RE: RE: co-ops + human behavior
whoa, austin just one minute please! i read your drift that you don't agree with my expert opinions. first, who is "we", like in "We know it is."? the entire world except me? if so, then i vociferously object!!! i say that humans, like ALL animals, have a genetic endowment that limits how we behave. further, that social engineers need proceed with caution. e.g., when falling from a tree, a person can't right him/herself like a cat no matter how much learning the person has because the cat is genetically programmed to perform that behavior better than a human. however, a trampolinist who jumps straight up can use his/her given genetic endowment to fall flat on his/her back by bringing his/her arms swiftly over the head and a high diver can turn through many movements by moving parts of the body in different ways. same principle, but genetic hard-wiring limits what humans can do. (i like those examples because it is an excellent example of Newton's third law and conservation of angular momentum for tutoring wayward Physics students.) if i hear correctly what you are saying, you would maintain that with sufficient learning, a person could do what a cat can do too. if so, then again i object wholeheartedly. that was an extreme example, of course, but the point of it is that humans learn upon a genetic endowment that limits the learning. back to dominance-submissiveness, cooperation-competition, etc. in making social prescriptions, to be on the safe side for the "public interest", i would suggest that social engineers assume SOME genetic wiring so that their prescriptions don't create more problems than they solve. that's why i'm a "gradualist" for social reform. please explain in more detail why you object to these views? norm -Original Message- From: Austin, Andrew [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, December 07, 2000 3:06 PM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: [PEN-L:5807] RE: co-ops + human behavior We don't have to assume social behavior is learned. We know it is. Andrew Austin Green Bay, WI
RE: RE: co-ops + human behavior
In order to know how genetics "limits" us, we would need to know what we would otherwise be capable of if but for our genetic structure (the facts of which we do not fully understand, let alone what we might dream up). This is something of a nonfalsifiable proposition, isn't it, if we depart from the obvious (like we cannot fly unaided because we have no wings)? Since the discussion appears to presuppose social behavioral genes, the argument strikes me as absurd. Andrew Austin Green Bay, WI -Original Message- From: Mikalac Norman S NSSC [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, December 08, 2000 7:48 AM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: RE: RE: co-ops + human behavior whoa, austin just one minute please! i read your drift that you don't agree with my expert opinions. first, who is "we", like in "We know it is."? the entire world except me? if so, then i vociferously object!!! i say that humans, like ALL animals, have a genetic endowment that limits how we behave. further, that social engineers need proceed with caution. e.g., when falling from a tree, a person can't right him/herself like a cat no matter how much learning the person has because the cat is genetically programmed to perform that behavior better than a human. however, a trampolinist who jumps straight up can use his/her given genetic endowment to fall flat on his/her back by bringing his/her arms swiftly over the head and a high diver can turn through many movements by moving parts of the body in different ways. same principle, but genetic hard-wiring limits what humans can do. (i like those examples because it is an excellent example of Newton's third law and conservation of angular momentum for tutoring wayward Physics students.) if i hear correctly what you are saying, you would maintain that with sufficient learning, a person could do what a cat can do too. if so, then again i object wholeheartedly. that was an extreme example, of course, but the point of it is that humans learn upon a genetic endowment that limits the learning. back to dominance-submissiveness, cooperation-competition, etc. in making social prescriptions, to be on the safe side for the "public interest", i would suggest that social engineers assume SOME genetic wiring so that their prescriptions don't create more problems than they solve. that's why i'm a "gradualist" for social reform. please explain in more detail why you object to these views? norm -Original Message- From: Austin, Andrew [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, December 07, 2000 3:06 PM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: [PEN-L:5807] RE: co-ops + human behavior We don't have to assume social behavior is learned. We know it is. Andrew Austin Green Bay, WI
Re: RE: RE: co-ops + human behavior
