We need a counter culture. We need to build institutions

[alfredo]

within our society that do not need the blessings of the corporate establishment. We need to be self sufficient enough to survive when the capitalist system implode from its own greed.
We see that capitalism has a terminal disease called greed. It is a disease that rejects treatment or a cure.

We already know that consumerism is not sustainable. We have to find a new way, a counter to the greed based culture that has imprisoned us.

What ideas do you have?

[XemaSab]

1. I know that a lot of Christians share your views

There's a lot of interesting convergence between the Christian fringe and the far left. :shrug:

[alfredo]

4. A bit of Liberation Theology would come in handy.

[RandomThoughts]

2. Throw the ring in Mount Doom!!!!!!!!!!!

[alfredo]

3. I hocked it for beer money.

[demwing]

5. be serious

or no beer and travel money for you

[RandomThoughts]

49. LOL

'Being serious' to get beer and travel money, would not be paying of a debt that is due, but trying to earn beer and travel money.

And beer and travel money is already due, and has not been sent, so doing something to get it would be insane.


Rush - Tom Sawyer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNZru4JG_Uo

[Capitalocracy]

56. Beer and travel money entitlement?

;)

[napoleon_in_rags]

6. What buildings are NOT dedicated to the market near you?

For me its churches, church run groups like salvation army, and government buildings. That gives an idea of what things exist beyond the economic structures we rely on...And when I look with sober eyes, I see churches are really about it, given government dependency on taxes. That's not much.

I've been watching Jericho on Netflix, this TV series about life in a small Kansas town after some kind of mass terrorist attack shut down all the infrastructure around them in a way where its not coming back. There are two steps for them, one is surviving the initial shock, (stored food gas water needed) the second is building a sustainable life after they run out (windmills, agriculture, the jump to the 19th century) What we really need is a disaster preparedness culture on the left, that seeks to make sure we have the stuff make these two steps. Self sufficiency needs to be an option for all people, in case the system as we know it really does come down.

[RKP5637]

9. Thanks for mentioning Jericho on Netflix. Sounds interesting! I'll start watching

it later today.

[napoleon_in_rags]

21. Be careful, its addictive.

At least if you're the type who wonders about how communities would function if all the external supports were taken out, like I do.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

22. And they never run out of booze!

[napoleon_in_rags]

23. Hey! Some people know what to store for a disaster!

;)

ACtually in fairness, they made a moonshine still behind the bar in episode 5 or 6 I think. That's what they are supposedly drinking most of the time.

[RKP5637]

26. I'll be addicted. I often wonder about that when some

teabaggers tell me we need no gov. They would fall flat on their faces.

[demwing]

11. I learned an interestiing fact about Mormons

when I lived in Utah.

It is prescribed that all LDS members keep a food storage system, with a 3 month minimum supply of food, water, and first aid. They rotate out their food each week, so they constantly have fresh supplies.

http://jozhaus.wordpress.com/food-storage/
http://familysurvivors.com/lds-food-storage.htm

It's a fantastic idea. I don't think Mormons should be the only ones with supplies when the grid goes down...

[napoleon_in_rags]

20. You are absolutely right.

Sometimes I look back over the last several centuries, and I notice that churches were sort of the central social order for most of them, the 20th century being the anomaly. In the middle east, mosques still are. Its churches which lasted before the current order was here, so people should take them seriously as far as this goes, there is some wisdom there in that LDS preparedness.

The larger issue for me is cultural and political. Everybody on the left supports the green lifestyle, but we got caught in some kind of trap where we are advocating for government to do something about it, and many of us are doing little ourselves. Then I flip channels and see "solutions from science" advertising on Glenn Beck, telling conservatives to buy home solar panel solutions for use in an emergency, but I don't see things like that on Maddow. The thing here is that real, long term disaster preparedness always involves investing in green tech, because since peak US oil in the 1970s absolutely nobody has a reliable supply of oil based energy nearby. These investments in green tech also feed that market, empowering a transition whether the stuff hits the fan or not.

The bottom line is its just a good idea for the left to focus more on disaster preparedness, short term and long term (sustainable local living). Its a good idea in so many ways.

[alfredo]

24. Our local UU church had seminars on self sustaining. Maybe

that would be something that needs to be brought back. I taught how to integrate the bicycle into your lifestyle. I showed how I lived without a car, and I also had them tear down, overhaul, and repair their bikes.

I think they were called simple living seminars.

