I wonder if this clue helps?

passionatejohn

***************

Capitalism *is* a for-profit prison, eh?!

So, campaign for co-operative socialism!

 


3 December 2013


Dear friends

I just shared this with my New Democratic Party friends/comrades in Canada about the news, there, that the Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper is proposing to privatise/pirat-ise/profit-ise the Prison Chaplaincy services:

There's a segment in Michael Moore's 'Capitalism: A love Story', within the first 40minutes, which describes a youth 'correction' facility in xyz-Barrie somewhere in the US which was 'outsourced' to a local 'entrepreneur's for-profit business.  You will already know the details. 

Which brings me to the point: how can I (we?) 'get' the federal NDP-NPD to adopt the Co-operative Socialism approach (for which, please see the document in the papers' section of www.interestfreemoney.org ) ?

In other words: without a transformed economic system (one that is conformable to 'The Golden Rule' as outlined by our Scarboro Missions friends www.scarboromissions.ca I should think), then such psychotic nonsense as for-profit prisons, prison-services of anything will consume our life-time-for-worship. Capitalism *is* a for-profit prison, Eh !?!?

For co-operative socialism - by Tuesday!

john

John Courtneidge

***********************

re:

Heinz Leamington (Ontario, Canada)**: Ripe for a Cooperative / The Cooperative Commonwealth




http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/903.php

Of course, I'd like:

a) a hyphen

b) the conversion of all for-profit businesses into appropriate co-operatives*

c) By Tuesday!

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

The end of capitalism - by Tuesday!

Co-operative Socialism: The best! - For all - equally! - the best!

john

*   By repeal of the legislation that allows for-profit businesses to operate.
** Every-/Any-where!

woo-hoo!

**************************************

Woe the (Neo-) Marxists!  

Let's Get rid of Capitalism - by Tuesday!

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

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



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

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);

2. 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;

3. 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;

4. 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;

5. 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);

6. Regulated inter-national relations – An end to global exploitation through financial speculation

Reintroduce international exchange controls, a Tobin Tax, etc, as necessary

7. 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.

*******

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!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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!

 ------------------------------------

For a Fair World - by Tuesday!

For all, in all,

john

John Courtneidge
-------------------------------------

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.
-------------------------------------
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



***********************************************************************

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

***********

John Bellers had it right - Jesus, too!

Dear friends

Don't get suckered in - as if I expected you would!

Re; Re: Fwd: [Occupy London rdwg] Chris Hedges takes up the torch

John Bellers - Quaker tapestry panel

So, as I said yesterday, it looks as though the bosses are engineering a 'revolution' that they, as usual, control.

Better, however, is the horizontalist, co-operative, equalitarian, truly socialist (ie before Marx) evolution to a true co-operative democracy - with the opportunity - or even, voluntarily-accepted responsibility to under take co-operative care-ship - as part of, not as 'stewards' of, the whole of the global creation/commonweal.

Remember, Stephen Harper, Mark Carney's buddy/servant/co-conspirator as Prime Minister of Canada has twice, already, trialled the use of pre-emptive prorogation of the House (notionally) of Commons, there, since he know he wasn't going to get his way:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prorogation

Jeremy Paxman was right - if you abrogate your adult responsibility to take part, in what-ever way, in the grueling 'Long March Through The System', then you can't have a say when the devil - human selfishness - takes over.

BTW - this Marx thing's got to stop: John Bellers an early Friend wrote "The labours of the poor are the mines of the rich."

London has been a continuous site of actions to turn the world the right-way up - ie horizontally! Whether the London and Kentish and West-Country mobs talked of class (they probably did), they knew who their oppressors were and who they were employed by (just as Jesus' supporters did - see William Hertzog II's 'Parables as Subversive Speech: Jesus as Pedagogue of the Oppressed' - thanks bob p-w!

For all

john

ps Ask your-self why it is that these people get so much air time, while the horizontalist, genuinely co-operative socialist voice is never reported . . .