norm wrote: i say that humans, like ALL animals, have a genetic endowment that limits how we behave. I think it's silly to reject -- as some leftists do -- the fact that there's a genetic determinant to the "nature of human nature." The genetic basis of human nature, however, has a lot of room to move (unlike, say, for cats, whose behavior seems to be mostly -- though not totally -- programmed by their genes). That is genetics determine human _potential_. The point for socialists should be to liberate and to _realize_ that potential, not to turn people into angels. This should be possible given the way that humanity has switched to using culture (including technology) as the main way of surviving and evolving and the many ways in which people's characters have varied over time and between cultures. BTW, Albert Hahnel's QUIET REVOLUTION IN WELFARE ECONOMICS, like all of their writings that I've read, take the fact that genetics plays a role very explicitly. These are folks whose politics veers toward anarchism or utopian socialism. In this, they are like Noam Chomsky, a more explicit anarchist (he's a self-described "libertarian socialist," isn't he?), who sees a genetic basis for the abstract grammar that he sees as the basis for concrete languages that people have. further, that social engineers need proceed with caution. My flavor of socialism has always opposed social engineering -- as a version of "socialism from above," imposed by what the "Internationale" terms "condescending saviors." Instead, the emphasis is on working-class collective self-liberation (with parallel principles applying to other oppressed groups). Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
RE: Re: Re: co-ops
What I recall was a bill in Congress . CB [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/05/00 01:00PM don't understand why this is a Constitutional crisis worthy of the High-9. something in the Constitution that prevents co-ops? maybe i need a legal lesson in "legal forms of business enterprise". norm -Original Message- From: Jim Devine [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, December 04, 2000 4:51 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:5537] Re: Re: co-ops At 01:20 PM 12/4/00 -0800, you wrote: A case hit the Supreme Court a couple years ago in which the banks tried to curtail the credit unions. didn't they succeed? this is different though, since they were trying to squish their competitors rather than objecting to an organizational form of the potential borrowers. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
RE: Re: RE: Re: co-ops
I don't doubt it. I was speaking from a U.S. vantage point, where a coop in our ocean of business firms and hierarchical non-profits is more of a curiosity than a political statement. mbs Coops are not so dangerous that a lender would forego their business.\ mbs Max, You should hear/see the venom hurled by private business whenever the provincial government threatens to extend the same small business subsidies to co-ops as it does to private businesses. Quite nasty. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
Re: RE: Re: co-ops
Well, this list strikes me as rather insular. Louis talks about Co-ops in the same breath with utopian socialism. On the prairies co-ops, credit unions, etc. are all around us. They are not failing. Part of the reason for the plethora of co-ops is that there have been social democratic and/or populist provincial governments committed to them. The party that ruled Saskatchewan for many years and brought in the first North American universal health care system was called the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation..The Regina Manifesto, the party platform for some time, called for the abolition of capitalism and its replacement by a Co-operative Commonwealth. I posted the Manifesto to Pen-L some time ago,. We still have a minister responsible for co-operatives in the Manitoba provincial government. Things have changed for the worse but it was not long ago that co-operative housing was funded by both provincial and federal government. While there were some ridiculous restrictions a group of which I was president were able to get financing at below market rates. In exchange we made some of our units available to the local housing authority for public housing. We had two apartment bldgs and a substantial number of double units plus one special unit for handicapped peoples. The local Conservative MP helped us rather than hindered us . He had a son who was handicapped. Even the local Conservative dominated council did not give us a bad time since construction was almost non=existent and the city had landbanked land they were eager to have developed. So it all depends upon the specific context whether co-ops work. At present in rural Manitoba, banks are losing the battle with Credit Unions. Many banks are just pulling out of smaller towns because there is no profit to be made for them. Customers are then snapped up by local credit unions. Cheers, Ken Hanly - Original Message - From: Charles Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, December 04, 2000 3:02 PM Subject: [PEN-L:5525] RE: Re: co-ops [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/04/00 03:30PM to CB: can you make a substantiated case for capitalists putting co-ops out of business? of course one would be for banks to lend at higher interest rates as JD says. what other destructive mechanisms do they have? (( CB: Credit unions are coops. Recently there was an effort by big banks to get a federal law passed that would restrict credit unions. My parents live in housing structured as a coop. That is rare. But that is only indirect evidence of how big biz may limit the proliferation of the form.
