Trying to Understand why 'Co-operative Socialism' is 'New'/Not-well-known

 John Courtneidge 22 January 2014

A possible explanation of all this is that it seems that the identification of a democratic socialism that is not State-centred (ie the 20th-Century State-centred/Fabian society-inspired nationalisation of - at least - critical aspects of the economy) ie this alternative that I term 'Co-operative Socialism, has not hitherto been (fully) described.

The closest that I can find is the (seemingly, largely, undefined) term 'The Co-operative Commonwealth' (and, both the unhyphenated equivalent, The Cooperative Commonwealth' and the related two terms 'The Co-operative Commonweal and The Cooperative Commonweal).

(The reason that I list each of these is for Google search reasons: Google gives different results for co-operation/cooperation, co-operative/cooperative, etc.)

I'd be *really* grateful if there is prior history to the seven-point Co-operative Socialism policy set that I adumbrate as, either, 'The Fair World Action Plan', 'The Seven-point plan for Co-operative Socialism', etc (see various papers at www.interestfreemoney.org ).

One aspect of this is that the two-dimensional, four-quadrant map that I use, and append, has become only (it seems) quite recently (last few decades) popularly used (for both political mapping and in other social-mapping contexts). An early example (at www.politicalcompass.org - but with the horizontal axis reversed as compared to that I append) was pointed out to me on a Co-opNet listserv by my fellow co-operator, Tim Pearce, in the mid-1990's.

To network this, I'm going to re-post it on both my own timeline, on the Comments page of one of the two present You Tube videos on Co-operative Socialism, in reply to a helpful coment there (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage... ) and at my occasional blog www.sustainabilitynotcapitalism.blogspot.com

In humility, I hope these all help.

For all, john

ps The useful comment and cited paper at the First You Tube video is:
 agnosticpagan

1 week ago

 Who wrote:

"For similar ideas, are you familiar with Frank Lindenfield? see www.geo.coop/story/cooperative-commonwealth. A major barrier that needs to be overcome is moving away from the shadow of Marx and his followers that corrupted the term 'socialism'. Using the term 'Solidarity Economics' is a step forward. A new economic system based on grass-roots alternatives, democratic personal ownership and entrepreneurship (not plutocratic corporate shareholder ownership), and inclusive equitable participation economically and politically"