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This village seems to live on subsistance agriculture, which probably means villagers’ pay is less than the national minimum wage. I hope these “anarchist / communists” aren’t saying it’s OK for them to pay below the min wage, but a crime for a capitalist employer to do likewise.
But they aren't screwed either, as they used to be. Basically, they regressed toward a primitive communal society to deal with a dysfunction in advanced civilization.
Theoretically they could actually do well in the future if able to create a surplus for trade, e.g., discover a mine or grow a high margin cash crop like ginseng.
I'm not being to harsh anyway cause that's the case for most Spanish municipalities.
But they can't objectively say they are doing well by their own as they depend much on the flows (and not financial only) of the rest of the capitalist system.
According to the article, they pay twice the minimum wage.
"The town co-operative does not distribute profits: any surplus is reinvested to create more jobs. Everyone in the co-op earns the same salary, €47 (£40) a day for six and a half hours of work: it may not sound like a lot, but it's more than double the Spanish minimum wage."
With enemies like these austerity hardly needs to find any friends.
What will we have next? A model based on hunter gatherer societies?
What the Spanish opposition must do for the sake of the peoples of the Peninsula is abandon the euro and recapture democratic control of the currency via direct state financing at a peseta-issuing central bank. Nothing else will do.
Absent a return to monetary sovereignty the future of the Peninsula will likely be poverty, mass emigration, double digit unemployment, never-ending recession (just have a look at the EU-mandated Fiscal Compact signed by the major political parties), misery wages and obscene levels of inequality of income and wealth.
In this regard one could say that primitivist, Communist" initiatives such as this one will only serve to undermine the credibility of the adversaries of eurozone neoliberalism. And btw Marx would likely be the first to ridicule such utopian projects based on isolation from society at large and an extremely low level of technological development.
It's time for Spain to follow the example of South America and just say no to the Malthusian policies beloved by the North.
And the alternative choice of the people in that community was what, other than to abandon it?
I don't think it's that bad a model. It was adopted in the Sixties and Seventies by a lot American counterculturists and now the underground economy is a multi-billion dollar a year powerhouse. It's true it has been supported by the black market for a high margin cash crop, but a lot of other things have come out it besides in the countercultural economy, including the coop movement, alternative health care, and "New Age" shops and merchandise. Music was initially a countercultural affair, too, but it was co-opted by the by recording industry.
In other words, the model works if there are enough people and nodes to provide a buffer between the alternative and conventional economies.
Alternative economies can also develop their own monetary arrangements, even ones interfacing with the existing monetary system, e.g., in the US through credit unions.
This has allowed a lot of people to escape a system to one degree or other that they refuse to support on principle.
i should point out that the countercultural movement and alternative economy in the US is not a matter of economic need but political protest. Many people choose onn principle to opt out of the conventional system because they don't want to support its aims. On the negative side, they are anti-war (which was a chief basis of social protest in the Sixties and Seventies), anti-imperialist, and anti-neoliberal. On the positive side they are not only creative and courageous, but also creative and courageous enough to end run the system. They aren't wealth-driven so they tend not to become entrepreneurs within the system, but many have become quite wealthy through their creative endeavors anyway, but this usually involves some interface with the conventional system.
10 comments:
This village seems to live on subsistance agriculture, which probably means villagers’ pay is less than the national minimum wage. I hope these “anarchist / communists” aren’t saying it’s OK for them to pay below the min wage, but a crime for a capitalist employer to do likewise.
ralph is right, the village is much subsidized, and it still has a pretty bad balance of payments and debt to income ratio.
But they aren't screwed either, as they used to be. Basically, they regressed toward a primitive communal society to deal with a dysfunction in advanced civilization.
Theoretically they could actually do well in the future if able to create a surplus for trade, e.g., discover a mine or grow a high margin cash crop like ginseng.
I'm not being to harsh anyway cause that's the case for most Spanish municipalities.
But they can't objectively say they are doing well by their own as they depend much on the flows (and not financial only) of the rest of the capitalist system.
According to the article, they pay twice the minimum wage.
"The town co-operative does not distribute profits: any surplus is reinvested to create more jobs. Everyone in the co-op earns the same salary, €47 (£40) a day for six and a half hours of work: it may not sound like a lot, but it's more than double the Spanish minimum wage."
With enemies like these austerity hardly needs to find any friends.
What will we have next? A model based on hunter gatherer societies?
What the Spanish opposition must do for the sake of the peoples of the Peninsula is abandon the euro and recapture democratic control of the currency via direct state financing at a peseta-issuing central bank. Nothing else will do.
Absent a return to monetary sovereignty the future of the Peninsula will likely be poverty, mass emigration, double digit unemployment, never-ending recession (just have a look at the EU-mandated Fiscal Compact signed by the major political parties), misery wages and obscene levels of inequality of income and wealth.
In this regard one could say that primitivist, Communist" initiatives such as this one will only serve to undermine the credibility of the adversaries of eurozone neoliberalism. And btw Marx would likely be the first to ridicule such utopian projects based on isolation from society at large and an extremely low level of technological development.
It's time for Spain to follow the example of South America and just say no to the Malthusian policies beloved by the North.
And the alternative choice of the people in that community was what, other than to abandon it?
I don't think it's that bad a model. It was adopted in the Sixties and Seventies by a lot American counterculturists and now the underground economy is a multi-billion dollar a year powerhouse. It's true it has been supported by the black market for a high margin cash crop, but a lot of other things have come out it besides in the countercultural economy, including the coop movement, alternative health care, and "New Age" shops and merchandise. Music was initially a countercultural affair, too, but it was co-opted by the by recording industry.
In other words, the model works if there are enough people and nodes to provide a buffer between the alternative and conventional economies.
Alternative economies can also develop their own monetary arrangements, even ones interfacing with the existing monetary system, e.g., in the US through credit unions.
This has allowed a lot of people to escape a system to one degree or other that they refuse to support on principle.
i should point out that the countercultural movement and alternative economy in the US is not a matter of economic need but political protest. Many people choose onn principle to opt out of the conventional system because they don't want to support its aims. On the negative side, they are anti-war (which was a chief basis of social protest in the Sixties and Seventies), anti-imperialist, and anti-neoliberal. On the positive side they are not only creative and courageous, but also creative and courageous enough to end run the system. They aren't wealth-driven so they tend not to become entrepreneurs within the system, but many have become quite wealthy through their creative endeavors anyway, but this usually involves some interface with the conventional system.
Good stuff, Tom. I agree 100%.
Tom,
To me this is basically required of these communities due to failure of parts of the 'hierarchy' that is 'above' them...
Not implying that "higher" is "better" ie "some are better than others" with this statement but some others may (and do!) ...
rsp,
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