooperative development centers around the USA, many now working together in a service co-op called CooperationWorks! to provide support and resources for people who want to launch new cooperative enterprises of all kinds. If you are interested in launching a co-op or building a cooperative economy go the the CooperationWorks! web site, find the closest development center and give them a call.
SAIC Inc of San Diego used to be employee owned.
Interesting, a top-ten US defense contractor! Still have employee stockholders since they went public in 2006. Thanks for the tip.
SAIC employees may have "owned" the stock, but the people at the very top made all the important decisions. When you own 0.000001% of something, do you really "own" any of it?
"A cooperative economy is NOT about individual and family self-reliance a la 1800's pioneers."
Why would you say something like that? Isn't the ideal composed of small enterprises? What is the value in Mondragon? Its largeness? That would indicate that you want business as usual, only temporarily masked in sheeps' clothes. You may want to instead put the torch and pitchfork in the people's hands. If they decide to pool their resources then they have that choice. But the torch and pitchfork should remain in their hands so if the thing turns into a monster they can jab it. Didn't you do the arithmetic? What are you advocating?
RE: "A cooperative economy is NOT about individual and family self-reliance a la 1800's pioneers."
That's true. A cooperative is about INTER-dependance, not independence. It's about communal-reliance, not self-reliance. The "family self-reliance a la 1800's pioneers" was a Ayn Randian, myth. Those that were, died young.
rtdrury quotes me:
"A cooperative economy is NOT about individual and family self-reliance a la 1800's pioneers."
and then writes:
"Why would you say something like that?"
ummm... because i was replying to digaboo who wrote:
"out of work people can regain their power by becoming self-reliant, like back in the old days before WWII (or even just in the 1800') when there weren't big box stores, and most people survived being able to live on their own on a small family farm."
and
"up until recently, perhaps 150 years or so, people had to make the family farm work."
You're way over-interpreting me. i gave multiple diverse examples, and there are many others. i'm not fixated on Mondragon as an ideal to which all aspire. But if you think their achievements in guaranteed employment, worker management, and wage solidarity are simply sheep's clothing for the capitalist wolf, i think you're fixated on your own analysis.
Look at the Mondragon cooperative principles compared to the ICA cooperative principles. You don't have to launch a gigantor enterprise to embody those social commitments in your work. Here are Mondragon principles 3 thru 6:
III. SOVEREIGNTY OF LABOR
“In the MCC Co-operatives it is understood that Labor is the main factor for transforming nature, society and human beings themselves. As a result, Labor is granted full sovereignty in the organization of the co-operative enterprise, the wealth created is distributed in terms of the labor provided and there is a firm commitment to the creation of new jobs. As far as the wealth generated by the Co-operative is concerned, this is distributed among the members in proportion to their labor and not on the basis of their holding in Share Capital. The pay policy of MCC’s co-operatives takes its inspiration from principles of Solidarity, which are materialized in sufficient remuneration for labor on the basis of solidarity.”
IV. INSTRUMENTAL AND SUBORDINATE NATURE OF CAPITAL
Generally, a corporation sells shares of ownership and management to raise capital, and then hires labor. The Mondragon Cooperatives do not sell shares in order to raise capital. Here, the workers own the enterprise and the management and rent the capital.
V. PARTICIPATORY MANAGEMENT
“This Principle implies the progressive development of self-management and, consequently, of the participation of the members in business management. This requires: (1) The development of adequate mechanisms and channels for participation. (2) Transparent information with respect to the performance of the basic management variables of the Co-operative. (3) The use of methods of consultation and negotiation with the worker-members and their social representatives in those economic, organizational and labor decisions which affect them. (4) The systematic application of social and professional training plans. (5) The establishment of internal promotion as a basic means of covering positions with greater professional responsibility.”
VI. PAYMENT SOLIDARITY
” The Mondragón Co-operative Experience declares sufficient payment based on solidarity to be a basic principle of its management. Solidarity is manifest both internally and externally, as well as at the Corporate level.” Currently the top executive in MCC can earn no more than 9 times the entry level income.
You cannot have a cooperative economy in a fascist society.
That is precisely where the Mondragon Cooperatives were born, in Franco's Spain.
you can, but only to the point where you don't threaten power...it's a long term conundrum, true, but that doesn't invalidate webwalk's message on this thread and I agree with him.
The reality is that we all need to know how to do these things with or without the corporatist presence, because even if we had a succcessful revolution, this would be our future. so getting practice now--even understanding the limitations of this model for changing power relations--is a very important thing to do.
