Strategies for Change
"Other Economies Are Possible!": Building a Solidarity Economy
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.
Work, Dignity & Social Change
This video is about the struggles and successes of the unemployed worker movements in Agentina, intended for use by social change workshops. It is a useful complement to Naomi Klein and Avi Lewisâ??s film, The Take, about the recovered factories movement, where workers take over abandoned factories and re-start production under worker self-management. The dialogue in Work, Dignity & Social Change is in Spanish, with English subtitles. Members of four MTDs, autonomous groups of unemployed workers, discuss their hopes, dreams and accomplishments in building a better life for themselves in the aftermath of the country's economic collapse in 2001.
Building Cooperation East and South
Pam McMichael, Highlander Research and Education Center
From a talk given at the 4th Biennial Eastern Conference for Workplace Democracy, July 20, 2007 at the University of North Carolina in Asheville.
Thank you. It's an honor and pleasure to be with you this evening. It's always good when we gather to talk about democracy and democratic participation with people who really mean it.
How many people here are not from the south? I say hello to all of you present. And to those of you not from the South, I want to give a special welcome to the South, and say a little more about this region where we are meeting as a context for my comments about building cooperation for workplace democracy.
Cooperativization As Alternative to Globalizing Capitalism
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)
Argentina's Unemployed Workers Movement: A Traveler's Report
For a total of twelve months between 2003 and 2005, I lived and worked with the Unemployed Workers' Movement of Solano (MTD-Solano) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It was an experience that fundamentally changed the way I think about community organizing and activism; I continue to search for ways to put those ideas into practice. This article is an attempt to share these experiences, and to let you know about a new video-workshop tool that aims to deepen the exchange between organizers around the world.
The Social Forum and The Solidarity Economy: A Dialogue
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?
Build It Now: Socialism For the 21st Century
Michael A. Lebowitz. Built It Now: Socialism for the 21st Century. Monthly Review Press, 2000.
What would a humanist, participatory "socialism for the 21st century" look like? In this short book, Michael Lebowitz shares his vision and asserts that the Chavez administration has embarked on transforming Venezuela into such a society through its Bolivarian Revolution.
The UnMoney Convergence: April 14-16
Dreaming of America Beyond Capitalism? Gar Alperovitz
World Social Forum at a Crossroads: 5th International, Solidarity Economy, or Stand Pat?
Our Eyes On the Prize: From a "Worker Co-op Movement" to a Transformative Social Movement
Money Talks: How Participatory Budgeting Can Transform Politics
Participatory Budgeting | Public Policy & Governance | Strategies for Change | ArticlesWorker Cooperative Replication: Editor's Introduction to Issue 2, Volume 3
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?
Michael Moore: 15 Things Every American Can Do Now
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