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: Co-ops
The point of all this, is to argue that the co-op/CU movement is, in Polanyi's terms, economy embedded in society rather than economy dictating to society. That is its raison d'ete, the reason for its persistance and its (limited) success in competition with the aggressive forces of capitalism. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba --- correct, i started this thread after reading michael's comment about a CA co-op that continues to thrive. i wanted to understand why the Left cannot use the co-op theme to overwhelm capitalist forms of organization peacefully, assuming that laws don't discriminate against co-op expansion. (from the comments, i surmise that in Canada co-ops are a bigger part of the economy, %-wise, than in the U.S.) i can't remember all the responses now, but i think someone said or implied that co-op "investors", unlike capitalist investors, just aren't interested in expansion all over the place. maybe that is the same as saying that people with expansionist (imperialistic, wealth-seeking) proclivities will invest in capitalistic companies while people with nonexpansionist, non-wealth-seeking proclivities will invest in co-ops, when available. interesing topic. maybe i'll get a chance to study the references cited later. norm -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, December 08, 2000 11:33 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:5868] Co-ops The discussion on co-ops has long deviated from Norm's original questions which, I don't believe, have ever been addressed. The question is why would one want to organize and support a co-op. Now being a post-Autaustic economist, I go out and look at the real world and ask, why did I, you, she, he etc. join a co-op. It will not surprise you, I suspect, that I actually have done some research on the history of co-ops and would make the following general comments. The first consumer co-op of the modern co-op movement was the "Rochdale Pioneers", a British co-op set up the purpose of which was to raise funds for the establishment of a co-operative (utopian) community. The colony was never established but the principles of consumer co-operation of Rochdale continue to this day. (Incidentally, the co-operative, and radical, student residence in Toronto in the 1960s was called Rochdale House.) In Canada, consumer co-ops had their origins in rural towns where local people came together to set up competitive stores to local monopolies (in some cases company stores) which used their local monopoly to charge exhorbitant prices. With the advent of supermarkets, the major chains would not go into small rural towns so the co-ops federated to maintain what is in effect a supermarket structure with their own wholesaler and national brands. (Co-op non- hydrogenated margarine and non-sweetened pink grapefruit juice are the best on the local market and a fraction of the nationally advertised brands.) At the producer level, the main co-ops are the grain pools set up to break the monopoly of the line elevator companies (e.g. Cargill) and to return the handling charges to the farmers. But, there are other producer co-ops that were set up for other reasons. Our local courier co-op was set up as a result of a strike of couriers from a subsidiary of Air Canada. During the strike, the drivers set up the co-op to provide an income during the strike and just continued it. (I don't think the strike was ever settled nor was the Air Canada company ever revived.) The retail co-op I do some of my shopping at is an Aboriginal producer co-op in the heart of the Aboriginal district of Winnipeg close to where I live. It was set up with help from other co-ops and the major local credit union and other social action groups and the NDP to promote local development, job experience and training, and reasonable prices (including credit) for an area and a people that were not being served (i.e. were discriminated against) by capitalist companies. It also serves as a marketter/wholesaler for other Aboriginal co-ops and enterprises such as the wild rice co-op, moccasin makers, star blanket co-op, aboriginal blueberry and wild berry jam makers. In store they also bake bannock daily (the original native bread) and sell other native specialties. In the case of the Mondragon producer co-ops, the original 5 person co-op was established to provide jobs for local graduates of a technical school in a region of high unemployment. (They now have about 25,000 owner/members.) The most impressive co-ops in Canada are the financial co-ops, or credit unions (CUs). Some comment has been on the list with regard to Quebec's Caisse Populair movement. (We have Caisses also in Manitoba in our French speaking areas.) Indeed, as Ken has pointed out, CUs are taking over in the rural areas as banks close down and
Re: co-ops + human behavior
