What *is* Co-operative Socialism?

What *is* The Plan for Co-operative Socialism?

I've been asked.

So:

In essence the plan proposes conversion of all workplaces into appropriate co-operatives.

An end to rent, interest and profits-to-shareholders

The replacement of Ownership of Economic Resources with time-limited, not-transferable 'Co-operative Careship' contracts with the Community

A money, banking and finance system that is interest-free, not-for-profit, co-operative and 'For The Common Good': both nationally and locally; and internationally

A guaranteed Living Income for Everyone: not means' tested and suplemented, if workers so decide, with Paid-work Income up to and not beyond a Socially-determined maximum

This, therefore, reders personal taxation unnecessary

A gradual reduction in the need for money: by making more and more goods and services 'Community Provided and Free-at-the-point of-use'

There are videos and a radio interview on YouTube and reading materials at www.interestfreemoney.org/papers

I hope this helps!

Please share.

Thank-you!

Nice quote!

From this site:

“He who controls the present controls the past. He who controls the past controls the future.”
George Orwell

The aim of The Labour Party

Only if our Labour and Co-operative Parties declare for true socialism: Co-operative Socialism will we win.

And complete our historic objective: Clement Attlee's quote Ch6 opening paragraph: 'The aim of The Labour Party is the establishment of the Co-operative Commonwealth.'

Some key terminology

A small, but I consider, key aspect to terminology.

In our Fair World Project's living plan for Co-operative Socialism, we value the term, 'Co-operative Careship: a) because 'care' is a verb b) because the term 'Co-operative' implies conformity with the Co-operative 'Definition, Values and Principles' as agreed, from time-to-time by co-operators, globally (see the ICA Statement at www.interestfreemoney.org/papers).

Thus in this Ecological Assessment process, as described we are seeing better that a set of *collaborative* relationships: rather, we are seeing *Co-operative* Careship at work.

The supportive evidence is Principle 7 in the ICA Statement (ICA= Intetnational Co-operative Alliance). Thus, Principle 7, if I tecall the wording correctly:

'Co-operatives carry out practices, approved by their membership, for the sustainable well-being of their communities.'

The plural, I suggest, to that last word, includes the soil communities, both flora and micro- , macro- and intermediate-fauna.

Thank-you fir this work, Savory Institute and friends, Alan Savory included.

Not getting involved in politics?

In the comments to the item below, at Youtube, one questioner asked why governments should be involved.

I offered the following:

naturerancher  because *our* governments define the economic and social context in which good *and* bad flourish.

It is the objective of the puppet masters that control governments (at present) that we disengage from influencing governments: they want us to be anarchists, while they continue as authoritarians.

Sadly.

The solution is, as in the Comment I offer below.

I hope this helps,

Very best wishes,

John Courtneidge

What to do next

What to do next . . .

The system of capitalism is so binary (ie those that exploit versus those who are exploited) first-past the post is best.

That said, the fly in the ointment are the 10% of families that constitute the exploiters' 'Praetorian Guard' in my 2:10:88 analysis:

   2% of families are 'the capitalists', 10% are their Praetorian Guard while we, the 88% pay Rent, Interest and Profits to the 2% who, then, allow the 10% to tax us in order that they, the 10%, have guaranteed higher-than-us paid-work incomes, perks and pensions.

That 10% will then bully, bribe and brain-wash us, the 88% into complying with the stitch up.

The lack of political education (even by 'working class' organisations such as The Labour Party, the Trades Unions and the Co-operative 'movement') means that, at least half of the 88% don't vote, and, of the reaining 44%, most vote with a lack of clarity.

So the 2% and 10% plus, say 30% of the 88% manage to keep the status quo going.

Grrr!

The solutions that I offer are two-fold: political education to widen and deepen the awareness that a Co-operative Socialist alternative to capitalism is a) beneficial to all and b) feasible.

And, secodly, to repopulate the Second Chamber (the House of Lords here in the UK) on a randomly-selected one per Constituency basis, retiring by thirds and serving for three year terms (once the initial population have served for one year, two years, three years, by lot).

Both may be necessary.

Where the money is to come from

The Co-operative Socialist approach: paid work income cap so no need for personal taxes.

Thus financial surpluses from trading co-ops go into The Common Purse for appropriate investment, circulation and Living Income for Everyone.

Da, da!

