cooperative economy

A list of readings on Black liberation and economic democracy.

Jessica Gordon-Nembhard talks about her research into the history of African-American co-ops.

Come join Baltimore Roundtable for economic Democracy for a fun filled hour full of conversations about legal structures and capital! We will be discussing the pro's and con's, the differences between these flexible forms of doing business, and how you can put what you learn to work.

We continue to explore the relationship between cooperativism and the market and society. Is cooperativism “a practical demonstration of the possibility of an economy without bosses? A convenient mode of distribution of commodities? An economic form that preserves exploitation of workers and fails to overthrow bourgeois political domination? A way to live out the principles and values of Christianity in the economic terrain?”

The GEO is back in print after 19 years! 

In this chapter, Razeto makes use of a concept that is one of Antonio Gramsci’s most important theoretical contributions – the “determined market.”

Mirlo (“black bird” in Spanish) starts from a simple proposal: the music industry does not work for artists or listeners, and it needs a radical reimagining. Two years in, Mirlo hosts a small but growing community of artists, listeners, organizers, and coders who are trying exactly that: taking lessons from mutual aid and militant political organizing and applying them to a platform built cooperatively.

The new approach that Razeto proposes here is made up not through federation of cooperative businesses but association of individuals in small groups or base communities. This is his movement-building perspective: cooperative organizing from the grassroots, with a clear distinction drawn between representational and operational functions.

Four videos celebrating the life and works of this year's Cooperative Hall of Fame inductees.

Luis Razeto closes out his theoretical analysis of equilibrium in cooperative enterprises with a consideration of equilibrium in the “new model” worker cooperatives he proposes. Not only do workers’ enterprises of this type overcome, in theory, the limitations to growth and even tendencies to decline argued to be inherent to community enterprises and traditional cooperatives, they turn out to be superior to capitalist firms in terms of efficiency and innovation, operating in ways that more closely approach “perfect competition.”