[napoleon_in_rags]

28. Sounds awesome. I see my local UU church is offering some good stuff.

I see they have adult ed classes.

Some good stuff on skills for planting, permaculture. No bikes though, I think that would be incredibly useful. I lived off bicycle for years. Unfortunately got sucked back into car trap, but if gas prices keep rising I'll be back on bike.

Maybe I'll go to their service tomorrow. Never been to a UU service before. Do you like them?

[alfredo]

33. I liked them. They accept any faith or no faith. It's a very

good community.

[jwirr]

27. They produced a book in the 70s about storage - things like what

you should store and how long it is good. I bought the book then and still have it. Our ancestors were pretty good about having needed supplies on hand. They canned for the winter and until the next crops matured. They had chickens, pigs, beef and milk cows, ducks, geese, rabbits, orchards, etc. That was when they were lucky enough to be rural instead of urban. Urban families have a harder time today.

A good starting point to building a counter culture is to try to be as food/water self sufficiency as possible.

If I lived in some of our bigger cities I would also be creating an evacuation plan like we do for our homes in case of fire. Not that I would put it into use but that I would know where I could go and how to get there. In watching the horrible events in Japan that would seem to be vital to any area in the world. We never know what is going to happen in these changing times.

[alfredo]

42. What is the name of the book? I wonder if the FireFox books

would be of use?


http://www.amazon.com/Foxfire-Book-Dressing-Building-Moonshining/dp/0385073534/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1302993531&sr=8-1

[demwing]

52. Essentials of Home Production & Storage

This 30 page booklet, published by the LDS Church, covers the basics of personal and family preparedness, home production, and storage. Topics include gardening, food preservation, production of nonfood items, water storage, first aid, food storage amounts, and more. An excellent reference for those striving to obtain a year supply

Publisher: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (1978)

$10 at Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Essentials-Production-Storage-President-Latter-day/dp/B000ND48IE

$1.50 from the LDS Church
http://store.lds.org/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product3_10705_10551_22017_-1__195686

[alfredo]

57. Thank you. That popped up as a suggestion after I searched

for the FoxFire books on Amazon.

[jwirr]

67. Finally found it back. The book is Food Storage Manual by Brimall. nt

[Nevernose]

51. I know some who stockpile for years

As if there were going to ba a nuclear winter AND a zombie apocalypse tomorrow. Of coourse, they have huge families, too.

The shelf life of many things is actually studied and measured by BYU's agriculture department, mostly by looking at the stuff senior citizens have been storibg for years. Apparently oat meal lasts something like 28 years, minimum.

[jwirr]

68. That is good to know! But I hate oatmeal.

[jtuck004]

53. Anyone that is seriously interested in survival shouldn't ignore the Mormons

They believe in community, and they believe in having a store of supplies set back for a year. They have a history of surviving outside of the larger group as well. (I don't believe in ghosts, though...well, that's another post)

anyway, though, I admire those two Mormon aims.

The Mormons, btw, have small commercial kitchens in many cities, often attached to a food pantry. When a family loses their job, they are sometimes given good from there (though I think many take turns in the food preparation area, helping everyone put food up) and they are able to help support each other that way. They can also shop in the store for food to create their storage with, at very good prices.

The day I went they canned big bags of spaghetti into those big (#10 ?) - filled the can, put a lid on, rolled it in a machine that looked like a large countertop can opener, but it rolls them shut. They also did peanut butter, and maybe cookies. One heck of a community project.

There are some communities with more secular groups which have created such "canning kitchens" open to the public. I think that would be a dandy thing to start in most any town. Figure out some arrangement to pay what expenses are incurred. Then they could afford the larger equipment to make storage more likely.

[Raksha]

45. Jericho, huh? Thanks for the heads-up.

That sounds intriguing enough that it would be worth getting a Netflix subscription just to watch it, if for no other reason.

Re "I've been watching Jericho on Netflix, this TV series about life in a small Kansas town after some kind of mass terrorist attack shut down all the infrastructure around them in a way where its not coming back."

The post-holocaust scenario (of whatever nature) makes for great drama, of course, but in the real world the most viable communities would have started their preparations long before the disaster hit. See my post about the Transition Town movement downthread.

[napoleon_in_rags]

47. Netflix is well worth it. But get a little set top box.

We have an Apple TV, but my friends swear by Roku. ($59) these little boxes plug into your TV and use your wireless internet to give netflix, youtube, TED, sports etc. through your TV. You'll cancel your expensive cable if you have it, and with all the $7.99 netflix subscription brings you won't look back.

