At 08:15 PM 12/4/00 +0000, you wrote:
>Sources, Jim? Especially on the bank stuff. I know the growth stuff,
>though if you have something I'd like to read it. --jks
>
>>>if co-ops can successfully give people what they want at a price that
>>>excludes "surplus value", then why haven't they become a major factor in
>>>republican-capitalist societies?
>>
>>there are at least two reasons:
>>
>>(1) if they grow, they lose most or all of their advantages;
>>
>>(2) banks won't lend to them, except at higher interest rates.
Gary Dymski has done a lot on this. It's a general consensus of the
"workers' control" literature (that I've seen) that workers' co-operatives'
major problem is in financing, especially for expansion, while Gary and
others (at one point or another) associated with UMass-Amherst Economics
have pointed to the refusal of banks to provide that financing. Now this
can't be extended without change to consumers' cooperatives, but there are
a lot of similarities between the two types of organizations.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
