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January 17, 2023

Rojava-U.S. Co-op Exchange

This is the 10 December 2022 phone bank and exchange between Americans and Rojava cooperator Kraker.

Economic Justice Environmental Justice Feminism & Gender Justice Solidarity Economy Organizing beyond capitalism solidarity economy

Megan Pearson

Faculty of Education, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada

January 19, 2023

Black Feminists in the Third Sector

Many countries in the Global North use the term “social economy”—also known as the third sector—to describe economies run by citizens rather than by state or business actors. Over the years, many Black feminist scholars that we have worked with also share the view that the concept of the “social economy” is limited to a European understanding. It fails to acknowledge those actors in the third sector who are excluded from interacting with the government or private sector. There is an assumption that the social economy is “socially inclined” and that it is a sector able to “interact” with the state and capitalist firms. What happens when certain groups of people cannot interact with the state or private sectors due to systemic exclusion? We argue that to transform literature on the social economy, we must use the term solidarity economy. Rejecting the sanitized language of the social economy, we use critical discourse and case study analyses to show the worldwide use of the term solidarity. Our work draws on theories of community economy intentional community to argue that the solidarity economy is a site of contestation and a way to push for social change.

solidarity economy diverse economies Solidarity Economy Organizing Linking Opposition & Alternatives
May 16, 2011

Mondragon Training Journal - May 16, 2011: What's the Word on Mondragon

January 23, 2023

Mountain Equipment Catastrophe

Dru Oja Jay is joined by Kevin Harding, one of the organizers of a spirited hail-mary attempt to save Mountain Equipment Co-op from being sold off to a US private equity firm.

Consumer Cooperatives Retail Trade Manufacturing Democratic Dialog & Deliberation Economic Justice Canada

A solution to save the struggling grassroots live music industry

Over one third of grassroots music venues have closed down in the last 20 years. While over nine in ten grassroots music venues are tenants and do not own their premises, over two thirds of Cultural Recovery Grants (that were supposed to help the creative sector survive the pandemic) were paid to landlords. With an average of 18 months of tenancy left, grassroots music venues are facing an unprecedented threat of being razed to the ground.

Why the government ought not to intervene with Amul

But for the farmer-owner, it is the price paid for her milk that really matters, just as a company’s share price is for the investor-owner. In the last 20 years, the average procurement price paid to producers by GCMMF’s [Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation] district milk unions has gone up from Rs 184 to Rs 820 per kg of fat. Amul full-cream milk, containing 6 per cent fat, currently retails at Rs 63 per litre in Delhi.

Vermont Employee Ownership Center

The Vermont Employee Ownership Center is a statewide non-profit whose mission is to promote and foster employee ownership in order to broaden capital ownership, deepen employee participation, retain jobs, increase living standards for working families, and stabilize communities. We provide information and resources to owners interested in selling their business to their employees, employee groups interested in purchasing a business, and entrepreneurs who wish to start up a company with broadly shared ownership.

January 26, 2023

Austin Design Cooperative's Conversion to Worker Ownership

Chamois Holschuh tells the worker co-op conversion story of Austin Design Cooperative

Worker Cooperatives Construction & Repair Support Organizations United States

Cooperatives at Work

Cooperatives at Work shows how – in the face of the climate emergency and the multiple interwoven crises that are bound up with it – worker cooperatives can contribute to the fundamental social, economic, political and cultural change that is urgently needed. Examples drawn from hundreds of interviews and six continents show what worker cooperatives are already doing well and where more change is possible.

Visit Cuba with the Center for Global Justice

Join us in an exciting visit to Cuba March 10 to 20.  We will learn how Cuba is addressing climate change and developing cooperatives as non-state forms of socialism.  We will meet with some of Cuba’s leading thinkers.  And we will visit the fascinating Old Havana, the new Fidel Castro Study Center, museums, cooperatives, musical venues, a family doctor, and US students studying in Cuba.  While most of our time will be in Havana, we will spend two days in Viñales to the west of the capital city.

January 30, 2023

Is “Good Enough” Good Enough?

Only experimentation helps us understand what’s working, and that’s why the bias towards trying something out and getting out of our head, and getting a show on the road is so important.

Democratic Dialog & Deliberation
May 18, 2011

Mondragon Training Journal-May 17, 2011: A Visit to Mondragon University

We Need A Fresh Take On Black History Month

An important part of Black History Month in the US is the biographies of notable African Americans who made history. One could easily assume these individuals transcended their racial group by being so excellent. You would have to be forgiven for not knowing that not only did W. E. B.

February 2, 2023

Cooperative Enterprise and Market Economy: Chapter 4

There has been an effort to dissociate accumulation from distribution, resulting in a contradictory and confused understanding of the relation between the two in cooperatives, with very serious practical consequences. In this chapter we examine this nexus and all its implications, demonstrating the importance of understanding accumulation as a necessary element of rational economic behavior in cooperative enterprises, and revealing the distortions caused by failing to do so.

cooperative economy beyond capitalism