You transition town post deserves its own response, I will make it below.

[demwing]

7. Cooperatives

For food, housing, utilities, and even political ideologies.

If a majority of Americans support progressive politics, at least until they hear the word "Socialism", then let's rebrand Socialism as Cooperatives.

This is a word and concept with which people already feel comfortable. Lets use it and increase cooperative activity all across the country.

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

[eilen]

62. There is a 3rd Way--Distributism

Neither Socialism nor Capitalism. I've been reading about it lately. It started out based on Catholic social philosophy. http://www.secondspring.co.uk/uploads/articles_8_1467315950.pdf


"The Inspiration of Catholic Social Teaching
Another factor that contributed to Distributist thinking was the 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, criticizing current economic and social arrangements, and demanding better treatment for working people. The Latin words Rerum Novarum translate into English as ‘Of the New Order of Things’, but its official subtitle On the Condition of Labour, makes its import clear:

‘By degrees it has come to pass that Working Men have been given over, isolated and defenceless, to the callousness of employers and the greed of unrestrained
competition. The evil has been increased by rapacious Usury…And to this must be added the custom of working by contract, and the concentration of so many branches of trade in the hands of a few individuals, so that a small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the masses of the poor a yoke little better than slavery itself.’ <10>"


Chesterton and Belloc.

"In 1934 the Distributist League, with Chesterton as its President, published its
programme:
a) The restraint of unjust competition
b) The redistribution of property
c) The creation of conditions favouring small ownership
d) Extended ownership of industries which necessitated large-scale production
e) Laws to protect distributed property
f) A return to the land
g) The encouragement of Distributist principles by the individual"

It is considered a conservative view (not in the modern American view of conservatism that I can think of but there are many conservatives (religious types) that do find resonance--see _Crunchy Cons_) but meshes nicely with Transition movements


‘Capitalism is contradictory as soon as it is complete; because it is dealing with the mass of men in two different ways at once. When most men are wage-earners, it is more and more difficult for most men to be customers. For the capitalist is always trying to cut down what his servant demands, and in doing so is cutting down what his customer can spend. As soon as his business is in any difficulties, as at present in the coal business, he tries to reduce what he has to spend on wages, and in doing so reduces what others have to spend on coal. He is wanting the same man to be rich and poor at the same time.’

"Belloc argued that there were two reasons why the economic system had to ensure that most people had property of their own, both echoing earlier teaching of Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum. The moral reason was that ‘Man's actions are of moral value to him if they are taken on his own initiative; not if they are undertaken under compulsion. Therefore, the use of choice is necessary to human dignity’. Hence only the craftsman in his workshop could find the real value in his work denied to the wage-slave or Communist proletariat. Secondly, there was a practical reason: ‘that widely distributed property as a condition of freedom is necessary to the normal satisfaction of human nature. In its absence general culture ultimately fails and so certainly does citizenship’. Belloc’s reasoning was surely
sound on this point; it was the lack of a self-sufficient middle class in Russia which enabled the Bolsheviks to fill the vacuum left by the fall of the Tsar, while it was the ruin of the German middle class by hyper-inflation in 1923 and then by Depression which paved the way for the rise of Hitler."

Chesterston advocated boycotts as a way of changing the system. By communities vowing to "Buy Local" only--no centralized national or international shops (big box stores).


Some books the paper cites that have discussed the renewal of discussion on Distributist thought:

David Boyle and Andrew Simms, The New Economics- a bigger picture, Earthscan 2009.
http://www.amazon.com/New-Economics-Bigger-Picture/dp/184407675X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1303061618&sr=1-1-catcorr

Phillip Blond, Red Tory-How Left and Right have broken Britain and how we can fix it, Faber & Faber
http://www.amazon.com/Red-Tory-Phillip-Blond/dp/0571251676/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1303061671&sr=1-1

One is from the British left and the other a conservative philosopher.
London, 201

[Capitalocracy]

8. Alternative infrastructure of various sorts

including growing our own food, creating our own system of trade, maybe even wiring our own intertubes with (internal) net neutrality? Making our own power grid with our own solar panels?

I don't know, all that sounds extreme

[demwing]

13. what sounds extreme in reasonable times

will often sound reasonable in extreme time.

I like the idea of a cooperative internet, btw...

