The Time Is Now for a Cooperative Economy
Dan Clore
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/08/26-1
Friday, August 26, 2011 by Green for All Blog
A Cooperative Economy: The Time Is Now
by Carmen Llanes
I am impressed by the amount of knowledge in our communities. There are
countless skills among those who are currently unemployed and
underemployed and those who have been laid off during this recession.
In more and more businesses, the tasks and responsibilities are being
piled up on smaller staffs and overworked employees, many of whom find
themselves increasingly fed up with top-down management that doesn't
appreciate them.
In fact, much of our recession can be attributed to the lack of input
from workers and small businesses. Our economy has been at the mercy of
too few hands over the last several decades. Now many folks are using
whatever skill they have to get by in a world with fewer local jobs and
many, many underemployed people.
Why should so much talent go to waste?
This is a perfect time for a cooperative economy. Considering the
disproportionate struggles faced by women and people of color during a
recession, the cooperative economy presents an opportunity for all
people, to leverage more power by making themselves the bosses, sharing
ownership, and taking a collective approach to good management. Many
people have already been let down by a top-down corporate or non-profit
model in a recession-ridden society. Now is the time to rebuild the
system, and build a society founded on justice, dignity, and respect for
people and the planet.
Finding Opportunity in Crisis: Inspiration From the Road Ahead
I was really inspired by the power of community in supporting local
economies through a recession when I first visited Detroit in 2008 and
again in 2010 for the US Social Forum. There is much more than a
depressed economy in Detroit. There are pockets of vibrant community.
There is food growing. There are queer-owned, women-owned, cooperatively
run businesses getting together. And while there may be great stretches
of empty blocks, between them, there are farmers markets, and neighbors
who talk to each other. There are older communities and advocates
working alongside young and aspiring activists and entrepreneurs. This
is what I think of when I hear Detroiters refer to "opportunity in crisis."
Austin is doing far better, financially at least, than Detroit. But when
it comes to competition in a cutthroat time of depressed profit and
wages, women, immigrants, and people of color are getting the raw end of
the deal left and right. Many in the city feel underemployment, under
appreciation or both.
In this sense we are primed for an alternative. And the good news is,
while any big, social or economic grassroots movement is a "marathon",
so to speak, we are witnessing big change over the last couple of years.
[Black Star Pub & Brewery] Black Star Pub & Brewery
Austin has already birthed more than one worker-owned cooperative
business in recent years. Black Star Co-Op Pub & Brewery opened doors in
the summer of 2010, with a large banner outside that reads
"Community-Owned Beer." A consumer cooperative (owned by the community
it serves) and also a worker-coop (run by its employees), Black Star is
attracting a full house of business seven days a week. And the
byproducts their brewery produces? They make great dog biscuits! Sold at
the pub and at farmers markets and stores around town—green and
delicious products for people and their pets.
[Red Rabbit Cooperative Bakery] Red Rabbit Cooperative BakeryRed Rabbit
Cooperative Bakery has launched this year and is making donuts with
local and organic ingredients. Their donuts also happen to be vegan, but
the target audience includes meat and dairy eaters, since anyone can
enjoy a good donut. The founding women of Red Rabbit used to work at a
major grocery store chain bakery. They decided to take their skill set
elsewhere, and make decisions collectively, so as to be truly
appreciated as workers and owners. They started using all-natural,
vegan, locally and organically derived ingredients, and using
sustainable, environmentally friendly practices to create delicious
donuts now being distributed all around town. Their demand is growing,
and they are in the process of opening their own storefront, a green,
worker-owned bakeshop.
One of the most beautiful things about building the movement for
worker-owned businesses is that cooperatives, on principle, work to
support each other. While Red Rabbit started small, with donuts, they
are expanding to breads and other goods, and now sell sandwich loaves to
Black Star Co-op Pub & Brewery as the Pub's menu expands. Black Star
also collaborates with Third Coast Workers for Cooperation, an
organization helping to develop green, worker-owned business and
educating the community about the cooperative movement. Black Star helps
the organization out in fundraising initiatives, so that TCWC can
continue to offer free and low-cost assistance to emerging worker coops.
All three organizations strive to make every element of the work green,
local, and sustainable. And economically, a local support system offers
more sustainability than the disconnected, global, corporate
alternative. Much like the cradle-to-cradle ideology protects our
natural resources, keeping our money in a cyclical change of hands that
stays in our community and promotes justice and sustainability, is the
way we will change the world, one town at a time.
The most exciting thing about discussing this work right now, is that
more folks are realizing that this model can apply to their situations.
Again, skilled people, underemployed, who know these businesses, are the
perfect candidates to get together and organize their collective skills
into local, economic power. It could be a valet company, a restaurant, a
bike rental business, a car body shop, a construction team, insulation
team, house-cleaning cooperative. The possibilities are endless, and in
a town like Austin where the service industry employs a huge sector of
our population, the possibilities stand to be lucrative.
Without getting too carried away, we must dare to dream up a new
reality. Reviewing the disappointments of national news can only get us
so far, but if we can immerse ourselves into transforming local
business, then we can address movement building from a much more
inclusive and meaningful place. When our communities are empowered by
belonging to a movement that they see is growing with success, then we
will be even more ready to plunge into the national dialogue. But this
time, we will be empowered by our own local successes.
Carmen Llanes is a Green For All Fellow Candidate.
--
Dan Clore
New book: _Weird Words: A Lovecraftian Lexicon_:
http://tinyurl.com/yd3bxkw
My collected fiction: _The Unspeakable and Others_
http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-unspeakable-and-others/6124911
Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
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News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
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"From the point of view of the defense of our society,
there only exists one danger -- that workers succeed in
speaking to each other about their condition and their
aspirations _without intermediaries_."
--Censor (Gianfranco Sanguinetti), _The Real Report on
the Last Chance to Save Capitalism in Italy_