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Worker-Owners of America, Unite!
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Dan Clore
Dec 16, 2011, 10:22:04 AM12/16/11
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News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/15/opinion/worker-owners-of-america-unite.html?src=tp&smid=fb-share
December 14, 2011
Worker-Owners of America, Unite!
By GAR ALPEROVITZ
College Park, Md.
THE Occupy Wall Street protests have come and mostly gone, and whether
they continue to have an impact or not, they have brought an astounding
fact to the public’s attention: a mere 1 percent of Americans own just
under half of the country’s financial assets and other investments.
America, it would seem, is less equitable than ever, thanks to our
no-holds-barred capitalist system.
But at another level, something different has been quietly brewing in
recent decades: more and more Americans are involved in co-ops,
worker-owned companies and other alternatives to the traditional
capitalist model. We may, in fact, be moving toward a hybrid system,
something different from both traditional capitalism and socialism,
without anyone even noticing.
Some 130 million Americans, for example, now participate in the
ownership of co-op businesses and credit unions. More than 13 million
Americans have become worker-owners of more than 11,000 employee-owned
companies, six million more than belong to private-sector unions.
And worker-owned companies make a difference. In Cleveland, for
instance, an integrated group of worker-owned companies, supported in
part by the purchasing power of large hospitals and universities, has
taken the lead in local solar-panel installation, “green” institutional
laundry services and a commercial hydroponic greenhouse capable of
producing more than three million heads of lettuce a year.
Local and state governments are likewise changing the nature of American
capitalism. Almost half the states manage venture capital efforts,
taking partial ownership in new businesses. Calpers, California’s public
pension authority, helps finance local development projects; in Alaska,
state oil revenues provide each resident with dividends from public
investment strategies as a matter of right; in Alabama, public pension
investing has long focused on state economic development.
Moreover, this year some 14 states began to consider legislation to
create public banks similar to the longstanding Bank of North Dakota; 15
more began to consider some form of single-payer or public-option health
care plan.
Some of these developments, like rural co-ops and credit unions, have
their origins in the New Deal era; some go back even further, to the
Grange movement of the 1880s. The most widespread form of worker
ownership stems from 1970s legislation that provided tax benefits to
owners of small businesses who sold to their employees when they
retired. Reagan-era domestic-spending cuts spurred nonprofits to form
social enterprises that used profits to help finance their missions.
Recently, growing economic pain has provided a further catalyst. The
Cleveland cooperatives are an answer to urban decay that traditional job
training, small-business and other development strategies simply do not
touch. They also build on a 30-year history of Ohio employee-ownership
experiments traceable to the collapse of the steel industry in the 1970s
and ’80s.
Further policy changes are likely. In Indiana, the Republican state
treasurer, Richard Mourdock, is using state deposits to lower interest
costs to employee-owned companies, a precedent others states could
easily follow. Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, is developing
legislation to support worker-owned strategies like that of Cleveland in
other cities. And several policy analysts have proposed expanding
existing government “set aside” procurement programs for small
businesses to include co-ops and other democratized enterprises.
If such cooperative efforts continue to increase in number, scale and
sophistication, they may suggest the outlines, however tentative, of
something very different from both traditional, corporate-dominated
capitalism and traditional socialism.
It’s easy to overestimate the possibilities of a new system. These
efforts are minor compared with the power of Wall Street banks and the
other giants of the American economy. On the other hand, it is precisely
these institutions that have created enormous economic problems and
fueled public anger.
During the populist and progressive eras, a decades-long buildup of
public anger led to major policy shifts, many of which simply took
existing ideas from local and state efforts to the national stage.
Furthermore, we have already seen how, in moments of crisis, the
nationalization of auto giants like General Motors and Chrysler can
suddenly become a reality. When the next financial breakdown occurs,
huge injections of public money may well lead to de facto takeovers of
major banks.
And while the American public has long supported the capitalist model,
that, too, may be changing. In 2009 a Rasmussen poll reported that
Americans under 30 years old were “essentially evenly divided” as to
whether they preferred “capitalism” or “socialism.”
A long era of economic stagnation could well lead to a profound national
debate about an America that is dominated neither by giant corporations
nor by socialist bureaucrats. It would be a fitting next direction for a
troubled nation that has long styled itself as of, by and for the people.
Gar Alperovitz, a professor of political economy at the University of
Maryland and a founder of the Democracy Collaborative, is the author of
“America Beyond Capitalism.”
