Skip to main content

Catalyzing worker co-ops & the solidarity economy

beyond capitalism

January 16, 2024

Worker Control in a Capitalist Environment: Voices from Indorca (Part II)

Industrias del Orinoco, C.A. (Indorca) is a factory without bosses in the industrial city of Puerto Ordaz in Bolívar state, the home of Venezuela’s basic industries. Indorca workers carried out a heroic three-year struggle to gain control of the factory after the former owner brought it to a halt. Since 2015, when Venezuela’s Ministry of Labor extended a mandate giving the workers control over Indorca, the enterprise has been democratically managed by the women and men who produce here day in and day out.

December 28, 2023

The Right to Repair and Other Forms of Peer Creativity

Can creativity flourish and remain within the control of commoners? Or will businesses inevitably capture creativity and convert it into private property to make money?

November 27, 2023

The DisCO Conspiracy

Stacco Troncoso gives an overview of the DisCO (Distributed Cooperative) model, which he alternately describes as a brand, an econoimc LARP, and an open source conspiracy to take over the world.

October 26, 2023

The Ghana Susu: Reimagining Financial Development

In Ghana, a centuries-old financial system called Susu provides an example of effective bottom-up development that contributes meaningfully to reducing poverty and economic inequality.

October 2, 2023

The Imaginal Cells of the Solidarity Economy

This week we are joined by David Cobb, Lydia Lopez, Jyoung Carolyn Park, Kali Akuno, and Petula Hanley to hear about how to use/influence public policy advance individual policies as part of a coherent strategy to democratize the entire economy.

Citations

GEO Collective (2023).  Economics for Emancipation: Tame, Smash, Escape:  An Interview with Francisco Pérez and Sarah Wang.  Grassroots Economic Organizing (GEO).  https://geo.coop/articles/economics-emancipation-tame-smash-escape

July 17, 2023

Economics for Emancipation: Tame, Smash, Escape

Francisco  Pérez and Sarah Wang of the Center for Economic Democracy discuss the Economics for Emancipation online course.

June 8, 2023

Transitioning between the Business as Usual Economy and the Next Economy

The Business As Usual (BAU) economy has deep-seated and systemic problems. Before addressing how to make a transition to the Next Economy, it is important to understand these problems so that it is clear why this transition is needed in the first place.

April 13, 2023

Production for Use and the Cooperative Commonwealth

An economy of production for use would grow only as fast as the population and the people's needs, making sustainability more attainable.

Citations

Luis Razeto Migliaro, Matt Noyes (2023).  Cooperative Enterprise and Market Economy: Chapter 4.  Grassroots Economic Organizing (GEO).  https://geo.coop/articles/cooperative-enterprise-and-market-economy-chapter-4

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.

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.