Louis Proyect pasted: > Critique of Anthropology, Dec 1999; vol. 19: pp. 379 - 400 > > The Mondragón Model as Post-Fordist Discourse: Considerations on the > Production of Post-Fordism > > by Sharryn Kasmir > > ... Mondragón can only be constructed as an alternative to and critique of > capitalism if (1) workers’ experiences are erased; (2) politics are > marginalized; and (3) the cooperatives are de-territorialized from the > global economic context. By providing the missing contexts, I offer a > competing narrative, portraying cooperation as a class-interested discourse > that undermines workers’ power....<
As someone (like my friend Hugo) who used to like decentralized worker-owned and democratically-run cooperatives but who has turned away from them (as did he), I think this makes sense, if I understand it correctly. The argument in favor of cooperatives is purely microeconomic: as Marx noted in CAPITAL they show that capitalists aren't needed. But if we pull away and look at the bigger picture, it's not so hot. Cooperatives alone tend to be exclusive clubs, not caring about the fate of the rest of the world. Further, they are very weak when it comes to finance. Workers are proletarians because they don't have wealth beyond their ability to work (and a few consumer durables, including houses). That means that they can't afford to run cooperatives very well, either, and become dependent on external sources of funds. Banks don't want to lend to them and if they do, they want to act as the boss. So, not surprisingly,19th century followers of Proudhon and the like wanted the government to subsidize them. But would a capitalist state voluntarily finance a potentially counter-hegemonic organization? Likely, it would act like the bankers. Cooperatives only make sense within a planned system, run democratically at the macro-level. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