Re: Re: co-ops
Credit Unions in Canada were also restricted but I do not know the details...but banks also have tried to keep trust companies from banking functions,, unsuccesssfully I gather. If there is strong enough political pressure governments can and have been moved on these matters. Money talks but so do votes. Cheers, Ken Hanly - Original Message - From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, December 04, 2000 3:20 PM Subject: [PEN-L:5532] Re: co-ops A case hit the Supreme Court a couple years ago in which the banks tried to curtail the credit unions. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Re: Re: co-ops
Ken Hanley wrote: Well, this list strikes me as rather insular. Louis talks about Co-ops in the same breath with utopian socialism. On the prairies co-ops, credit unions, etc. are all around us. They are not failing. One of the things that must not be neglected is the very real value of such experiments that brought tangible improvements to the lives of working people. The problem is not that they didn't work, but rather that they were not answers to the real problem which is who rules the state and therefore has the ability to direct the economy as a whole. St. Petersburg Times, February 13, 1994, Sunday, City Edition WITHOUT SIN: The Life and Death of the Oneida Community By Spencer Klaw Viking, $ 25 UTOPIAN EPISODES: Daily Life in Experimental Colonies Dedicated to Changing the World By Seymour R. Kesten Syracuse University Press, $ 39.95 Reviewed by Delilah Jones In the 19th century the secret to maintaining a society of free love was the manufacture of household goods, and the real shame today is that no one in the 1960s ever really figured that out. Religious and socially inspired utopian experiments were rather common in 19th-century America. There were dozens of them from the 1820s until shortly after the Civil War, including New Harmony, Brook Farm and Icaria. Many of these were not devoted to free love at all , but one of the most famous of them all was: the Oneida community, which produced a wide range of household products in its time and even today remains a name recognized for its fine silverware (as is Amana, a once-successful community, whose name is still known for its refrigerators). Many of these utopian communities were inspired by the ideas of Charles Fourier, a Frenchman who believed that people should be like butterflies - moving from one job to another rather than staying always in the same place - thereby attaining the maximum achievement (because no one would get bored or fall into a rut) - although, frankly, he also believed that a golden age of harmony was approaching in which the sea would lose its saltiness and turn to lemonade, and/or by those of Robert Owen, who was rather more inspired by notions of "enlightened capitalism." Seymour Kesten's rather ploddingly written Utopian Episodes: Daily Life in Experimental Colonies Dedicated to Changing the World covers the history and background of these men and the history of the Utopian movement, noting that it arose as a response to poor social conditions in 19th-century America. During this industrial age, people tended to come down on one of two sides - and still do today - that the troubles of society were due, on the one hand, to the evils of sin, and, on the other, to the evils of poverty, ignorance and inequality. If nothing else is true about Americans, it is that they are attracted by kooks and extremists with solutions to their problems (especially economic woes and psychic agonies). The louder and the kookier they are, the more we seem to like them . My own favorite 19th-century kook has to be John Humphrey Noyes, who founded the Oneida community - which had the good sense to couple free love with the manufacture of silverware and other household goods (including the first Lazy Susan, which was invented at Oneida). The community put into thriving economic play Noyes' theories of complex marriage (which is to say free love among members of the community, provided that Noyes approved), Stirpiculture (a word for human breeding coined by Noyes) and Perfectionism (a 19th-century religious movement that was connected with the Utopian movement). The fascinating rise and fall of the Oneida experiment (which had its genesis in Noyes' conception that God had made all men and women without sin, and therefore nothing that brings pleasure - such as intercourse - can possibly be a sin) is entertainingly narrated by Spencer Klaw in his lively Without Sin: The Life and Death of the Oneida Community. The Oneidans, for more than 30 years, managed to operate a communal society with thriving businesses and sexual freedom (for its time) and social equality (relatively) for women. Perhaps I like Noyes because he succeeded, and nothing is more attractive than success, or maybe I just like his silverware; but what could be more entertaining to read than the story of a guy who wanted to sleep with any woman he desired - so he invented a religion and a God-given mission that made it not only an okay thing to do, but a moral imperative? Okay, so maybe I don't approve of the fact that he slept with his nieces, but I remain steadfast in my belief that Noyes was right about variety being the path to heaven - and right when he said it was dangerous to get into a rut because the devil will always know where to find you. Movement and variety are the essence of American life. Maybe the reason we like kooks so much is that they manage, somehow, to stick out from among all those freshly scrubbed millions. Louis Proyect