Look, given the state of our knowledge of genetics and behavior, thsi kind of talk can only be reactionary obscurantism. Besides, suppose you are right that we are hard wired for dominance. Do we want to allow ourselves to indulge in this sort of behavior? We are probablya s hard wired for violence (in a wide variety of circumstances) as we are for anything: so we should indulge this bad propensity? Hard wiring doesn't mean "can't': it just means "harder". Before you go on in this vein any more, go read Stephen Jay Gould's The Mismeasure of Man. It will help you avoid the more obvious errors. --jks let's see if i can remove myself from the ranks of the absurd to the near-absurd with one example of a falsifiable if-then proposition: if we are wired to behave (to some unknown degree, granted) hierarchically (we're talking dominance vs. submissiveness here), then those radicals who expect people to adjust to equal, fraternal and free social arrangements just by rearranging the social institutions are doomed in their attempts. considering the large numbers of failures of such attempts throughout history (wasn't the "dictatorship of the proletariat" supposed to wither away?), why is that statement absurd? norm -Original Message- From: Austin, Andrew [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, December 08, 2000 11:39 AM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: [PEN-L:5871] 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 _ Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com
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: co-ops + human behavior
norm wrote: if you accept the above statements as facts, then why do ideologues advocate LARGE economic and political changes when the results of these are unknown? I believe that only the people themselves can institute large economic and political changes. Though I may think that they are necessary to the creation of a more human world (in harmony with nature), it's not sufficient. If the better world were imposed from above or from the outside, it would most likely turn into crap. isn't it in the "public interest" for "interest groups" who want a certain form of society to prevail to advocate step by step changes toward that goal and proceed from experience as a safer way to achieve their goal and at the same time avoid the potential chaos (to the "public interest") of large changes, the effects of which are unknown? I'm all in favor of incremental change, but the fact is that the powers that be oppose such change and eventually will have to be shoved out of the way. Further, the neoliberal elites -- the US Treasury, the IMF, the World Bank, etc. -- have been imposing massive and non-incremental change on the world for the last 20 to 25 years. Something has to be done to oppose them. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
RE: co-ops + human behavior
How does hierarchical organization have a genetic component? Why even assume
this?
Andrew Austin
Green Bay, WI
-Original Message-
From: Mikalac Norman S NSSC [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday, December 07, 2000 7:35 AM
To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'
Subject: co-ops + human behavior
norm said:
co-ops may be limited by people's limited motivation for cooperation with
each other. e.g, if we are 25% genetically programmed to cooperate with
people (for survival purposes) and 75%% genetically programmed to compete
with people (again, for survival purposes), then cooperative ventures will
always be subordinate to competitive ventures on the average.
jim said:
As Stephen J. Gould points out, it's a mistake to quantify such things in
biology and I haven't the slightest idea of where you got these numbers
from. In any case, competition can take many forms. It doesn't have to be
the aggressive "take no prisoners" kind of competition encouraged by
capitalism.
norm says:
the %'s were just hypothetical ("e.g.") using co-ops as an example.
everyone knows that cooperative, competitive, hierarchical, "creative", etc.
behavior patterns are a function of both genetics (presently not malleable)
and environment (malleable), but no one knows the influence of each. also,
notwithstanding the "great social thinker" descriptions and prescriptions,
no one knows how LARGE changes in specific laws, codes, cultural values,
etc. will affect individual and group behavior.
if you accept the above statements as facts, then why do ideologues advocate
LARGE economic and political changes when the results of these are unknown?
isn't it in the "public interest" for "interest groups" who want a certain
form of society to prevail to advocate step by step changes toward that goal
and proceed from experience as a safer way to achieve their goal and at the
same time avoid the potential chaos (to the "public interest") of large
changes, the effects of which are unknown?
norm
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: co-ops + human behavior
Oh, Norm, stop the silly bad sociobiology. Competitive behavior is
"programmed" into us, but it is triggered only in certain circumstances.
Violent behavior is likewise "programmed: into us, but we don't say, well in
that case, let's legalize assault and murder! Rather, we craete social and
legal incentives to minimize and punish the behavior where it is bad and
direct it into harmless channels where it is not, e.g., martial arts. --jks
thanks for the reference. i'll put the Encyclopedia of PE on my list that
seems to grow faster than my purchases. no wonder my psychiatrist daughter
calls me a "bookaholic". (so how can i refute a Board-certified shrink?)
interesting you mention the Mondragon market because Chomsky is always
singing praises to it and Orwell's "Homage to ?" - about the workers' co-op
movements in Spain prior to being crushed by Franco. that is also on my
list.
with all these persuasive co-op comments from listers, though, i'm still
missing an important ingredient on people's motivations for cooperative vs.
competitive behavior that underlies all discussions of social institutions,
including co-ops, i.e., the genetic ("nature") causes and environmental
("nurture") causes of cooperative and competitive behavior.