--
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:
http://tinyurl.com/292yz9
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
"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_
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/15/opinion/worker-owners-of-america-unite.html?src=tp&smid=fb-share
December 14, 2011
Worker-Owners of America, Unite!
By GAR ALPEROVITZ
College Park, Md.
THE Occupy Wall Street protests have come and mostly gone, and whether
they continue to have an impact or not, they have brought an astounding
fact to the public’s attention: a mere 1 percent of Americans own just
under half of the country’s financial assets and other investments.
America, it would seem, is less equitable than ever, thanks to our
no-holds-barred capitalist system.
But at another level, something different has been quietly brewing in
recent decades: more and more Americans are involved in co-ops,
worker-owned companies and other alternatives to the traditional
capitalist model. We may, in fact, be moving toward a hybrid system,
something different from both traditional capitalism and socialism,
without anyone even noticing.
Some 130 million Americans, for example, now participate in the
ownership of co-op businesses and credit unions. More than 13 million
Americans have become worker-owners of more than 11,000 employee-owned
companies, six million more than belong to private-sector unions.
And worker-owned companies make a difference. In Cleveland, for
instance, an integrated group of worker-owned companies, supported in
part by the purchasing power of large hospitals and universities, has
taken the lead in local solar-panel installation, “green” institutional
laundry services and a commercial hydroponic greenhouse capable of
producing more than three million heads of lettuce a year.
Local and state governments are likewise changing the nature of American
capitalism. Almost half the states manage venture capital efforts,
taking partial ownership in new businesses. Calpers, California’s public
pension authority, helps finance local development projects; in Alaska,
state oil revenues provide each resident with dividends from public
investment strategies as a matter of right; in Alabama, public pension
investing has long focused on state economic development.
Moreover, this year some 14 states began to consider legislation to
create public banks similar to the longstanding Bank of North Dakota; 15
more began to consider some form of single-payer or public-option health
care plan.
Some of these developments, like rural co-ops and credit unions, have
their origins in the New Deal era; some go back even further, to the
Grange movement of the 1880s. The most widespread form of worker
ownership stems from 1970s legislation that provided tax benefits to
owners of small businesses who sold to their employees when they
retired. Reagan-era domestic-spending cuts spurred nonprofits to form
social enterprises that used profits to help finance their missions.
Recently, growing economic pain has provided a further catalyst. The
Cleveland cooperatives are an answer to urban decay that traditional job
training, small-business and other development strategies simply do not
touch. They also build on a 30-year history of Ohio employee-ownership
experiments traceable to the collapse of the steel industry in the 1970s
and ’80s.
Further policy changes are likely. In Indiana, the Republican state
treasurer, Richard Mourdock, is using state deposits to lower interest
costs to employee-owned companies, a precedent others states could
easily follow. Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, is developing
legislation to support worker-owned strategies like that of Cleveland in
other cities. And several policy analysts have proposed expanding
existing government “set aside” procurement programs for small
businesses to include co-ops and other democratized enterprises.
If such cooperative efforts continue to increase in number, scale and
sophistication, they may suggest the outlines, however tentative, of
something very different from both traditional, corporate-dominated
capitalism and traditional socialism.
It’s easy to overestimate the possibilities of a new system. These
efforts are minor compared with the power of Wall Street banks and the
other giants of the American economy. On the other hand, it is precisely
these institutions that have created enormous economic problems and
fueled public anger.
During the populist and progressive eras, a decades-long buildup of
public anger led to major policy shifts, many of which simply took
existing ideas from local and state efforts to the national stage.
Furthermore, we have already seen how, in moments of crisis, the
nationalization of auto giants like General Motors and Chrysler can
suddenly become a reality. When the next financial breakdown occurs,
huge injections of public money may well lead to de facto takeovers of
major banks.
And while the American public has long supported the capitalist model,
that, too, may be changing. In 2009 a Rasmussen poll reported that
Americans under 30 years old were “essentially evenly divided” as to
whether they preferred “capitalism” or “socialism.”
A long era of economic stagnation could well lead to a profound national
debate about an America that is dominated neither by giant corporations
nor by socialist bureaucrats. It would be a fitting next direction for a
troubled nation that has long styled itself as of, by and for the people.
Gar Alperovitz, a professor of political economy at the University of
Maryland and a founder of the Democracy Collaborative, is the author of
“America Beyond Capitalism.”
--
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:
http://tinyurl.com/292yz9
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
"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_
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