RE: Re: Re: co-ops
don't understand why this is a Constitutional crisis worthy of the High-9. something in the Constitution that prevents co-ops? maybe i need a legal lesson in "legal forms of business enterprise". norm -Original Message- From: Jim Devine [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, December 04, 2000 4:51 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:5537] Re: Re: co-ops At 01:20 PM 12/4/00 -0800, you wrote: A case hit the Supreme Court a couple years ago in which the banks tried to curtail the credit unions. didn't they succeed? this is different though, since they were trying to squish their competitors rather than objecting to an organizational form of the potential borrowers. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: co-ops
The huge Berkeley co-op went belly-up. They tried to expand too fast -- acting corporate. There used to be a lot of co-ops in Berkeley when I lived there, because it was a hot-bed of leftism. (It's like in much of Canada.) -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Re: co-ops
At 02:06 PM 12/5/00 -0800, you wrote: The huge Berkeley co-op went belly-up. They tried to expand too fast -- acting corporate. right. I was there for much of it (before the fall). They bought out a small chain of grocery stores and instantly grew, which led to the Co-Op's demise. There were also co-op dorms, though. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: co-ops
Norm, If you want to study co-ops as a system, complete with their own credit union bank and education system, have a look at the history and success of the Mondragon co-ops in Spain. With all their limitations, this is probably the best example of what you are looking for. I would also refer you to the Encyclopedia of Political Economy which has a digest not only of Mondragon, market socialism, social ownership, Marxian political economy and just about everything else you have asked about complete with short bibliographies on each topic. It is an invaluable resource. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
Re: Re: co-ops
Sources, Jim? Especially on the bank stuff. I know the growth stuff, though if you have something I'd like to read it. --jks if co-ops can successfully give people what they want at a price that excludes "surplus value", then why haven't they become a major factor in republican-capitalist societies? there are at least two reasons: (1) if they grow, they lose most or all of their advantages; (2) banks won't lend to them, except at higher interest rates. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine _ Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com
RE: Re: co-ops
to CB: can you make a substantiated case for capitalists putting co-ops out of business? of course one would be for banks to lend at higher interest rates as JD says. what other destructive mechanisms do they have? to JD: can you corroborate banks lending at higher rates? that is ideologically motivated or a reflection of co-op inability to repay loans? thanks for your responses. norm -Original Message- From: Charles Brown [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, December 04, 2000 3:23 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:5517] Re: co-ops [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/04/00 01:55PM thank you for your response that leads me to my next question: if co-ops can successfully give people what they want at a price that excludes "surplus value", then why haven't they become a major factor in republican-capitalist societies? ( CB: The capitalists are vigilant in retarding the growth of and destroying any institutions that demonstrate the viability of an economy not based on the extaction of surplus-value. They don't just sit around and let utopian socialist projects creep-up and overcome capitalism. Be clear. Capitalists are violently opposed to people being able to get what they want ( or need) at a price that excludes "surplus value". They put profit before people.
RE: Re: co-ops
I don't have the sources at my fingertips, but there are several case studies of successful utopian-socialists experiments in California that were actively suppressed, using legal and extra-legal means, by what can only be described as agents of Capitalist interest, when they became economically successful. Others on the list may remember specific historical references in regard to this. -Original Message- From: Charles Brown [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, December 04, 2000 3:23 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:5517] Re: co-ops [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/04/00 01:55PM thank you for your response that leads me to my next question: if co-ops can successfully give people what they want at a price that excludes "surplus value", then why haven't they become a major factor in republican-capitalist societies? ( CB: The capitalists are vigilant in retarding the growth of and destroying any institutions that demonstrate the viability of an economy not based on the extaction of surplus-value. They don't just sit around and let utopian socialist projects creep-up and overcome capitalism. Be clear. Capitalists are violently opposed to people being able to get what they want ( or need) at a price that excludes "surplus value". They put profit before people.