co-ops may be limited by people's limited motivation for cooperation with
each other. e.g, if we are 25% genetically programmed to cooperate with
people (for survival purposes) and 75%% genetically programmed to compete
with people (again, for survival purposes), then cooperative ventures will
always be subordinate to competitive ventures on the average. if this
assumption is true, then no matter how much leftists try to change the
environment ("culture") to promote more cooperation and less competition,
their efforts will always be limited by "human nature" (genetic
programming).
an extension of this assumption is that leftist ventures to make classless,
egalitarian, non-hierarchical societies are hopeless dreams.
norm
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2000 10:00 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [PEN-L:5649] 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
_
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Re: co-ops + human behavior
At 10:27 AM 12/6/00 -0500, you wrote:
thanks for the reference. i'll put the Encyclopedia of PE on my list that
seems to grow faster than my purchases. no wonder my psychiatrist daughter
calls me a "bookaholic". (so how can i refute a Board-certified shrink?)
interesting you mention the Mondragon market because Chomsky is always
singing praises to it and Orwell's "Homage to ?" - about the workers' co-op...
it's "Homage to Catalonia." BTW, I wouldn't say that the Barcelonan co-ops
had stabilized to do regular production. Further, the book's more about
politics than about economics. It's a good book though.
Speaking of good books, the Encyclopedia of PE is excellent. Look for the
first article in volume I, along with two others that stand above the herd.
with all these persuasive co-op comments from listers, though, i'm still
missing an important ingredient on people's motivations for cooperative vs.
competitive behavior that underlies all discussions of social institutions,
including co-ops, i.e., the genetic ("nature") causes and environmental
("nurture") causes of cooperative and competitive behavior.
co-ops may be limited by people's limited motivation for cooperation with
each other. e.g, if we are 25% genetically programmed to cooperate with
people (for survival purposes) and 75%% genetically programmed to compete
with people (again, for survival purposes), then cooperative ventures will
always be subordinate to competitive ventures on the average.
As Stephen J. Gould points out, it's a mistake to quantify such things in
biology and I haven't the slightest idea of where you got these numbers
from. In any case, competition can take many forms. It doesn't have to be
the aggressive "take no prisoners" kind of competition encouraged by
capitalism.
if this
assumption is true, then no matter how much leftists try to change the
environment ("culture") to promote more cooperation and less competition,
their efforts will always be limited by "human nature" (genetic
programming).
even capitalists cooperate a lot when they're not directly competing. As
I've noted before, there are a lot of industry self-regulation
organizations in the US economy (which are almost entirely ignored by the
economics textbooks -- I add the "almost" because I haven't read anything
close to all of them). There are all sorts of strategic alliances. There
are all sorts of political alliances.
It's impossible for a human being to make objective generalizations about
"human nature" because each of us is constrained and shaped by the societal
environment. People in different societies make different societies make
different generalizations. People living in an individualistic society such
as the US assume that people are more competitive than people in Japan do,
for example. Also these assertions about the nature of human nature seem to
vary in history.
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: co-ops + human behavior
So how do you explain suicides?Do genetic programmes crash :)
Cheers, Ken Hanly
- Original Message -
From: Mikalac Norman S NSSC [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, December 06, 2000 9:27 AM
Subject: [PEN-L:5669] co-ops + human behavior
co-ops may be limited by people's limited motivation for cooperation with
each other. e.g, if we are 25% genetically programmed to cooperate with
people (for survival purposes) and 75%% genetically programmed to compete
with people (again, for survival purposes), then cooperative ventures will
always be subordinate to competitive ventures on the average. if this
assumption is true, then no matter how much leftists try to change the
environment ("culture") to promote more cooperation and less competition,
their efforts will always be limited by "human nature" (genetic
programming).