************

> * Russell Brand's fire crosses the Atlantic*
>
> As Russell Brand’s simultaneously visceral, emotional and intellectual
> case
> for revolutionary change goes viral, respected Pulitzer prize-winning US
> journalist Chris Hedges, arriving at the same conclusion, goes even
> further
> than the comedian.
>
> Exactly one year ago, Hedges, who wrote for the *New York Times* for 15
> years until 2005, described the US presidential
> election<http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/why_im_voting_green_20121029>
> as
> “a battle between the corporate state and us”. His conclusions and actions
> then echoed the eruption of Occupy:
>
> If we do not immediately engage in this battle we are finished, as climate
> scientists have made clear. I will defy corporate power in small and large
> ways. I will invest my energy now solely in acts of resistance, in civil
> disobedience and in defiance.
>
> And in registering a protest vote for the Green Party, he said he was
> stepping outside the system. Twelve months later, Hedges’ ideas have moved
> on apace. Amongst other things, he’s been studying the work of Aristotle,
> Niccolò Machiavelli, Alexis de Tocqueville, Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and
> anarchists, including Alexander Berkman.
>
> Hedges now sees things much more clearly. While Brand was laying into
> Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLYcn3PuTTk>,
> Hedges noted <http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/10/21>:
>
> Class struggle defines most of human history. Marx got this right. The
> sooner we realise that we are locked in deadly warfare with our ruling,
> corporate elite, the sooner we will realise that these elites must be
> overthrown.
>
> And this week, in *Our Invisible
> Revolution*<http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/10/28>,
> Hedges looks deeper at the revolutionary process itself. He believes that
> the ideas used to justify the “private and state institutions that serve
> our corporate masters” are losing their power over people. He adds:
>
> The battle of ideas is percolating below the surface. It is a battle the
> corporate state is steadily losing. An increasing number of Americans are
> getting it. They know that we have been stripped of political power. They
> recognise that we have been shorn of our most basic and cherished civil
> liberties, and live under the gaze of the most intrusive security and
> surveillance apparatus in human history. Half the country lives in
> poverty.
> Many of the rest of us, if the corporate state is not overthrown, will
> join
> them. These truths are no longer hidden.
>
> Hedges believes that once enough people “get it” – that free market
> capitalism does not serve their interests – then the process of change
> quickens and, as Berkman
> wrote<http://books.google.com/books?id=386Mvoi4PDsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=what+is+anarchism%3F&hl=en&sa=X&ei=wglsUtDlKtDDiwK7yIGQAg&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=what%20is%20anarchism%3F&f=falsehttp://books.google.com/books?id=386Mvoi4PDsC&pg=PA179&lpg=PA179&dq=%22the+slow,+quiet,+and+peaceful+social+evolution+becomes+quick,+militant,+and+violent,%22&source=bl&ots=P9hkpsDXYZ&sig=8_kG3LIfVl_3uT-0KbQF6D5>,
> “evolution becomes revolution”.
>
> There is a nervous air among America’s ruling elites, Hedges believes,
> because more and more people have rejected the ideas of the status quo.
> “This is why voices of dissent – as well as spontaneous uprisings such as
> the Occupy movement – are ruthlessly crushed by the corporate state.”
>
> Like most people, however, Hedges comes to the realisation of the need for
> revolution unwillingly, reluctantly. He would prefer “the piecemeal and
> incremental reforms of a functioning democracy”, a system that allows its
> citizens to non-violently dismiss those in authority, “a system in which
> institutions are independent and not captive to corporate power”.
> An uprising that is devoid of ideas and vision is never a threat
>
> But, as after acknowledging that we don’t live under such a system, Hedges
> admits that “revolt is the only option left”.
>
> To avoid spontaneous movements like Occupy being ruthlessly crushed by the
> state, Hedges is clear that we need a direction, a strategy and
> alternative
> ideas for how society could look in the future.
>
> An uprising that is devoid of ideas and vision is never a threat to ruling
> elites. Social upheaval without clear definition and direction, without
> ideas behind it, descends into nihilism, random violence and chaos. It
> consumes itself.
>
> So the key to a successful revolt, for Hedges, is a clear vision of a new
> society and a strategy for how it can be achieved. To which we should add,
> democratic forms of networked political organisations that can help us
> focus on the main prize.
>
> Russell Brand and Chris Hedges are playing a tremendous role in bringing
> the case for system change out into the open. They have helped kick-start
> a
> social revolutionary process which millions will join.
>
> Gerry Gold
> 30 October 2013
>
> - Backlash against Brand shows he got it
> right<http://www.aworldtowin.net/blog/backlash-against-brand-shows-he-got-it-right.html>
>
> - See more at:
> http://www.aworldtowin.net/blog/russell-brands-fire-crosses-atlantic.html#sthash.K8YArzkr.dpuf
>
> **
> http://www.aworldtowin.net/blog/russell-brands-fire-crosses-atlantic.html
>
> --
>
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