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New York City has invested more than $1 million to boost the number of worker cooperatives in the last couple years.

If an old paradigm is indeed waning, then the ways in which we understand new patterns of action cannot unthinkingly incorporate the worldview and vocabularies of The Old.  They must reflect a new set of values and operational logics.  They must give closer attention to fledging projects and ideas on the peripheries of the mainstream.  Our discourse itself must slip the shack

[Editor's note: While it's too late to attend this series of May Day co-op events, MIT's co-design team is encouraging people to keep organizing them.  Upcoming co-op DiscoTechs will be occurring everywhere from Hyderabad, India to Salem, Massachusetts. You can download an organizing manual from the Detroit Digital Justice Coalition here.]

Co-operatives UK says it has about 170 workers' cooperatives in membership, out of about 400 that it knows of in the country, mainly small enterprises.These figures have been consistent for a few years.

Here are a few Saturday morning thoughts on the subject.

 

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The next system that we need, and that hopefully we are moving towrd, is a cooperative commonwealth within interlocking local solidarity economies.  Such a system is created from the bottom up, building upon multiple grassroots cooperative enterprises, and democratic community-based economic practices.  These networks collaborate and federate from the local to municipal, regional, national, and international levels.

The new platforms all share a vision of the Internet as a commons. While most so-called sharing economy platforms are top-down affairs backed by venture capital, these emerging platforms are structured as democratically owned and governed cooperatives run for the benefit of their worker-owners.

Dear Coop Community,

Since we began our membership listening tour, the need for conflict resolution training has been something we have heard on multiple occasions. For this reason, we are excited to share a great training opportunity for New York City worker-owners: 

Rojava’s economy is based on agriculture, under the Assad regime it was known as “Syria’s bread basket”. The Syrian state established huge wheat monocultures that make up more than 90% of Rojava’s agricultural produce today.

With virtually no police, crime or unemployment, meet the Spanish town described as a democratic, socialist utopia. Unemployment is non-existent in Marinaleda, an Andalusian village in southern Spain that is prosperous thanks to its farming cooperative.

Now in his forties, Edward Loure, a Maasai tribal leader and indigenous land rights activist, grew up in the Simanjiro plains.

Worker co-operative members from across the UK gathered at Kibblestone Scout Camp in Staffordshire on 6-8 May to share, learn and be inspired.

[Editor's note: GEO first reported on plans for a Croatian Ebank (Ethical Bank) last year.  We're happy to see that things are still on track and moving along.  For more information about this innovative model, see the this report and slide presentation.]

CommonBound will bring together people with powerful visions for the future: a cross-section of community leaders, thinkers, and practitioners from around the world, including the New Economy Coalition’s 140-plus member organizations from throughout the US and Canada.

Each year, New York City sells between $70 million and $120 million in unpaid tax debt, water charges, and emergency repair loans to a private trust. These liens—which enable the owner to foreclose on the property—then increase rapidly in value. The trust can charge nine percent interest on 1-3 family houses and 18 percent interest on multifamily housing, compounded daily.