Friday, November 29, 2013

Woe the (Neo-) Marxists!  

Let's Get rid of Capitalism - by Tuesday!

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The Campaign for Co-operative Socialism
A Fair World Project

>> For equality and ecology, peace, justice and co-operation >>

** To help create a Fair, Safe and Peaceful world **


Co-operative Socialism - on the map - it's not Marxism!


My beef is with the flood of (Neo)-Marxists who all speak at great, elliptical length: in familiar-only-to-themselves, highly-coded language, and which only says 'capitalism is bad, we have no alternative to offer to it'.

(See the excellent 11 minute You-tube RSA piece, 'RSA Animate - Crises of Capitalism', by David Harvey  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0 and, for an explicit statement of the latter point, and the 22minute item 'Deleuze's Postscript on the Societies of Control' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIus7lm_ZK0 - helpfully cited by Andy Conio- for the former.)

I look forward to Andy exposing his paper to us in greater length this evening, 29 November 2013,  at 'our'/the Occupy LSX/Occupy London Economics Working Group..

For me, the matter is simple:

  - capitalism is bad

  - it is straightforward badness:

     - based on three power mechanisms (bullying, bribery, brainwashing: Galbraith),

     - to achieve one end (the continuance, in power, of those families in power)

     - through their 'ownership' (theft) of the four non-labour means of production:

       - land, law, knowledge and position

  - and, that the replacement (of those five TRIP-Up 'economic' (sic) mechanisms: Theft, Rent, Interest, Profit and Un-equal Pay for work) is easily achieved.

All that is needed is implementation, not analysis.

Finally, its worth pointing to the parallel between alchemy and chemistry:

  - for, say, fifteen thousand years alchemy evolved into a word-dense mystery, guarded by ineffective, often-deceptive, frightened and frightening magicians. 

Then, along came Lavoisier and Dalton and all became ordered: chemistry replaced alchemy as a clear, accessible and applicable coherent set of knowledge: to the benefit of all (and the disbenefit of all, too! when it is co-opted by capitalism, etc).

Our task then is, I suggest:

  - clarification and proposition about the problem (capitalism),

  - clarity about the alternative, and,

  - the highlighting of the ordinate metric:

     - equality in all its aspects (vide 'The Spirit Level' and new equality-work being published by the academic community almost daily).

Hope that helps.

For all

john



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The Campaign for Co-operative Socialism
A Fair World Project

>> For equality and ecology, peace, justice and co-operation >>

** To help create a Fair, Safe and Peaceful world **

We are suggesting that the time has come to help create the Global Co-operative Commonweal: a Global Commonweal of Local Commonweals. A world, in other words, based upon the evolving Co-operative, Values and Principles and Definition found in the Statement on the Co-operative Identity from The International Co-operative Alliance.

A values and political mapping, suggests that Co-operative Socialism is found as follows: (* see footnote):

Co-operative Socialism - on the map - it's not Marxism!



Centrally, we also suggest that the concept of Co-operative Commonweal requires that we convert all workplaces into appropriate co-operative enterprises, so that every person, and every organisation, has respectful, time-limited stewardship of land and knowledge resources, and that, thus, true equality is sustainably created.

To do so, it is clear that we have to transform the economic system in which we live, so:
o All people, co-operatively and together, are in control of their lives,
o Where all work is for the long-lived benefit of all: caring for the long-lived benefit of the whole global ecology - and all its inhabitants.

This requires changes to the central features of present-day economics:
o The ownership of workplaces and knowledge used for profit,
o The ownership of land and natural resources, and their use for profit,
o The practices of money-lending and debt- and credit-creation for profit,
o Inequality and insecurity of individual incomes,
o The consequently created culture of rampant crime, fear, debt, and insecurity.

Accordingly, we work for each community to be in full, open, co-operative control of its economic resources, ensuring that they are used for the benefit of the whole of humanity, and for the benefit of the whole global ecology, so that:
o Everyone has the security of a fair, guaranteed income, and that,
o All collective human activities are consistent with the Co-operative Values and Principles, and that,
o Friendship, care and stewardship with the planet is our central task.