Re: RE: Re: co-ops
Martin Brown wrote: I don't have the sources at my fingertips, but there are several case studies of successful utopian-socialists experiments in California that were actively suppressed, using legal and extra-legal means, by what can only be described as agents of Capitalist interest, when they became economically successful. Others on the list may remember specific historical references in regard to this. That's the key word: "utopian-socialist". (Norm, put Engels' "Socialism, Utopian and Scientific" on your list to understand the problem with co-ops. For that matter, you don't have to spend a penny on it. It is online at www.marxists.org.) Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
RE: Re: co-ops
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/04/00 03:30PM to CB: can you make a substantiated case for capitalists putting co-ops out of business? of course one would be for banks to lend at higher interest rates as JD says. what other destructive mechanisms do they have? (( CB: Credit unions are coops. Recently there was an effort by big banks to get a federal law passed that would restrict credit unions. My parents live in housing structured as a coop. That is rare. But that is only indirect evidence of how big biz may limit the proliferation of the form.
Re: Re: Re: co-ops
At 08:15 PM 12/4/00 +, you wrote: Sources, Jim? Especially on the bank stuff. I know the growth stuff, though if you have something I'd like to read it. --jks if co-ops can successfully give people what they want at a price that excludes "surplus value", then why haven't they become a major factor in republican-capitalist societies? there are at least two reasons: (1) if they grow, they lose most or all of their advantages; (2) banks won't lend to them, except at higher interest rates. Gary Dymski has done a lot on this. It's a general consensus of the "workers' control" literature (that I've seen) that workers' co-operatives' major problem is in financing, especially for expansion, while Gary and others (at one point or another) associated with UMass-Amherst Economics have pointed to the refusal of banks to provide that financing. Now this can't be extended without change to consumers' cooperatives, but there are a lot of similarities between the two types of organizations. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: Re: Re: co-ops
Thanks. If you have specific cites, I'd appreciate 'em. --jks Gary Dymski has done a lot on this. . . . and others (at one point or another) associated with UMass-Amherst Economics have pointed to the refusal of banks to provide that financing. _ Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com
Re: Re: co-ops
At 01:20 PM 12/4/00 -0800, you wrote: A case hit the Supreme Court a couple years ago in which the banks tried to curtail the credit unions. didn't they succeed? this is different though, since they were trying to squish their competitors rather than objecting to an organizational form of the potential borrowers. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
RE: Re: co-ops
At 01:55 PM 12/4/00 -0500, you wrote: if co-ops can successfully give people what they want at a price that excludes "surplus value", then why haven't they become a major factor in republican-capitalist societies? there are at least two reasons: (1) if they grow, they lose most or all of their advantages; (2) banks won't lend to them, except at higher interest rates. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine You forgot that worker-owners like surplus value. As to (1) and (2), I don't see why either should follow. Coops are not so dangerous that a lender would forego their business.\ mbs
Re: Re: co-ops
I missed the earlier part of this discussion. You must be talkiing of some type of production co-op. THere are co-operative financial institutions: credit unions, or caisse populaires. There are retail co-ops, agricultural marketing co-ops, dairy co-ops, housing co-oops and on and on. Go to any small town near where I am and the main financial institution will not be a bank but a credit union. The main or only grocery store in town will be a co-op. I belong to four retail co-ops and two credit unions. Our local credit union amalgamated with two others. THe growth increases our advantages rather than losing them. We now have 24 hour no fee access to an ATM rather than paying 50 cents for each transaction formerly. It may be that some very large urban credit unions lose a lot of advantages of smaller credit unions I couldn't say. But if they do why would they continue growing? Cheers. Ken Hanly - Original Message - From: Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, December 04, 2000 1:33 PM Subject: [PEN-L:5506] Re: co-ops At 01:55 PM 12/4/00 -0500, you wrote: if co-ops can successfully give people what they want at a price that excludes "surplus value", then why haven't they become a major factor in republican-capitalist societies? there are at least two reasons: (1) if they grow, they lose most or all of their advantages; (2) banks won't lend to them, except at higher interest rates. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: RE: Re: co-ops