[Capitalocracy]

18. Yeah, I think it's a good idea

if the lack of net neutrality gets out of control, an alternative internet for alternative media would be very helpful

[alfredo]

43. Having a skill, like building, cooking, sewing, wild foods, and

healing herbs will come in handy.

[reformist2]

10. Tax greed (excessive income), and you'll get less of it.

The top tax rate used to be 90%. We should not be ashamed of asking at least a return to a top tax rate of 50%, which is what we had under Reagan. Time to start using Reagan against these guys.

[whathehell]

12. We had one in the late sixties and early seventies...

It was a great while it lasted

and it impacted the larger society

but it disappeared, unfortunately.

[demwing]

15. Actually, I think it just moved to Oregon

and Arcata, California

but I could be wrong :)

[whathehell]

40. I'm not sure about that...

but there may be some remnants.

[Warren Stupidity]

19. Yeah, in the late 70's I looked around

and realized I was one of the last still plugging away.

There are some remnants left. Oh what we could have done, if only...

[whathehell]

39. Yep.

Many of us were left plugging away and hoping...sigh.

[Lyric]

14. First we need to overcome apathy and self-interest.

We can come up with fantastic ideas all day long, but unless and until people are willing to (1) actually DO these things, and (2) endure some painful personal sacrifices, then it's never going to work.

For example: we could start our own financial institutions to replace the capitalist ones, but it would require people to actually SWITCH. As it is, we can't even convince all DU'ers--people who are INFORMED and who KNOW the reasons why--to leave Bank of America, one of the worst of the financial offenders. Why? Because people are inherently distrustful and disinclined to change without extreme provocation. It's not that they don't care--they do. Just not enough to make a real personal sacrifice and/or take a personal risk. It's one thing to rant on the internet. It's quite another to take an actual risk for what you believe in.

We could start a liberal, secular version of Angel Food Ministries that DOESN'T pay its CEO some ridiculously inflated salary and doesn't force religious propaganda down peoples' throats in order to provide them with food. We could streamline it and make the food less expensive and of better quality. But we won't, because it requires investment and commitment, and those things naturally involve RISK.

Let's face it. Many of us are not willing to take risks or make sacrifices. Look at OneGrassRoot's Wishadoo project. It's a perfect venue to really, truly HELP people. It's liberal-run and most of the people posting there are DU'ers. How many people on this site have even LOOKED at Wishadoo for more than a moment before clicking out and forgetting about it?

Commitment. Dedication. Willingness to sacrifice. Willingness to take risks. More than anything, we are missing THOSE things. Find them, and the counterculture pushback against capitalist greed will practically construct itself. If we don't, then we are tacitly agreeing that the system we're in right now is acceptable, if not exactly desirable.

[RKP5637]

16. Capitalism makes absolutely no sense when you ramp up the numbers and

apply infinity with endless growth in a finite space. By default, capitalism spins out of control and no way in hell is capitalism a fair system unless really heavily regulated.

By default it rewards greed and a F you, I've got mine attitude. And power/wealth rise to stifle regulation, and the wealth skews to one end of the curve. I thought this years ago in my economics classes, but in the US you get little acknowledgment unless you eat at the feet of capitalism.

It made sense when we were a smaller country, capitalism was regulated and money had not been hoarded as much into one tiny group, but now the runaway wealth is exponential. Capitalism is overpowering the gov. as the gov. is bought, consumed and run by greedy capitalists. It's all part of the plan.

[reformist2]

17. Avoid national chains, patronize local stores as much as possible.

One of the problems with capitalism in recent years is that it has gone national. It used to be that when you spent money at locally-owned stores, most of it would be recirculated where you lived by the owners and workers, all of whom lived in the community. Now when you spend money at the "Big Box" stores, sure the clerks who work there make some money, but the real profits are sucked out of the community only to wind up in the hands of a very small group of execs and shareholders who live far, far away. This is why so many towns today have a decreasing tax base and look increasingly like crap.

[Boojatta]

25. How is selling each other products at the retail level any more feasible

as an overall economic plan than doing laundry for each other?

[reformist2]

31. Most of the economy is in fact service sector.

I appreciate all the concern about producing things, and we definitely need more of that, but the fact is most people in the US were employed in the service sector long before globalism came along to decimate our industrial base. My point above tried to touch on a much overlooked fact of life, that national retail chains suck the vitality out of small and medium sized towns.

