The year of the cooperatives
from David Ruccio
Apparently, the United Nations has declared 2012 to be the International Year of Cooperatives [ht: ja].
The UN’s goal for the United States is to rebrand cooperatives — and it may get some help. In 2009, the United Steelworkers, North America’s largest industrial trade union, announced a new affiliation with Mondragón. The goal: To help steelworkers purchase and run their own mills cooperatively, focusing on sustainable business and environmentally sound practices.
In 2000, poverty expert Barbara Peters visited the town of Mondragón. She labeled it a “town without poverty” — and also noted the absence of “extreme wealth.” Peters immediately made the connection between this small town in Spain’s industrial region, and the suffering Rust Belt of North America. If the USW’s new plan succeeds, cooperatives may be able to reinvent faltering towns, even as they reinvent their own image for American workers.
Ultimately, the key to equal employment and fair wages may be as simple as taking control of our own economic realities, stepping up and sharing the responsibility for our future. The United Nations thinks you’d be a great boss — don’t you?
You mean get rid of the existing bosses? What an idea!
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Real-World Economics Review Blog 
Common ownership of the means of production. Doesn’t sound very American, does it?
But the Company owned town and stores and housing used by the employees did fly in this country for some time. This was a model that was tried and in small towns still exists by virtue of the amount of control a company has over the town…. Come to think about it this is what our American Empire has turned into on a grander scale…… Dont you just love the way fractal patterns scale up? It would seem the early successes of those company towns and then their collapse is being mirrored in the current global collapse.
I find it interested that a very good comparison can be made between large corporations and what the soviet system looked like, IBM and the Soviets share more in organization then did the small local farmer or local farmers market or restaurant (not Mickey D’s)
It would seem that size makes the most difference in that a cooperative that grows beyond a certain size experiences lots of little empires inside that each have their own borders to defend, protect, and grow. Once a certain size is reached consensus just does not work well at all, larger and voting starts to become inefficient and to slow for most decisions and conflicts need to be resolved for the greater good (which is seen from different directions) and so the stable pattern becomes one with a benevolent dictator…..well but often the evolves into our current CEO’s or president and the board formed to help make efficient decisions into a politburo……….and then we have – guess what?
The U.S. form while being more efficient and controllable certainly has become manipulated by corporations and finances and energy interests and we all know now what this looks like.
So we can have Fascist organizations based upon ownership be a group of businesses controlling the state or we can have Soviet style organization where the State owns and controls the businesses…..take your pick for massive organizations… Tweedledee or Tweedledum.
The problem seems to be that at the core, humans work well and best in small groups and to reach and get along with larger groups we need culture to bind us to others so we can trust them even when we dont have a personal expereince of them (group limits of a hundred of two). We can make laws, upheld by courts, with punishments to prevent one group taking all the beans (current 1%) but then that only works when the other groups are watching and active in patrolling to keep the playing field as level as reasonably possible. AND watching that the courts remain neutral to all groups and the state decisions are good for all in some fair way that is sustainable……
Darn that just seems to be the problem now isnt it? Can we get cooperatives to work well? can we get cooperatives to cooperate with other cooperatives when there are limited resources? or customers? will one cooperative need to go to war to protect is members against another group of separate members?
Darn here goes those Fractal scaling issues again.
And just think – as a steel mil becomes more and more automated, it needs fewer and fewer workers, who wil get richer and richer!
But what about all those people who used to work in the mill, laid off as the mill automated? What becomes of them?
Guess what? GM workers think that becoming a coop is not such a bad idea:
http://www.aciamericas.coop/General-Motors-union-wants-to-turn
Um, when small and mid-size businesses everywhere are struggling to find financing, where will be start-up capital be found to undertake this start-up? I could see even the union workers themselves taking exception to the United Steelworkers’ actions on this if the union pulls capital from its coffers to make this happen. This would be no different from the union suddenly deciding to invest in, say, a new tech start up, and with all the associated risk. There may be legal ramifications as well regarding the use of this money.
And this doesn’t even begin to ask the big questions, such as how in the hell will a small steel mill compete against the likes of a China-subsidized behemoth?
Ultimately, the key to equal employment and fair wages may be as simple as taking control of our own economic realities, stepping up and sharing the responsibility for our future.”
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for finding means to help decentralize capital, and driving self employment will be the only means out. But far too many of these plans seem to smack of naivete, failing to consider the bigger intransigent issues.
The mice watched the dinosaurs perish, then used them as feed stock.
Carol – it’s direct ownership, not ownership through a central government.
Joe – it is not the “company town” model, in which a town was owned by one boss.
Tom, E.L. Beck – but you see it has been working for decades already. So it’s no use saying “it would never work”.
Try stepping out of your cynicism, this is the best development for the US in a long time.
@Geoff Davies – In the view of those whom I support, Clause IV of the 1918 Labour Party constitution has been misinterpreted. ‘Common’ covers both worker and state ownership of the means of production, the latter in the case of natural monopolies.