Consider this: thousands of diverse, locally-rooted, grassroots economic projects are in the process of creating the basis for a viable democratic alternative to capitalism. It might seem unlikely that a motley array of initiatives such as worker, consumer, and housing cooperatives, community currencies, urban gardens, fair trade organizations, intentional communities, and neighborhood self-help associations could hold a candle to the pervasive and seemingly all-powerful capitalist economy. These "islands of alternatives in a capitalist sea" are often small in scale, low in resources, and sparsely networked.

Most of the over 10,000 people who traveled to the first-ever U.S. Social Forum, in Atlanta last June 27-30, would consider ourselves activists, and most are acutely aware of the many systemic problems that our country faces, from increasing inequality and persistent poverty to environmental degradation, from a corrupt political system to an unjust war, from the continuing struggle with racism and sexism to the intolerant policies enacted against immigrants and gay/lesbian/trans-gendered people.

This Occasional Paper by editor/activists at Grassroots Economic Organizing is meant to stimulate dialog on the future of the grassroots economic democracy movement. This is a fully re-written update of an essay available since 1994 to GEO readers. We hope for wide use of this text, with attribution to the authors and GEO. Please email us with ideas/dialogue.

Our goal is more than simple options for individual improvement. It is more. If the co-operative enterprise does not serve for more, the world of work has the right to spit in our faces.
- Jose Maria Arizmendiarrieta (Quoted by MacLeod 1997)

For more than twenty years, the Grassroots Economic Organizing (GEO) Newsletter (called "Changing Work" from 1984-1991) has published news and analysis of global efforts to build a democratic and cooperative economy. In 2007, we decided to move from a printed format (with a supplemental website) to a fully-online web publication. Welcome to the new GEO Online!

By Robin Hahnel

Worker-owned cooperatives are wonderful alternatives to privately owned, capitalist firms. Workers can decide what they want to produce and how they want to produce it instead of having all that decided by their employers. In other words, workers can take control of their laboring capacities and use them as they see fit. Moreover, whatever benefits come from their efforts belong to them, not to an absentee owner who did none of the work.

LEN: As folks head towards the very first US Social Forum in Atlanta questions arise: other than convening a rich mosaic of progressive organizations and activists, does the social forum movement have a mission to bring about "another world," and, if not, should it now adopt a strategy for doing so?

By Joe Marraffino, Arizmendi Development and Support Cooperative

Since the mid-1990s a group of worker cooperative organizers in the San Francisco Bay Area has been developing a new model for cooperative development.  Our organization, the Arizmendi Association of Cooperatives, is a network, incubator, and technical assistance provider that is owned, governed, and funded by the member workplaces it creates and serves.  Our primary activity is to replicate and offer continuing support to new retail bakeries based on a proven cooperative business model.   

The theme of this issue is worker cooperative replication. It addresses an issue which is central to the growth of the democratic worker cooperative movement. How do we reproduce the success stories we have already achieved? That is, how do we replicate successful worker cooperatives in different locations? Inherent in the challenge of replication is a long standing conundrum of worker cooperative development. Replication is analogous to "franchising" in a capitalist company. Capitalist companies have a compelling motive to replicate successful stores - maximizing profit. What motive does a successful worker cooperatives have for replicating itself?

San Francisco Community Congress: background and update

(EDITOR’S NOTE: A very interesting grassroots development happening in SanFrancisco: The San Francisco Community Congress.The goal is to “devise practical, locally actionable proposals to shape and direct future policy affecting the local economy and the provision of critical human services.”  Their mantra, “another San Francisco is possible.”  If the devil is in the details, then this appears to be the beginning of a premier Solidarity Economy project.

Dear Jesse,

Here is a chart that will help keep hope alive. On the top line it tells what the actual wealth distribution in the US is. The middle line shows how wrong a cross-section of Americans is in how they think the wealth distribution plays out.

And the third line is a grand-slam...

The Co-operative Trade Movement is being launched at Willy Street Co-op to support small, local farmers/producers and cooperative or not-for-profit businesses. The Movement invites consumers to join in ethical commerce and economic democracy, the kind that Willy Street Co-op and hundreds of other grocery co-ops in the U.S. have been championing for nearly 40 years.

Read more here...

While Solidarity Economics and other grassroots organizing does not primarily depend on legislation, nevertheless we can benefit by knowing the territory.  In the case of the health care debate, I only discovered that health care co-ops were raised during public discussions by two NYTimes articles, and that was based on Senator Kent Conrad´s proposals, and citing UWI economist Ann Hoyt.  More searching turned up an article by a Wisconsin news source.  I´ve created a previous posting about these citations.