David Kendall sent me the link to this writing of yours. It is wonderful. As such, please consider submitting the text at this link to the following sites with “Article Submission” written in the subject bar, two sentences about yourself at the end and a note at the beginning with some words like: “Dear Editor, /Thank you for your time to review the following submission. It’s appreciated./ Sincerely,/ Name/ e-mail contact

These organizations require input at the sites:

http://www.buzzflash.com/contact/mail.html

http://www.motherjones.com/about/admin/contact.html

http://www.thenation.com/contact/smis

http://www.inthesetimes.com/about/submissions/

These require direct e-mail mailing:

articlesubmissions@alternet.org, FinnsAgain, crooksandliars@gmail.com, editor@rawstory.com, submissions@commondreams.org, submissions@dissidentvoice.org, submissions@novakeo.com, Submissions@thepeoplesvoice.org, editor@mediamonitors.net, counterpunch@counterpunch.org, editor@countercurrents.org, shahramvahdany@mwcnews.net, zmag@zmag.org, willpowerful@hotmail.com, editor@truthout.org, MMATTRUTH, thinkprogress@americanprogressaction.org, gristmill@grist.org, earlg@democraticunderground.com, useditors@oneworld.net, crgeditor@yahoo.com, webmaster@rense.com, tom@informationclearinghouse.info, cyranoeditor@optonline.net, wpaeditor@gmail.com, reports@socialistworker.org,editor@mediaguardian.co.uk , talk@talkingpointsmemo.com, commentisfree@guardian.co.uk firedoglake@gmail.com admin@boomantribune.com

smirky@smirkingchimp.com
editor@palestinechronicle.com
walsh@wsws.org
Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com

Meanwhile, keep up the excellent and insightful reviews, eh!?! They’re terrific!

Emily

Just a quick note, while I’m here. Apparently the Common Good Bank is having some trouble generating the necessary start-up funds for their bank. While I don’t believe this is the end “model” we’re looking for, I do think it’s a good start in the right direction.

If you or others know of someone with adequate resources, please “network the need” so they can get this thing started — thereby providing “democratic finance” with opportunity for expansion to other regions.

You can email me for further contact information if necessary.

Thank you.

i definitely feel you about how hard it is to get hired at most worker-owned businesses, I’ve run up against the same obstacles myself.

to clarify, i don’t think that in the USA at this point they are an exciting new wave of the future, for the most part north american cooperative businesses are small-time operations that are incredibly picky about hiring because so many people want to work there. the solution, i think, is to dramatically increase the number of them that exist by, as i described, buying out existing capitalist businesses and converting them into cooperatives. transform cooperative business models from a fringe model to a mainstream one, and suddenly it becomes much easier to get a job at a coop because there are far more of them hiring. it’s basic supply and demand, really.

Bank of the South
http://www.payvand.com/news/08/feb/1040.html

Grameen Bank
http://www.grameen-info.org/bank/GBGlance.htm

I would also very strongly recommend reading David Schweickart’s “After Capitalism” for a really good look at how “Economic Democracy” might (should) work. I followed this with Robert A. Dahl’s “Preface to Economic Democracy”, and I was glad I did. Reading Schweickart first provides a comprehensive overview and comparative analysis of Capitalism versus Economic Democracy from a mechanical perspective with supporting commentary on the philisophical. Dahl provides a much deeper look into the questions of “why”, drawing comparisons from a philisophical standpoint.

If you want a quick preview of Schweickart’s model, and other views, visit the work in progress at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_democracy

My final comment, for now, is that I’m already growing frustrated with the whole “worker cooperative” thing. I have made formal inquiries. But IF I receive responses at all, they seem very curt and guarded. In addition, have you looked at any of the job descriptions? It’s hard enough to get a job in a heirarchically managed capitalist sweatshop. But if you want to work for a cooperative, you need to have experience as a political activist in addition to being the qualified best candidate in your professional field, and be able to provide supporting documentation of both — AND they prefer that you’ve had previous experience working in a worker cooperative — AND they prefer to hire women and “people of color”.

If worker cooperatives are a “members only club”, I am dubious about the success of Economic Democracy as a “movement” or “wave” of the future. I’ve already been excluded (door slammed in my face) before I even have a chance to send my resume. Many times, I’m not even sure why I have bothered studying or promoting the idea.

Carry on. Thanks for having me again.

thanks for your great response and for the links! I’ve shown the common good bank site to several people since you posted it up and will probably do a follow-up post specifically about collective banks and credit unions. very cool stuff! I hope to see more of your comments here in the future!

http://commongoodbank.com/

This is a fabulous model, as far as I can tell. It’s the best I’ve seen yet, and I’ve been looking for a while. The regional model set forth at the above URL would work as well in all sorts of business as it would in government, shifting the power of decision from an exclusively entitled minority to a directly democratic majority — one person, one vote.

I don’t know all the answers to the questions you ponder regarding the US versus Argentina — unless of course, our star-spangled nation is actually “the land of cowards and the home of naive”.

In any case, it’s clear you’re at least as angry about the whole fiasco as I am. Everyone I know thinks I am an obsessive freak about the matter of “capitalism”, or “feudalism”, or “feudally managed capitalism” — or whatever the hell it is that stands on my neck and kicks me in the nuts, all day long, every single day I’m alive. But as much I would love to stop thinking and writing and talking about it, every time I open my eyes in the morning to face another day — there it is.

So, like you, I keep singin’ the damn song — even if I get it wrong — because the way I see it, there is no wrong way to kill capitalism. The trick is to figger out how to survive it. Judging from the essay you’ve written here, I would guess you’ve already discovered the same “solution(s)” I have.

Whether we view the “problem” from a Marx perspective (labor + capital = wealth) or from a Henry George perspective (labor + land = wealth), the common factors are labor and wealth. These are two critiques of the same model, and as you observe, most of the wealth is somehow expropriated and maldistributed by the “invisible hand” of a virtually invisible class of non-producers. But non-producers have no intention of either dispensing with this model or negotiating it rationally.

So, to solve the problem of maldistribution, labor must EXIT the existing model and JOIN with a new one. Without the influence of labor, land and capital produce no wealth, and non-producers have no source of income. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called this “economic withdrawal”, and he was shot the day after suggesting it publicly.

Until recently, I hadn’t discovered any sort of alternative model — and without a viable alternative, “economic withdrawal” seems as pointless and futile as sperm on the sheets. The peristent absence of an alternative (until recently) might well explain why “Americans” have not yet organized their “exodus” from the existing model.

But the advent of Worker Cooperatives and Common Good Finance might change all that. The third main factor in economic withdrawal would be the formation and empowerment of Consumer Cooperatives. Many of these already exist, though probably not with economic withdrawal as their foremost intent. But this might change, too, as the stupid sheep in “America” are already beginning to lament corporate control of their water supply. What a butt-load of freakin’ morons.

Now that some really good alternative models have emerged, the only remaining problems are availability and access. As always, the most pressing problem for labor is “access” to the “universe of natural opportunity”. But I think there is light at the end of the tunnel, and this time, maybe it’s not a freight train. Even if it is, so be it. The existing world isn’t the sort of place I want to live anyway.

For further information on worker cooperatives, see the following:

http://www.usworker.coop/public/documents/What_is_WC_front.pdf
http://www.usworker.coop/public/documents/What_is_WC_back.pdf