The two options

There is no capitalist solution.

Capitalism either offers destitution or debt.

Hence our living plan for Co-operative Socialism: no debt, no destitution.

Brexit

I'm looking forward to a Labour government that offers all Labour Party members free voice and free vote in the next phase of the EU Leave/Remain process.

I have *every confidence, then* that our Co-operative Sovialist solutions will carry the day.

Ps I'm a Labour Party voter, member and activist.

And, likewise Co-operative Party member and activist.

For all, the best!

Equally!

Sustainably!

Peacefully!

Money, banking and finance

Thank-you for the invitation to join this group: which I am happy to accept.

Our money, banking and finance work may be found at www.interestfreemoney.org where various papers are in the archive.

Our Parliamentary work, here in the UK, is archived at www.forumforstablecurrencies.org.uk

In brief, we propose a money, banking anf finance system that operates for The Common Good: one that is Community-provided, interest(usury)-free and not-for-profit.

The most helpful business model that occurs to me is the Public Library system: acting as above, circluating the currency that the national Community deems appropriate and fit-for-use

A bit of personal history

How to achieve change:

The two problems that I have encountered over fify-five years' involvement with groups trying to produce beneficial change is that organisations are rarely clear on what they want, apart from, 'Not this' and often not even with the rider, 'And something better'. That was as far as Occupy got (even though two Occupy Working Groups remain active - the Occupy London/LSX Economics' Working Group and the Occupy Democracy Group.

That said, what-ever the membership proposes is always diluted, ignored and/or co-opted by the status quo's, infiltrated, Praetorian Guard.

Again, that said, beneficial change *does* occur through a combination of the Politics of Protest, the Politics of Practical Demonstration and the Politics of Proposition, along with 'Proposition's Long March Through The System'.

I suggest that one way - perhaps the only way - that the latter works is when a majority *within* The Praetorian Guard want it to happen.

(As a case study (the details of which I don't know, and which I offer as a test-bed for learning) was the abolition of designated carriages for smokers on the Underground trains in London.)

So, yes, the agents of the status quo will always co-opt any organisation.

But one way of coping with co-option is to continuously 'move the flag further out', so that what was originally-proposed becomes normative, as the cutting egde of 'The Domain of Fashion' gets dragged forward.

Keith Joseph did that, in a reactionary sense as the prelude to Thatcherism and neo-liberalism.

XR could do the same . . .

. . . But in respect of ecological restoration.

Through Co-operative Socialism.

But, to do that, XR has to adopt and promote the living plan for Co-operative Socialism.

Which, I so propose!

I hope this helps.

Very best wishes,

John Courtneidge

Helping Co-ops stay Co-op-y

Co-op Membership

In a co-op *in theory!* all members, *and the co-op itself*, should *demonstrably* act in conformity with the ICA Statement of Definition, Values and Principles in its (our) 'Statement on The Co-operative Identity.

This Statement is logged at http://www.interestfreemoney.org/papers/

Ps ICA = International Co-operative Alliance. Its website www.ica.coop is not as good as I'd like.

I hope this helps.

Ps at our 1999 Co-operative Party Annual Conference, Conference unanimously adopted our following Motion on 'Annual Co-operative Audits':

  'Conference invites all Co-operatives to, annually, carry out and publicise 'Annual Co-operative Audits' to demonstrate their fidelity to the ICA Statement on The Co-operative Identity.

No Co-op, yet, has done so.

Organising without hierarchies

Non-hierarchical organising

Many years' ago, a group, Les Amis du Monde Diplomatique asked me if I could design a completely non-hierarchical organisational diagram.

That diagram is logged in the papers' section at:

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

It's called The Sunflower Organisation diagram.

I hope that it helps.

Very best wishes,

John

Co-operative Socialism: briefly

Co-operative Socialism: going global

As far as a global change:

Co-operative Socialism abolishes all returns to capital:

Ie, it abolishes Rent, Interest and Profits-distributed-to-shareholders, along with selfish incomes to Position-holders.

As such, no capitalist or State-Communist organisation could produce at prices less that those in a Co-operative Socialist economy.

And those Co-operative Socialist economies would be carrying out socially-and ecologically-responsible production: not production for profit.

Getting rid of politics is the aim

An end to politics?

Yes, I'm involved in politics . . . to get rid of politics.

But that requires the abolition of capitalism (and all forms of hierarchy) first.

