How Successful Cooperative Economic Models Can Work Wonderfully… Somewhere Else

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/economy/how-successful-cooperative-economic-models-can-work-wonderfully-somewhere-else



Years ago food critic Ruth Reichl declared, “There is no bad food in Italy.” She was right. Within Italy, the Emilia Romagna region is thought by many to offer the best food of all.

But that is by no means its only distinction. What I did not appreciate until a recent trip to Bologna, is that major components of the entire economy are organized as co-ops. That includes global market manufacturing businesses, facilities management, social services, transportation, food and wine production, banking and other financial services and food sales from small markets to nationwide supermarkets and hypermarkets (similar to Meijer).

Capitalism rests on a foundation of myths. One of them is that capitalism somehow “invented” entrepreneurship. Another is that capitalism provides the only “market” economy. Then there is the self-proclaimed virtue of capitalism that only capitalism is compatible with “self-reliance” and individual responsibility. (The reality of course is that most people are utterly dependent on capitalists for jobs, financing, education, transportation, health care, shelter and just about everything else.) Capitalism also presents itself as the model of “efficiency,” when in truth it generates enormous waste of all kinds.

Finally, the biggest whopper of all is that There Is No Alternative. All of this is nonsense. The economy of the Emilia Romagna region of Italy and its largest city, Bologna, is living proof.

Even though Emilia Romagna has a “leftist” history, co-ops did not arise as an “anti-capitalist” phenomenon. Many of the largest and most successful co-ops trace their origins back to the 19th century. Understanding that markets—a place where buyers and sellers meet—were in existence for thousands of years before capitalism privatized ownership of the means of production, co-ops offer a different way of organizing economic activity.

[xchrom]

1. kick

[PowerToThePeople]

2. they can work wonderfully here too...

[marmar]

3. k/r

[Nye Bevan]

4. Let's throw all the humans off the farm and put the pigs in charge.

What could possibly go wrong?