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.

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.”

This month's Co-op Conversation featured Olivia Champagne and her talk, "Introducing Coops4Coops: Scaling Inter-Cooperation Across Canada". Coops4Coops is a growing, embeddable digital directory that connects co-operatives offering services to other co-operatives across Canada.

In Chapter 10, the author continues the presentation of a mathematical model of equilibrium in cooperative enterprises originally developed by economist and management consultant Ignacio Larraechea.

In this chapter, Razeto offers an analysis of equilibrium specific to two types of popular economic organization: community enterprises and subsistence collectives. 

I want to emphasize the urgent need to reimagine the relationship between NGOs and cooperatives. Instead of NGOs or funders defining projects based on their own interests, support and resources should be offered at the community’s request.