Hence the need for politics at present.

And, so, for XR to be clear about what it (we) want.

And how to get there: Proposition, Nonviolence, Clarity, Persistence, Archiving and Celebration.

Annually!

Politics is *not* complicated

Politics is *very* straighforward:





    it's people & planet versus capitalism.

    And the alternative that's good for all is already to hand: the plan for Co-operative Socialism!

If it's helpful, when I encounter a person of voting age who says' I don't know the firzt thing about politics', I reply:

'Well it's very straightforward: if you wish to vote for selfishness, thrn vote Conservative, Liberal or Nationalist. But if you want to vote for socialness, your options are to vote Labour (NDP) or Green or, if you have the chance, Labour and Co-operative (CCF).

Now if you vote Green, or choose to not vote, then you give, effectively, a free pass to those who vote for selfishness.

In the case of the Greens, I support, wholhearedly,  any pro-eco policy but if you vote Green, rather than Labour, then you divide the pro-social, pro-eco vote and, so selfishness gets that free pass.'

I hope that helps.

Ps, all this is based on the Four Component Needs theory that is in the papers'section at www.interestfreemoney.org

Which shows, I hope, that the human condition is a struggle between our socialness and our fear-driven selfishness.

Maslow's hierarchy, is not helpful in my view.

History . . . and now

Under (literally, under) imperialism/capitalism (and all Empires use money as power), things are done *to* us.

Then, the bullying mutates so that things (apparently) in Welfare States (like Bismark's Welfare State: oh! So! Egalatarian! Not!) are done *for* us (not).

Then the mutant of control has to morph again so that, as in the present era of (fake) consultations, things are done, not, to us, or for us, but *with* us (not).

Finally, once we have replaced Imperialism, Capitalism, State 'Communism' (not), Big-House-Matron-knows-Best Welfare State-ism *and* refused to 'Take The Survey' offered to us by Our (not) Housing Association, etc . . .

We will have produced The Wellbeing Society.

For The Common Good.

Oh happy day!

By Tuesday!

Woo-hoo!

in short

Capitalism: the use of money for social control.

And of debt for personal and family control.

My Optimism

Where we are, now, after the Chief Rabbi and The Archbishop's joint, coordinated assault

Co-option, which always happens, can be minimised if we are:

    a) clear in our objectives (system change from exploitation/capitalism to Co-operative Careship/Co-operative Socialism),

   b) how we plan to achieve the change (nonviolence&genuine participatory democracy) and,

   c), crucially, we, briskly, 'keep moving the flag further out': on all three fronts:

        - the politics of protest and awareness-raising,

        - the politics of practical demonstration and good-news sharing,

        - and, of supreme importance, the politics of political proposition, engagement, proposition and push-to-enactment.

Back in the 1960's, when I was a teen-ager, we lost because we got stopped: the 'sit-ins' got infiltrated by the drug-dealing CIA/MI5/etc paid co-opers.

 . . . Because we were not clear on what we wanted then.

Nowadays, the key point is that the comprehensive policy mix that constitutes the (living) plan for Co-operatiive Socialism was not known then.

It is now.

So, then, in the 60's, protest floundered into the 70's co-option.

 . . .  and we ended up with Thatcher, Reagan and Pinochet.

It's different now: we know what has to be changed, what its feasible replacement is.

 . . . and we have the necessary public support among us, the 88%.

And jitters among the 10% (ie, capitalisms' Praetorian Guard)

Hence my optimism.

The time is right.

We are the people we have been waiting for.

another take on chemistry and politics

I recollect that the terms Left and Right arose during one or other of the French Revolutions as regards where the Reactionaries (Les Droitists, I guess) and the Progressives sat with rezpect to the Speaker of L'Assembie.

Purely, then an accident following on from whomever sat down, first, in that Chambre.

Now, as to your enquiry concerning Chemistry . . .

The answer is: Everything!

First chemistry is the study and description of everything in the Universe: both 'What is' and 'What is becoming'.

One of the developments in my life-time (and beneficially-so) is that we chemists now include 'the arrow of time' when write chical equations. And even include enthalpic information as to whether enery is released or absorbed.

So, for example, photosynthesis will be written, approximately in a word equation, as:

Carbon dioxide  +  water  +  (light) energy -->  cabohydrates +  oxygen

An Encapsulation That Stands, I think, The Test of Time

The following is a repetition (with a few subedits and an update re Tim Pearce), of an earlier conversation (ie from 2014).