RE: ...you can, but only to the point where you don't threaten power.
The post to which you are replying said "cooperative economy." Nietzsche didn't say cooperative businesses operating within a capitalist (aka fascist) economy. Mondragon does not and never did represent the Spanish economy. However admirable coops like Mondragon are, they only exist because they don't threaten the (capitalist) economy. And when and if they do, the capitalists will drive them out of existence. Those that did threaten the fascist government in Spain were hunted down and killed.
Under capitalism the state and business class have a mutually beneficial relationship. The state ensures (big) business profitability; contrary to the pronouncements of politicians, the state does not serve the demos. A cooperative economy (really we're talking something akin to socialism) cannot coexist with a capitalist economy. They have mutually exclusive goals.
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"Under capitalism the state and business class have a mutually beneficial relationship."
Yes, it's a particularly ingenious and sophisticated form of fascism. There is the usual state/corporate partnership, but instead of widespread repression, there's the drug of consumerism and the widespread complexity and distraction posed by technological innovation that acts to paralyze and confine the population within tolerable boundaries.
To get to the cooperative economy we'd have to withdraw from the drugs and move past the "toy" phase of our culture. As we begin to do this we might start to free up some time and seize the chance to engage in serious forms of nonviolent conflict, which is probably the only way we could possibly get to a "cooperative economy" someday, at least at the national level.
you're correct to point that out, thanks. i wasn't thinking about national "economies" in that sense, merely runnning with micro economies within a society as the general gist of the article is discussing. I should have been clear about that and I wasn't.
I consider cooperatives and communes to be economies for the people that operate in them--and they are economies....just not in the national sense.
Sorry to both of you for the imprecise communication. The larger point is that communal and cooperative economics *within* larger societies that are fascisat or capitalist do exist and are possible, but only up to a certain point. As Erasmus discusses in "....Common Good..", the empirical history of communes is littered with examples of where power has crushed that sort of alternative as it grew and became competitive with capital. A large number of otherwise successful communes and collectives from the 60s, for example, were done in not by their own utopianism--as goes urban myth--but by ruthless application of zoning and code laws designed to break their operations. California was especially bad during the 60s and 70s.
Anyhoo, thanks for the correction.
I agree with webwalk and drone, and add that Mondragon would be an even better model if they went green. The Cleveland Model, is based on Mondragon, and is also green.
In my local economy group, it was pointed out that even if we keep money circulating locally, there is still a big drain due to taxes, insurance, monopoly services like energy and phone, etc. We need workarounds for that.
Our so-called economic system is really a means of "flooding-up" (as opposed to trickle-down) as much of the debt money (created with interest attached so there's always more debt than money) as possible. Interest, the "business cycle" (loose credit then tight credit done by those who profit greatly by knowing when each will happen), privatize/monopolize, "free" trade, insurance, most taxes (Tobin tax is the reverse), these all serve to accelerate the growth of debt of the people.
By networking our efforts (and just by moving in the same direction), we will simultaneously transform communities and the global, step by step. Cooperation is our greatest strength.
You can select/choose/demand local products/services or the other type that falls mysteriously out of the sky. Perhaps the novelty of it falling out of the sky amuses you. But if you demand local production then the magic starts to happen. You lose the chains that enslave you to "the powers that be". instead of the chains, you get to do your business with someone you know - your neighbor. If you demand local production then local production has value. You have to demand it. Umm, get the idea? Your demand for local products/services is what creates the value. Bizarre in that it contradicts the ideas dispensed out of the garbage tube, the TeeVee, from the "powers that be" - sociopaths from Follywood. They say just the opposite. They enslave the people not by accident, but by design. You buy into that? Still? Create local jobs by demanding local production. It's too obvious.
Absolutely spot on, thanks!
"Considering the disproportionate struggles faced by women and people of color during a recession,"
Carmen Llanes demonstrates little understanding of the meaning of cooperation. Cooperation abhors "separationist" ideology. By citing special groups that are simplistically separated, women and people of color, she demonstrates her ignorance. Cooperation is egalitarian to it's core and is deeply injured by separation. She cannot quite let go of her Capitalist political moorings. Please, more study and wisdom Carmen, before voicing such flawed beliefs. Helf truths are insufficient for cooperative endeavors. The word misfit comes to mind. If you want to understand cooperation, allow Native Americans to be the instructors. We have survived with cooperation and reciprocity as principle values here for twenty thousand years.