>>This suggests the Seven Point Action Plan for Co-operative Socialism - >>

  1. Co-operatives and peace, not corporations and coercion
Convert competitive, market-based activities into workplace co-operatives and remodel monopoly activities as community co-operatives: each co-op demonstrably operating according to the Co-operative Values and Principles of the International Co-operative Alliance, and with each co-op having respectful time-limited care-ship, from the commonweal, of appropriate land and knowledge resources, (See points two and five for the funding mechanism to achieve this);

  1. Not-for-profit banking and financial structures as co-ops – Predistribution, not Redistribution
Distribute the added-value created wealth from these workplace co-ops through nationally collected, co-operative corporate taxation, distributed into local, democratically-controlled, Community Banks, and, so, make money and credit available for eco- and socially-responsible wealth creation, community development and global care - and the conversions referred to above;

  1. Step-wise abolition of money as access to needs – global stewardship for needs and care, not private resources for profit
Maximise necessary service provision (health, education, libraries, transport, and so on) on a co-operative, free-at-the-point-of-use basis: retaining money only as a mechanism for access to discretionary purchases;

  1. Fair, Guaranteed Incomes - Equality of income for all - Pre-distribution not Re-distribution!
Introduce guaranteed fair income for all, within upper and lower brackets: based upon a liveable, fair Citizen's Income, and, so, do away with the need for direct and indirect personal taxation – income tax, sales taxes, and so on;

  1. Abolition of for-profit money - An end to usury/riba, and of banking as global warfare
Abolish money-lending and credit-creation for profit, and, so, operate banking as a community-controlled co-operative public service (See point two above);

  1. Regulated inter-national relations – An end to global exploitation through financial speculation
Reintroduce international exchange controls, a Tobin Tax, etc, as necessary

  1. All our sisters our brothers, and all our brothers our sisters – One in all, one for all, all as one, all in one
Make capital grants (not loans!) to developing countries.

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Thursday, November 7, 2013

Some web resouces on Co-operative Socialism

Some recent resources on the emergent, non-hierarchical,
pre- and post-Marxist replacement for capitalism and totalitarianism: 'Co-operative Socialism' 

John Courtneidge January 2014

Offered in hope of additions!

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Searching for the "Co-operative Commonweal" (nb Commonweal - 'the well-ness of all, in all', as compared with Commonwealth - 'the co-operatively-cared-for economic resources. created for all, by the creator': offered, here, as working definitions), gives:

 - a recent blog reference to Pat Conarty's December 2013 work on Co-operatives and Commons:

http://permaliv.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/slideshow-commons-and-co-operative.html

 - see

http://www.uk.coop/pressrelease/commons-and-co-operative-commonwealth

This relates well to a PowerPoint paper I gave at New Lanark in August 2008  for the UK Society for Co-operative Studies conference upon the 150th anniversary of the death of Robert Owen (see the book New Visions of Society: Robert Owen for the 21st-century',  edited by Richard Bickle and Molly Scott Cato, Scottish Left Review Press, 2008):

'Emotions, Personalities & Politics' PDF in:

 http://www.interestfreemoney.org/papers/

Additionally, with much work in north America:  eg the work of Manfred Max Neef, Mike Nickerson ( 'Planning for Seven Generations: Guideposts for a Sustainable Future', 1995), Keith Helmuth  and other Canadian and US Quakers on 'Right Relationships': Building a Whole Earth Economy Keith Helmuth - see, for example:

 - The Presentation for the “Forum on Faith and a Sustainable Economy,” Commission on Justice and Peace, Canadian Council of Churches, May 12, 2009, Ottawa:

  www.councilofchurches.ca/en/documents/KeithHelmuthCCC.pdf‎

and the 2009 book, 'Right Relationship: Building a Whole Earth Economy (BK Currents)' by Peter Brown and Geoffrey Garver.
.
These are only part of a wave of new, emergent propositional politics for which the developed role of non-hierarchical co-operation and :  co-operatives are seen as key (given the 1995 development of the Statement on the Co-operative Identity issued by The International Co-operative Alliance:

www.ica.coop

The release of which reinforced the Campaign for Co-operative Socialism as a Fair World Project:

See, for example, the 1995 seven point plan (for Co-operative Socialism) in the Peace News Issue 2446
in 2002:
http://peacenews.info/node/5364/2446

And The Network Project collection, 'The Kingdom of Heaven - by Tuesday!'.

www.thenetworkproject.org.uk

Collectively, all these recent developments seem to be building towards an evolution of the Occupy social movement - to one for Co-operative Socialism as both a pre- and post-Marxist replacement for capitalism and totalitarianism, to a not-hierarchical democratic socialism that I term Co-operative Socialism:

The Global Co-operative Commonweal - by Tuesday! 

Clearly this is only a preliminary list - sadly not including materials in languages not in English and not with the benefit of scholarly support.

I hope that all this 'co-operative, social-production of well-ness' finds its way into legislation and social reality - somewhere a political movement, the political party, needs to do that - somewhere! Soon! I hope!

But, I hope these resources help!

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For a Fair World - by Tuesday!

For all, in all,

john

John Courtneidge
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ps Wikipedia has, so far, declined to open a new page on 'Co-operative Socialism'.  Perhaps that needs reviewing: by some, more appropriate than me, Wikipedia editors.
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pps At my friend Grata's request I've uploaded (2nd/4th January 2014) two videos on Co-operative Socialism:

43 mins:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=IeahMiHOgsA

13 mins (with graphics):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=jSkDIUjg0z8



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Sunday, November 3, 2013

Co-operative Socialism - The Option for Wellness - by Teusday!


Dear friends

Chris Furston-Davis, my fellow-member of Occupy London's Economics Working Group writes:

> How depressing to prick up ears to the world service shortly before 4.00
> am in the hope of hearing at least hint reason/common sense/wisdom/lateral
> thinking from 3 supposedly intelligent 'economists' discussing economic
> cycles as a sideshow to the Festival of Ideas at Cambridge.
>


Greetings from the London Borough of Bromley where moves are afoot to have the HG Wells Labour club listed as a Heritage building (or some such).

As to Oxbridge and capitalism . . . need we be surprised: the 2% pay the 10% to lie to the rest of us - the 88%.

But do we believe their lies . . . of course, we never did - this is a politically- and economically-literate, historically-aware society.  The people know that the Con-dems are beating us up on behalf of the 2% and their praetorian guard, the 10%.

They/we also know that, although weakened, the New Labour hi-jack of true Labour is only a hijack, but only that.

We who are democratic socialist and true co-operators -

(in the legacy of George Lansbury, Michael Foot, Tony Benn, John McDonnell, Kelvin Hopkins, Barbara Castle, Bessie Braddock, Alf Morris, Dennis Skinner, Nye Bevan, et al, et al, the cultivation of sensibility by HG Wells, etc)

 - a progressive movement of democratic co-operative socialism don't give up.

Of course, we, too, in Occupy have been hijacked by the 'We are the 99%' slogan (see the 2;10:88% analysis above) and various attempts to have us follow an Oxbridge line of leftist Keynesian (capitalism + the veneer of kindness = the Welfare State) - a view that Keynes himself saw as time limited (see the papers' section of www.interestfreemoney.org for a quote from his 'Essays in Persuasion': a 'Letter to our Grandchildren', I think).

Better that we speak plainly:

 - for a Wellness Society (that is axiomatically eco-logical and equalitarian)
 - based on the (evolving)ICA Statement on Co-operative Values and Principles
 - Principle Seven foremost (the Statement is also logged in that papers' section of www.interestfreemoney.org).

Chris finishes by writing:

>
> Let's hope Cambridge students take a leaf from Manchester and Edinburgh.
>

And my beloved UCL even before that, I hope!

By Tuesday?!

Off to Meeting!

john

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