I think that it is, still, a useful encapsulation:

--------------

More on that political diagram

and on Personal Paradigms, too!

I hope it helps.

Thx Ley 4 yr comment.  I add in some of 'mine' at the >j pointers:

Ley : When referring to time, the general accepted method is ''the coil/the spiral''.

>j Interesting!  The idea of a spiral of time is certainly far better than the circle of time 'What goes around, comes around', 'History repeats itself', etc.

In the English-speaking world we read text from the left-hand side to the right-hand side: that's why I prefer to put the Progressive end of the horizontal axis in 'my' diagram on the right – while, yes, the progressive side is often referred to as the 'Left'.

And, correspondingly, the Reactionary (Right politically) as the history end of the horizontal axis.

Incidentally, as I understand it, the political left/right denoters is an artefact of a French Revolutionary parliament: the progressives sat on the left-hand side of the speaker, with the reactionaries on the right-hand side of the speaker.  My guess is that the first person to sit down defined where his friends and opponents sat – it would have been more helpful for 'my' diagram if it had happened otherwise!

Incidentally, 'my' diagram goes back to a posting on a 90's listsev called Co-opnet. My friend and fellow co-operator, Tim Pearce (now, sadly, deceased) pointed out that the Political Compass site had prefigured 'mine'.

Time (as it were!) has moved on and I've found many of these 'two-dimensional/Four quadrant' maps – and I've tried to cross-correlate them in a Pdf of a Powerpoint in the papers at www.interestfreemoney.org , called 'Emotions, Personalities and Politics'.

Ley : (Also, I'm typically bad at explaining things without visual aid, so please bear with me).

>j  Yes – it will be a good deal easier when we can all write/say directly onto Facebook – this world is still obsessed with speech (parliaments etc) whereas, as a chemist I much prefer symbolic language and diagrams . . .

So, back to your spiral of time:

Ley :  It's like a point that starts in the center, starts going out like a circle, and then goes round and round itself. The reaon for this is that the brain will then read it like a clock, and thus it helps processing of the information.

>j  Nice!

Another point is that in thermodynamics (a part of chemistry that tackles the 'why' and 'how' of chemical processes – including life processes and the way the universe works – including how/why it is expanding) a key 'Law' (ie a Truth that is so until we disprove it) is the Second Law of Thermodynamics: a Law that is sometimes referred to as 'The Arrow of Time'.

This says (as does your spiral) that the universe moves on – that going back is not possible (the Second Law has much more to say, but for now it's this time aspect that's important here).

So, whether that forward direction of time is spiral shaped (hard to draw on a computer screen!) or linear, I'm not sure.

But, in a political sense, the arrow can, as in 'my' diagram, be pushed backwards in a reactionary direction, politically – at immense cost in terms of natural forces (entropy, enthalpy, etc) – ie in an unnatural way.

And that certainly seems the case if I look at the past 50 years – from the positives of the 60's to the catastrophe of 'now'.

Ley :  The other reason your graph falls short is that you have the right and left political axis inverted, which makes this ungrokkable (being grokkable means ''to understand without explaination''). Because of the inversion, the viewer has actually read the graph and 'remember' the inversion, taking away from the impact and time put into self-debating the points you make.

>j Agreed somewhat, but I still think that this effort is worthwhile.

Let me give you a hazy recollection: at one time electricity was deemed (quite arbitrarily to flow from the positive pole of a battery (+) to the negative pole (-).  The experimental reality seems, better, to be that electrons (which are negatively-charged – negatively in an arbitrary sense, too) flow from the negative pole (negative since it is populated by ad excess of negatively-charged electrons) to the positive pole (positively-charged since it has a deficit of electrons over the positively-charged atomic nuclei there).

This is a characteristic of human learning - we often get it 'right' but 'back to front!

(BTW a) a good way of thinking about anything is to, first examine it 'back-to-front' and then at right-angles to what is being proposed.

For example, capitalism says that owning economic resources ('property') is a good thing.  The reverse, that owning economic resources ('property') is a *bad* thing is worthwhile considering – as is the perpendicular concept (perhaps) that  that owning economic resources ('property') is neither a good thing nor a bad thing (but a nonsense!).