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
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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: co-ops
The short version of my own answer (which I am sending you) is that there are collective acion problem in getting this started, that it would take powerful political actors like unions and ultimately the government to get a mass coop movement off the ground. The standard right wing answer, that coops are less efficient, is demonstrably false. --jks thank you for your valuable addition to the co-op discussion. all kinds of cooperatives are welcome, including industrials. seems to me that co-ops are an ideal way for the socialists and their suffering proletariat to conquer the world. assumption: no legal impediments for co-ops of any type. then, 1. co-ops extract less surplus value for investments than profit businesses, therefore they can offer better wages and lower prices. 2. with higher wages and lower prices, they attract better people, sales expand and they use the surplus value to grow larger. 3. with better people, some of these employees make competitive innovations/inventions using their co-op surplus value to keep up with the innovations of profit businesses. 4. with larger co-ops they buy more economically (economies of scale) to reduce unit costs and prices, increase wages, increase co-op surplus and expand indefinitely. 5. ERGO, the capitalists are beaten at their own game and whole world turns into one big socialist co-op. Q.E.D. however, since co-ops have not conquered the world and since i haven't become rich and famous for my brilliant idea, then there must be something wrong with it. what is that? norm -Original Message- From: Ken Hanly [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, December 04, 2000 10:05 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:5554] 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 _ Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com
Re: co-ops
You begin to see what I mean about collective action problems? Also, the CUs have to be big enough. ALso, they have to look out for the good of their depositors, which means they can't especially favor coops if a coop is not competitive . . . . --jks justin: 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. norm: amendment to my last post. the co-op CUs lend to the other co-ops so there is no discrimination. the co-ops supply each other. follows even more so now that co-ops conquer the world unless the world legal systems prevent that. norm _ Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com
Re: co-ops
Norm, the paying field is not level. We have a huge structure of corporate law and a network of interlocking financial and other institutions based on corporate (and private individual) ownership as a fundamental business of enterprise organization. Form of business organization do not operate ina vaccum. This an error or illusion prompted by overdoses of neoclassical economics. Read Keynes, Veblen, Schumpter, Hayek, Marx, and other institutionalists who do political economya nd emphasize the sociological embeddedness of economic transations. Example. My boss was telling me about how her old law firm used to have Playboy as a client; she'd do a lot of interesting first amendment work when she was in private practice. I asked, did they still have them? No. Why not? Changed firms. Why? Was it because there was a better, cheaper, more efficient, etc. firm? No. I bet you can fill in the answer. The general counel of Playboy retired; a new one stepped in, and he had his own friends from law school and long association who were at a different (probably no worse and no better) firm. Guess who got the account? Point of this: you have to see the economy as a sociological process, --jks KH: 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. -- for reasons i cited in an earlier post, i don't see why co-ops can't stand on a level playing field and out-perform profit businesses and therefore i don't see why they need special govt. consideration for anything except for special services, e.g., handicapped people. norm _ Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com
Re: co-ops
Norm, in addition to the legal impediments that don't exist, it's important to realize that a company doesn't win in a capitalist market by being efficient. A company has to have advertising, distribution networks, a large and aggressive legal staff, friends at the bank, RD investment, political connections, and more and more, international operations. As Justin said, the economic process is also a sociological process. (The Money Banking textbook I use, by Mishkin, edges toward this realization, seeing the importance, for example, of "relationship banking," in which banks and their main borrowers have long-term relationships.) In order for co-ops to grow succeed as a major form of economic organization, there has to be some sort of social-democratic political movement (which provides the political-sociological replacement for the capitalist old-boys network). 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.) But in Los Angeles, until recently the capital of anti-unionism? no way. At 01:43 PM 12/5/00 -0500, you wrote: thank you for your valuable addition to the co-op discussion. all kinds of cooperatives are welcome, including industrials. seems to me that co-ops are an ideal way for the socialists and their suffering proletariat to conquer the world. assumption: no legal impediments for co-ops of any type. then, 1. co-ops extract less surplus value for investments than profit businesses, therefore they can offer better wages and lower prices. 2. with higher wages and lower prices, they attract better people, sales expand and they use the surplus value to grow larger. 3. with better people, some of these employees make competitive innovations/inventions using their co-op surplus value to keep up with the innovations of profit businesses. 4. with larger co-ops they buy more economically (economies of scale) to reduce unit costs and prices, increase wages, increase co-op surplus and expand indefinitely. 5. ERGO, the capitalists are beaten at their own game and whole world turns into one big socialist co-op. Q.E.D. however, since co-ops have not conquered the world and since i haven't become rich and famous for my brilliant idea, then there must be something wrong with it. what is that? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
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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]
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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
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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
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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: co-ops
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? norm I have a rough draft paper on this. For one answer, which I think is defective but interesting, see a book on ownership, I forgewt the title, by Henry Hansmann of Yale Law. Send me your snail mail and I'll send you my draft paper. --jks _ Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com
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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: 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.
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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.
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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
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[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.
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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
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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: 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
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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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 -
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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
