First, most producers are employees of firms, not owners. Viewed from the vantage point of classical theory, they have no reason to maximize the profits of firms, except to the extent that they can be controlled by owners. Moreover, profit-making firms, nonprofit organizations, and bureaucratic organizations all have exactly the same problem of inducing their…

DisCO Coop (primary authors Stacco Troncoso and Ann Marie Utratel). Groove is in the Heart: The DisCO Elements. Introduction by Ela Kagel and Afterword by Ann Marie Utratel (2020).  As the Introduction explains, the first installment of the DisCO Trilogy — The DisCO Manifesto — was about ” the reasons behind DisCO, its roots and…

Shareable, a nonprofit media outlet co-founded by Neal Gorenflo in 2009, is devoted to the sharing economy (the real sharing economy of platform cooperatives and other open, self-organized effort — not proprietary, walled-garden, Death Star platforms like Uber and Airbnb). In 2011 Shareable organized the Share San Francisco conference to promote the city as a…

Reti cittadine come piattaforma resiliente per la transizione post-capitalista Di Kevin Carson. Originale pubblicato il 20 gennaio 2018 con il titolo Libertarian Municipalism: Networked Cities as Resilient Platforms for Post-Capitalist Transition. Traduzione di Enrico Sanna. Leggi o scarica una copia integrale dello studio Libertarian Municipalism: Networked Cities as Resilient Platforms for Post-Capitalist Transition Viviamo in un’epoca…

    View or download a PDF copy of Kevin Carson’s full C4SS Study: Libertarian Municipalism: Networked Cities as Resilient Platforms for Post-Capitalist Transition   Español, Municipalismo libertario: Ciudades en red como plataformas resilientes para la transición post-capitalista We live in a time of terminal crisis for centralized institutions of all kinds, including the two most…

Di Logan Marie Glitterbomb. Originale pubblicato il primo agosto 2017 con il titolo Healthcare for All: An Informal Guide to Creating an Anarchist Medical System. Traduzione di Enrico Sanna. In ambiti politici si parla tanto di come affrontare le disfunzioni della sanità. Nazionalizzare? Monopolio di stato? Alternativa pubblica in concorrenza col privato? Servono assicurazioni sanitarie…

There is much debate in the current political climate over what to do about our broken healthcare system. Should we universalize it under a state monopoly? Should we provide a public option? Should we form health insurance cooperatives? Should we turn it over to crony corporations to reap a profit from our misfortune? No matter what…

Capitalism’s relation to spiritual attitudes and ideologies has historically been hostile. The use of magic and the holding of pagan beliefs in peasant communities in the transition from feudalism to capitalism was mercilessly crushed, as they were seen as a belief systems that removed control from the mercantile elites and prevented the mechanistic control needed…

In a recent email, a professor of sociology expressed some skepticism about what she regarded as over-enthusiastic treatment of the possibilities for new education models in a stateless society. Among other things, she questioned the apparent claim that new media, online courses and free lectures would “save the education system” or provide access to education….

In the farcical, technocratic future society of Vonnegut’s Player Piano, you have to have at least a bachelor’s degree to do even the most menial service jobs — of which there aren’t a lot left. The great majority of jobs have been automated out of existence, and the ranks of the still employed are dominated…

Some people in the city of Detroit recently had their water shut off due to 90 million dollars of past unpaid water dues. Much of the discussion that will probably emerge or has already emerged will revolve around whether to privatize the water supply there. This would probably involve contracting out services to a for profit…

Charles T. Sprading was a libertarian activist and prolific writer in a number of causes, ranging from freedom and freethought advocacy, cooperativism, Irish Independence, publisher of libertarian books and periodicals, opponent of anti-blue laws, and, in his last years before his health failed him (d. approx 1960), supporter of the Bricker Amendment and strident opponent…

In 1975, two leftists, one of whom had been a top GOP insider and a founder of the American libertarian movement, collaborated on a book published by a leading Washington, D.C. left-wing think tank and the Unitarian Universalist Association advocating devolution of political power from the federal, state and city levels to self-sufficient local neighborhoods,…

Two quotations, juxtaposed, summarize the errors into which modern American defenses of ‘free markets’ and capitalism have entered. In the process these errors led to abandoning any real meaning for liberty or human well-being.  Right wing libertarians in particular sincerely believe they are seeking to preserve these values, but they are sincerely wrong. But before…

Under the cooperative model, workers own the business, reducing injustice because they have a stake in the community and because an individual will find it hard to exploit oneself. Workers often buy into their jobs (upfront or amortized), vote on major decisions in general assemblies or committees, and even voluntarily donate to the co-op for re-investment.

J.S. Mill against the master/servant dynamic of the workplace and in favor of workers’ self-management.

The generation of energy, whether it be the gas you pump into your tank or the coal burned to produce electricity to power your computer, is estimated to contribute upwards of 82% of all greenhouse gas emission. To add insult to injury, many of these firms have long been associated with the more deleterious impacts of neoliberal development. Of course we all know about BP’s destruction of the entire Gulf region…