Ley : I really do think you have a good idea, and I really appreciate the good natured intentions. I just think it's worth making a second revision or experimenting with it so that it's more accessible to everyone on an immediate basis.

j> Thx! In those papers at www.interestfreemoney.org, I've placed an essay called 'How Rigid is your Paradigm?'

That points out that human knowledge is better discussed a paradigm rather than belief, that paradigms evolve – sometimes by paradigm shifts of direction and sometime, even, paradigm inversions (ie that which we thought was right has to be inverted by 180 degrees).

The story of phlogiston and oxygen is a good example: at one time chemists thought that fuels released phlogiston into the atmosphere when they burnt, whereas the oxygen theory says/shows that oxygen if combined from the atmosphere when fuels burn.

Oh, and that essay 'introduces' the idea that we all have a personal paradigm.

'My' personal paradigm is extended by your comment that time is/may be spiral not linear – or even jerky (in either a spiral or linear sense – maybe as the arrows on 'my' political diagram speculates!

And, I guess that's what we're partly here to do – to learn, share, give!

Ley : (Regarding Grokkable, it's also that sensation you get when you see something and it just ''makes sense'', and you wonder why others haven't done it that way before. Intuitive is another similar word).

The Past and The Future

History and the future

My friend, Alphée Michaud, points out that the Normans and the Anglo-Saxons are war-loving bullies (I paraphrase: I hope he doesn't mind).

So I offered the following history:

We, the indiginous English, were left, still here: as before their arrival, when the Romans left, about 500AD.

Quickly, the various Angles, Saxons and Jutes arrived from eastern Denmark, as now is.

Then the other Northmen, The Normans, took over, five hundred years' later in 1066AD.

Then the usurers took over, five hundred years' later, in 1545.

All through this, there were indiginous people in England who did the work.

Not the fighting.

Though we did try fighting in the 1640's ('The English Civil War') but quickly realised that war, violence, revolution simply replaces one set of bosses for another.

So, by 1918, we'd managed to get the other route, the vote ('the ballot box, not the bomb'), more-or-less completed (the poorer women had to wait another ten years: to allow the bully women to take control of 'womens' politics').

But, of course, the danger for the bosses was that we, the indiginous English, along with the poorer immigrants, would vote capitalism into oblivion.

So, in 1974, the bosses worked out that if they made voting pointless (by imposing the EU on us) then we'd be put back in our place: which is what Thatcher, Blair and Cameron&Clegg did: all capitalist-funded.

So, now, here we are: we the indiginous English, telling the capitalists' bullies (the Tories, Fibs, New Labour and the Nationalists) that we don't want to be ruled by capitalism in Europe.

Next, we will tell them that we don't want to be ruled by capitalism here, either.

Hence our plan for no-bosses: the living plan for Co-operative Socialism.

Thus: Year 0 the romans arrived, 500 years later they left and the Angles, Saxons and Jutes arrived, then 500 years later the Normans arrived, then 500 years later the usurers took over, then 500 years' later (ie now) we'll have got rid of all of them.

By implementing the no-bosses, living plan for Co-operative Socialism!

Quite straightforward, really!

This election and some likely outcomes

Time for some courage.

Is any of the following true?

This election and some likely outcomes
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As to who might win here, I reckon it's fifty-fifty. Labour will gain votes. Especially since the BBC is anti-Brexit and, so anti-Boris.

So,

a) if the Tories win, Jeremy and John will be toast and Labour will likely become a Remain, Communist-lite irrelevance.

b) If Labour win, it will also become a Communist-lite Remain Party.

But in power.

That will create a puzzle for capitalism: it won't try to sink a Boris-led Brexit if he wins (he's their man) so he'll say,  'See, I told you it wouldn't be a catatrophe.'

And, then, he'll push on with the poor-bashing neocon agenda.

Which would mean the the Labour Remainers will say, 'See, poor people, we told you so: vote for us and, in four years' time we'll reapply for EU Membership (which is what the capitalists want).

Should Labour win, the Remainers will fiddle a Remain, poor people will join right-wing populism and then bloodshed.

Or, before all that, there will, in the next month be a surge for Co-operative Socialism, a Labour and Co-operative government will be elected, then, either they will implement it and capitalism will try to crush us, and The Commonwealth will have to come to our aid.

Or, they won't implement it and there will be riots followed by a Military coup.