You forgot that worker-owners like surplus value. As to (1) and (2), I don't see why either should follow. Coops are not so dangerous that a lender would forego their business.\ Indeed, if the usual studies are correct, co-ops are as efficient or more so than capitalist enterprise, and no less productive or profitable. So if lenders make decisions solely on those basis, they should not discriminate against co-ops. That does not mean they do make such decisions. I have heard, indeed read, but without support, that lenders are suspicious of coops not because they threaten capitalism, but because they (lenders) are mystified by their management structures and unwilling to lend where they don't understand. A purely acedotal story. There was a really fine coop bookstore in Ann Arbor when I was in grad school in the 80s. It had existed for 15+ years and had never made a late payment. TRhen one day, the banks pulled its credit and it could not but books. The building was later leased by a large commercial bookstore. which failed in the local competition; it's now a sort of mall with cheap furniture, etc., I believe. The suspicion was widespread, though unprovable, that the banks could not stand a successful cops taht was, among other things, represented by the IWW. --jks _ Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com
RE: Re: RE: Re: co-ops
A purely acedotal story. There was a really fine coop bookstore in Ann Arbor when I was in grad school in the 80s. It had existed for 15+ years and had never made a late payment. TRhen one day, the banks pulled its credit and it could not but books. The building was later leased by a large commercial bookstore. which failed in the local competition; it's now a sort of mall with cheap furniture, etc., I believe. The suspicion was widespread, though unprovable, that the banks could not stand a successful cops taht was, among other things, represented by the IWW. --jks ** Didn't Borders Books get it's start in Ann Arbor? Ian
Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: co-ops
Didn't Borders Books get it's start in Ann Arbor? Ian When I was in grad school, it was just the local bookstore. --jks _ Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com
Re: Re: RE: Re: co-ops
Yea Louis, But we don't all agree with Engels on this point (and in fact, many of us may actively disagree?). Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba Date sent: Mon, 04 Dec 2000 15:48:03 -0500 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[PEN-L:5523] Re: RE: Re: co-ops Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Martin Brown wrote: I don't have the sources at my fingertips, but there are several case studies of successful utopian-socialists experiments in California that were actively suppressed, using legal and extra-legal means, by what can only be described as agents of Capitalist interest, when they became economically successful. Others on the list may remember specific historical references in regard to this. That's the key word: "utopian-socialist". (Norm, put Engels' "Socialism, Utopian and Scientific" on your list to understand the problem with co-ops. For that matter, you don't have to spend a penny on it. It is online at www.marxists.org.) Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
Re: Re: Re: co-ops
Like Ken, I belong to two credit unions and only one co-op (a gasoline retail co-op that returns 5c a litre (approx 20 cents a US gallon) to the membership. I also partially shop at an (aboriginal) retail grocery, workers co-op and patronize, when I can, a worker co-op courier service. By the way, the Credit Unions mean you can get instant cash almost anywhere in the world, at market exchange rates, through cash machines. Wonerful, Wonerful. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba From: "Ken Hanly" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[PEN-L:5554] Re: Re: co-ops Date sent: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 21:05:29 -0600 Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] I missed the earlier part of this discussion. You must be talkiing of some type of production co-op. THere are co-operative financial institutions: credit unions, or caisse populaires. There are retail co-ops, agricultural marketing co-ops, dairy co-ops, housing co-oops and on and on. Go to any small town near where I am and the main financial institution will not be a bank but a credit union. The main or only grocery store in town will be a co-op. I belong to four retail co-ops and two credit unions. Our local credit union amalgamated with two others. THe growth increases our advantages rather than losing them. We now have 24 hour no fee access to an ATM rather than paying 50 cents for each transaction formerly. It may be that some very large urban credit unions lose a lot of advantages of smaller credit unions I couldn't say. But if they do why would they continue growing? Cheers. Ken Hanly - Original Message -
Re: RE: Re: co-ops
Coops are not so dangerous that a lender would forego their business.\ mbs Max, You should hear/see the venom hurled by private business whenever the provincial government threatens to extend the same small business subsidies to co-ops as it does to private businesses. Quite nasty. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
