Daniel Little — Worker-owned enterprises as a social solution

There are several forms of socialism, just there there are of capitalism. One form of socialism is public ownership of the means of production, and another is worker-owned ("cooperatively owned") means of production.

Consider some of the most intractable problems we face in contemporary society: rising inequalities between rich and poor, rapid degradation of the environment, loss of control of their lives by the majority of citizens. It might be observed that these problems are the result of a classic conundrum that Marx identified 150 years ago: the separation of society into owners of the means of production and owners of labor power that capitalism depends upon has a logic that leads to bad outcomes. Marx referred to these bad outcomes as "immiseration". The label isn't completely accurate because it implies that workers are materially worse off from decade to decade. But what it gets right is the fact of "relative immiseration" -- the fact that in almost all dimensions of quality of life the bottom 50% of the population in contemporary capitalism lags further and further from the quality of life enjoyed by the top 10%. And this kind of immiseration is getting worse....

The central insight of Marx's diagnosis of capitalism is couched in terms of property and power. There is a logic to private ownership of the means of production that predictably leads to certain kinds of outcomes, dynamics that Marx outlined in Capital in fine detail: impersonalization of work relations, squeezing of wages and benefits, replacement of labor with machines, and -- Marx's ultimate accusation -- the creation of periodic crises. Marx anticipated crises of over-production and under-consumption; financial crises; and, if we layer in subsequent thinkers like Lenin, crises of war and imperialism.

At various times in the past century or two social reformers have looked to cooperatives and worker-owned enterprises as a solution for the problems of immiseration created by capitalism....

Understanding Society
Worker-owned enterprises as a social solution
Daniel Little | Chancellor of the University of Michigan-Dearborn, Professor of Philosophy at UM-Dearborn and Professor of Sociology at UM-Ann Arbor

David F. Ruccio — Catholicism beyond capitalism

Pope Francis on trickle down and cooperatives. Francis seems to be a non-Marxist socialist. 

Occasional Links & Commentary
Catholicism beyond capitalism
David F. Ruccio | Professor of Economics University of Notre Dame Notre Dame

For a Marxian view of worker cooperatives as a viable basis for socialism:

Monthly Review
Cooperatives On the Path to Socialism?
Peter Marcuse | Professor Emeritus of Urban Planning, Columbia University

Katherine Paul and Ronnie Cummins — Secret Trade Agreements Threaten to Undo Our Last Shreds of Food Safety

If you think the U.S. government is doing a sub-par job of keeping your food safe, brace yourself. You could soon be eating imported seafood, beef or chicken products that don’t meet even basic U.S. food safety standards. Under two new trade agreements, currently in negotiation, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) could be powerless to shut down imports of unsafe food or food ingredients. And if it tries, multinational corporations will be able to sue the U.S. government for the loss of anticipated future profits.

More frightening? Negotiations for both agreements are taking place behind closed doors, with input allowed almost exclusively from the corporations and industry trade groups that stand to benefit the most. And the Obama Administration intends to push the agreements through Congress without so much as giving lawmakers access to draft texts, much less the opportunity for debate.

AlterNet
Secret Trade Agreements Threaten to Undo Our Last Shreds of Food Safety
Katherine Paul, Ronnie Cummins

More neoliberalism at work.

The good news is that this is expanding the alternative food supply — the co-op movement and local suppliers. The Iowa City Co-op (founded 1971) is expanding their facilities, already included two stores, and it has over a hundred local suppliers. More people are growing their own produce, too. There is now a strong movement supporting backyard chickens, too, and it looks favorable for it to happen.

Washington's Blog — Public Banking Conference good news: all solutions already here for deficits, debt, full-employment

Some interesting stuff from the Public Banking Conference, and not just public banking.

Washington's Blog
It Only Takes $20 Million to Start a Public Bank

Posted by Barry Ritholtz at The Big Picture
(h/t Keven Fathi via email)

Carl Gibson — Cooperative Economics: Replacing a Capitalism in Collapse

All it takes to form a co-op is a small group of determined people all set on an idea to cooperatively own and operate a facet of the economy and allow them to make decisions in a democratic process. By democratizing society through housing and work, we can start a new revolution in our politics, our economy, and even our environment by choosing to consume sustainably and minimize our impact on the planet.

Truthout
Cooperative Economics: Replacing a Capitalism in Collapse
Carl Gibson, Occupy.com | Op-Ed