Please consider: The response to The global Financial crash, every where, has been to literally "print or keyboard" money estimated to be in the hundreds of trillion of dollars, in order to "rescue" the big Banks and financial institutions, those responsible for creating the crash, however, the correct response should have been "bankruptcy" for the financial gigolos, and implementation of my long-time proposal for THE UNIVERSAL ECONOMY. The main purpose of THE UNIVERSAL ECONOMY, is to create "Social" capital in order to eliminate Poverty; as you read you will understand that the rich and powerful already have their version of THE UNIVERSAL ECONOMY but it only serves those who need it least."Please now read and judge for yourselves; whereas bailing out the financial and banking institutions is certain to create hyper-inflation, money "printed" and spent into the grass-roots of domestic economies will not.Please read it all.
All Nations of the world must take back their Sovereign rights that enable them to create their own supply of domestic, Interest free, Debt free, Social Capital and to create a State Bank, to create and issue all Democratically mandated "Social Capital" ; one American State (North Dakota) does this and is free of the financial woes depressing the rest.
This first step eliminates untold quanta of inflation and Government debt.
Every Sovereign independent Nation, or co-operating group of Nations, will then use this Social Capital to totally eliminate Poverty and deprivation in their communities by issuing to all that need it a Social Wage, structured to provide a basic break even living standard, a wage that will continue until death. This forms the basis, the bed-rock of a stable, consistent, trickle-up economy.
The Government will finance all conceivable Public Support and Infrastructures, Health, Housing, Education, etc.
The Social Capital so created will be the sole means of financing the Nations Money Supply, it adjusts automatically to population levels. This will become a "trickle Up" economy, replacing the nonsense of trickle down.
No Capital or subsidy will go to Private Enterprise directly, for if it did it would cause serious inflation.Capital issued and "spent" into circulation, as described above, would not create inflation.
There would be no interference with Private Enterprise. The Private Sector could employ those in receipt of the Social Wage by offering wages and hours of employment capable of inducing people to do the work offered; the wage so earned would supplement the Social Wage, not replace it. Thus inducing mutually agreed conditions at much lower wage costs to employers.Will this not help negate the export of jobs to China etc.?
Thus far no or very little taxpayer money has been expended. The burden of support for the poor and the provision of social and community infrastructure has been lifted from the backs of Corporate enterprise and the wealthy.
Control of Social provision has passed out of the hands of those not willing to vote for higher taxation to facilitate it. Working people are no longer at the total mercy of Market force gambling, that all too often deprive them of livelihood and take away hard won assets such as homes and pension funds. Working people can more easily change employment to escape unsatisfactory masters and conditions.
Price and cost inflation will be substantially reduced by ceasing tax collections from wage and salary earners, to include abolition of any sales taxes, G.S.T., and V.A.T.. Instead individuals will pay tax only once, and that when they are deceased, when the taxman will be empowered to asses deceased estates for tax liability. Avoidance will place the whole estate in danger of confiscation. Is there a better, or more equitable, system or time to pay tax, other than when we are dead?
Corporations and all other commercial enterprise will pay an annual flat rate tax levied against total net profits. Avoidance and imaginative minimisation schemes will not be allowed. Tax allowances will be strictly limited to running, operating,overheads and development expenditures.
Government will not subsidise free enterprise, this great engine, by it's own rules, must stand or fall on it's own merits.
The value of Sovereign currencies, exchange rates, for international purposes will be decided by co-operating Governments, taking into account the requirements and relativities embedded by consent in trade agreements, indicated by Supply and Demand and moderated to avoid damaging competitive pressures or disruption to home markets. Exchange rates will be fixed, stable, out of the influences of manipulators and traders.
There is much more to be said in explanation, however your own knowledge and experience will enable you to foresee the many attributes such a system delivers. My title for it is "THE UNIVERSAL ECONOMY" for it will work anywhere and for every person, fairly and equitably.
A very small "coterie" of Bankers and money power people is holding the world to ransom, they spend untold quanta of money spreading lies about the evils of Social Capital, for their own narrow purposes, populations around the world are in mortal danger, somehow the money power must be defeated.This defeat will come about when we elect independent politicians who will change our system from being representative to being participatory, and we return the Economy to one operating on "sound money", circulating in THE UNIVERSAL ECONOMY. This formula, most importantly,takes care of the constantly increasing costs due to population growth and other demographics.
Have you read this far? then you have my thanks, your commentary would also be most appreciated.
Regards, Thomas W. Adams.