Gleanings

In a burst of entrepreneurial spirit, the workforce development field is showing new enthusiasm for an old idea: creating “social enterprises” to employ low income jobseekers.

The theory is enormously appealing. We can create good jobs for constituents who have a hard time finding work elsewhere and the profits will help fund our nonprofit organizations. The reality, however, is far more complicated.

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Link: 
Social Enterprise: Proceed, with Caution

Employee-owned businesses offer a vital solution for the survival and success of small businesses. This legislation improves small business loan programs for employee-owned business concerns through the Small Business Administration.

Link: 
Historic federal legislation embeds support for employee-ownership within the SBA

Electric co-ops from more than a dozen states, including those from parts of North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia that originally kept their crews available for local response, are now involved in power restoration where they are needed.

Link: 
Co-op Power Restoration Efforts Continue Amid Florence’s Flooding Threats

“The Canton system does not entirely follow my vision. Communes must be built”, a PYD member read Abdullah Ocalan's letter from Imrali among a few other members of PYD in the Kobane canton in 2014. The member paused for a bit after closing Ocalan's letter and addressed his friends, “We have a new task to do, friends.”

Link: 
The first commune in Kobane: construction and challenges

"We are at a pivotal cooperative moment in history. More and more people feel excluded, both economically and societally.  The challenges ae sweeping: the changing nature of worke, increasing inequality and accelerating information technology that passes some people by and exploits others. People are looking for answers..."

Link: 
This is Our Moment

What would happen if workers ran their own businesses? Would worker-managed firms make the same decisions as their capitalist counterparts? Could such an economy be efficient? What policies could be deployed to promote a cooperative sector?

Link: 
Economic Democracy: The Cooperative Alternative

Abstract:
This article describes the appearance of a solidarity economy movement in different national and continental contexts, stressing the diversity of practices within civil society at local and international level. Emerging in the last decades, these initiatives, which are both political and economic in nature, have extended and renewed the social economy, thereby offering a concrete alternative at a time of capitalist crisis. As such, the movement cannot be overlooked in the quest for a new economic model and public action.

Link: 
The Solidarity Economy: An International Movement

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