[Raksha]

58. Nothing wrong with that, but the big question is: Who does the service sector serve?

It makes a big difference whether the guy who drives the roach wagon and serves lunch to the working stiffs pulls his truck up to a factory that actually produces things, or to the local Wal-Mart and the payday loan place next door. He's part of the service sector either way, although he's most likely an independent contractor.

There's nothing wrong with taking in each other's laundry--but ONLY up to a point. At the bottom of it there has to be some kind of production, or the whole house of cards we call our economy eventually falls down.

[RKP5637]

30. Yep! IMO Walmart is the epitome of monopolization and destroying cities and

towns now many void of local stores. Walmart is capitalism at its finest destroying everything around it ...

[reformist2]

34. Yes. We all know of many a run-down town with a gleaming new Wal-Mart on the edge of town.

The cause and effect couldn't be more obvious. What's especially sickening is to learn that Wal-Mart often gets tax breaks from the towns who let them build there.

[Fire Walk With Me]

29. Regional barter lists.

Anything from at your local store to something on the internet.

I have this skill, will trade it for "______"

[BOG PERSON]

32. weren't all these ideas played out and exhausted forty or fifty years ago?

what good does it do to resurrect them now?

[demwing]

35. Played out and exhausted?

I doubt it.

Attempted and discarded, perhaps.

To think that the people that were alive during the late 60s were the best and only chance of success at these ideas is a little defeatest, don't you agree?

Who is to say that a new set of thinkers wouldn't learn from our past mistakes, and improve on our attempt?

[RKP5637]

36. +1000 +++ n/t

[Warren Stupidity]

38. Hardly exhausted and hardly the first time either.

Attempts to form cooperative alternative societies have a long history.

[eilen]

63. No. The ideas expressed in this list

were discarded after the Great Depression.

[chaska]

37. Here's one you may not have heard about: Common Security Clubs...

http://commonsecurityclub.org/

[alfredo]

41. That looks interesting.

[Raksha]

44. Do you know about Transition Towns?

The Transition movement began in Ireland and Britain a few years back and is now a global phenomenon.

Re "We need to build institutions within our society that do not need the blessings of the corporate establishment. We need to be self sufficient enough to survive when the capitalist system implode from its own greed."

The problem, the threat to nature and humanity that the Transition movement was founded to address isn't global capitalism per se--although naturally the concerns overlap--but the twin threats of global warming and environmental pollution. Basically, it confronts the problem head-on as to how humanity can survive in a post peak oil world, focusing on actual solutions that can be implemented on the community level.

Not only do the global capitalist powers that be emphatically NOT address these critical issues, they are actively hostile to any efforts emanating from the grassroots. "Green energy" isn't just an ideal with the Transition Town people, but an issue they are actively working on in a hands-on way. Please understand that we are NOT just talking about putting a solar panel on the roof of your house! One of the more established (relatively speaking) Transition Towns in Britain is installing the first community-owned power plant involving over 500 solar panels, which they are installing on the roof of a brewery.

For anyone who has never heard of the Transition movement before, the Wikipedia article is as good a place as any to start. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transition_Towns

History

The Transition concept emerged from work that permaculture designer Rob Hopkins had done with the students of Kinsale Further Education College in writing an "Energy Descent Action Plan". This looked at across-the-board creative adaptations in the realms of energy production, health, education, economy and agriculture as a "road map" to a sustainable future for the town. Two of his students, Louise Rooney and Catherine Dunne, set about developing the transition towns concept and took the far-reaching step of presenting it to Kinsale Town Council, resulting in the historic decision by councillors to adopt the plan and work towards energy independence.

The idea was adapted and expanded through 2005, 2006 and beyond in Hopkins' hometown of Totnes where he is now based. The initiative spread quickly, and as of May 2010, there are over 300 communities recognized as official Transition Towns in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Italy and Chile. The term transition towns has morphed into transition initiatives to reflect the range and type of communities involved - e.g. villages (Kinsale), neighbourhoods of cities (Portobello, Edinburgh), through council districts (Penwith) to cities and city boroughs (Brixton).

In the United States, transition initiatives have sprung up in many communities. Transition US<5> is the national hub and has a vision "that every community in the United States will have engaged its collective creativity to unleash an extraordinary and historic transition to a future beyond fossil fuels; a future that is more vibrant, abundant and resilient; one that is ultimately preferable to the present". Transition US is a resource and catalyst for building resilient communities across the United States that are able to withstand severe energy, climate or economic shocks while creating a better quality of life in the process. They are accomplishing this mission by inspiring, encouraging, supporting, networking and training individuals and their communities as they consider, adopt, adapt, and implement the transition approach to community empowerment and change.

