Marinaleda

[TBF]

Marinaleda: the village where people come before profit
By Liam Barrington-Bush and Jen Wilton ~ July 15, 2014

In the south of Spain, the street is the collective living room. Vibrant sidewalk cafes are interspersed between configurations of two to five lawn chairs where neighbors come together to chat over the day’s events late into the night. In mid-June the weather peaks well over 40 degrees Celsius and the smells of fresh seafood waft from kitchens and restaurants as the seasonably-late dining hour begins to approach. The scene is archetypally Spanish, particularly for the Andalusian region to the country’s south, where life is lived more in public than in private, when given half a chance.

Specifically, this imagery above describes Marinaleda. Initially indistinguishable from several of its local counterparts in the Sierra Sur southern mountain range, were it not for a few tell-tale signs. Maybe it’s the street names (Ernesto Che Guevara, Solidarity and Salvador Allende Plaza, to name a few); maybe it’s the graffiti (hand drawn hammers-and-sickles sit happily alongside encircled A’s, oblivious to the differences the two ideologies have shared, even in the country’s recent past); maybe it’s the two-story Che head which emblazons the outer wall of the local sports stadium.

Marinaleda has been called Spain’s ‘communist utopia,’ though the local variation bears little resemblance to the Soviet model most associate with the phrase. Classifications aside, this is a town whose social fabric has been woven from very different economic threads to the rest of the country since the fall of the Franco dictatorship in the mid 1970s. A cooperatively-owned olive oil factory, houses built by and for the community, and a famous looting of a large-scale supermarket, led by the town’s charismatic mayor, in which proceeds were donated to food banks, are amongst the steps that have helped position Marinaleda as a beacon of hope ...

more here: http://roarmag.org/2014/07/marinaleda-spain-communist-utopia/

[central scrutinizer]

1. Also check out Mondragon

A whole Basque region with businesses run cooperatively.

[TBF]

2. I think we've critiqued Mondragon

In here previously but it has been awhile. I'm responding to this so I remember to do some searches and see how their coop system is doing.

[Joe Shlabotnik]

3. I read an article about Marinaleda,

about once every 4 months and the 'story' usually rehashes itself. However, I'm totally good with reading 'that' article every few months, because I find it inspiring. And perhaps if more people read the story of Marinaleda, then maybe we could start discussing the pros and cons of such a society as an alternative to what we have now.

Is full employment necessary? Would we rather have an abundance of consumer goods and purchasing power, or cultural and social wealth? An engaged citizenry or an apathetic and nihilistic citizenry? Is upward mobility for the individual more desirable than the common welfare of all? Is Marinaleda a parasitic anomaly, or can it be self sustaining and replicable? What society would best ensure environmental sustainability?

I know what type of society I'd like to live in, and Marinaleda sounds like a pretty good starting point to me.