A large number of state sites have also been set up using the Ning social networking platform. These state sites, under the umbrella of a National Ning site,<6> were set up to help facilitate, network, inform, monitor, and house regional and organizational Transition initiatives and further the rapid spread of the Transition Movement while networking related organizations, projects, ideas and activities. These social networking sites have now begun to spread worldwide.

<snip>

http://transitionnetwork.org/

http://transitionus.org/

[napoleon_in_rags]

48. I had absolutely no idea about that.

That's amazing.

I wanted to post a thoughtful reply to this, but as I did into to these links I realize there is a whole lot I didn't know. Time for me to read for awhile...

Thanks for posting this!

[Raksha]

50. One of my Facebook friends has been trying to start a Transition Town in Maine,

so that's how I initially found out about it. But I've just barely scratched the surface of those links myself--apparently there is a lot more going on than I thought.

I'm currently attending an online seminar with one of my heroines, the ecofeminist teacher Starhawk. It's called "How to Redesign the World," and each week features a different expert on permaculture or some other aspect of sustainable living, always with the focus on communities. Last week the presenters were two members of Transition Sebastopol in Northern California, one of the most active Transition groups in Northern California.

I liked the "Cheerful Disclaimer" I found on their website:

Cheerful Disclaimer
about us

Just in case you were under the impression that Transition is a process defined by people who have all the answers, you need to be aware of a key fact.
We truly don't know if this will work. Transition is a social experiment on a massive scale.
What we are convinced of is this:
* if we wait for the governments, it'll be too little, too late
* if we act as individuals, it'll be too little
* but if we act as communities, it might just be enough, just in time.

I don't think this disclaimer is unique to Transition Sebastopol, but I found it on their website. One of the presenters at my intensive last week was Carolyn Stayton, but for some reason I'm drawing a blank on the guy's name. I'll check out seminar website and get back to you on that.

http://www.transitionsebastopol.org/

[Odin2005]

46. This is what I've been saying for a while. All real progressive change starts locally.

The most successful revolutions are those that occur without a shot fired because the people had created an alternative civil society and hollowed the ancien regime into a husk.

[jtuck004]

54. Communes. eom

[alfredo]

60. I lived in a collective for several years. It worked well

[toddwv]

55. I think we need a new form of incorporation.

Call it a Co-operation. The employees as a whole must own a minimum of 51% of the company and profit-sharing is required.

If they vote to ship jobs overseas...well, then that's their call.

[xchrom]

59. a thread like this wouldn't be complete without a link to yes magazine

http://www.yesmagazine.org/

[BrendaBrick]

61. Thanks xchrom for the link to yes magazine!!!!! nt

[Manifestor_of_Light]

64. We can learn from past communes.

Oneida Community of New York -- used to make silverplate. That's why it says Community Plate on the back. It was made by Communists. Not the Russian kind.

Amana, Iowa -- Refrigerators. Religious community.

These two broke up because the rules were too rigid. At Oneida, people were sexually matched by the boss, Mr. Noyes. After some years, many people wanted monogamous relationships.

Apparently both did well economically. Amana did quite well with manufacturing before they got into the refrigerator business.

[alfredo]

65. All it takes is some authoritarian asshole to screw up a

good thing. Our coop was laid back enough that we didn't need a leader because things got done. Each one of us gravitated to what they wanted to do, or could do. I was the cook/security/ceramics. I also held down a job driving a taxi.

We have a food coop in town that has survived since the early 70's. http://www.goodfoods.coop/

We also have a restaurant that promotes from within. You have to work your way up before being allowed to buy into the business. http://www.alfalfarestaurant.com/

Our Farmer's Market is also a cooperative. http://www.lexingtonfarmersmarket.com/

[OneGrassRoot]

66. I love All Things Co-op

I post about it frequently here.

I even refer to Wishadoo! as a "Compassion Cooperative," with the intention of creating worker-owned and member-owned initiatives from this humble beginning.

:hi:

[alfredo]

70. Give a worker a stake in the business, and their productivity

will increase.

[readmoreoften]

69. We can't build another society within this one. We're already building this one. It ain't like the

capitalists are doing the heavy labor. What we need is to take back what is ours via mass strike and a reorganization of our society. The whole point is that we don't own the means of production--they do. Greed is an epiphenomenon of capital. It is not its cause, it is an effect. It is a system that must be replaced.