I would say coops can also make sense as part of a political strategy for a revolutionary or radical reformist movement, but only when the movement is successful on other fronts. That is a strong powerful left trade union movement can afford to finance and subsidize coops. So in some cases can strong left parties... In the context of a strong, but not yet victorious left movement, it might well make sense to support coops for educational and propaganda purposes, and to develop some experience in less capitalist (even if not truly non-capitalist) modes of production so that you have people with day-to-day experience on your side in case of victory. Very dependent on circumstances, but for a strong left movement there are a lot of cases when coops make sense. With a weak or non-existent left as in the U.S. at present - well pluses and minuses are different. We have a local food coop which actually provides a lot of support to local leftists and progressives, offering meeting places, bulletin boards and racks to place literature, a magazine rack that carries left magazines you would otherwise have to order via mail. And it is a place that keeps current on boycotts, which is another plus. So I'd say even in current circumstances coops can be positives.
On Mon, Nov 9, 2009 at 3:55 PM, Louis Proyect <[email protected]> wrote: > Jim Devine wrote: > >> >> Cooperatives only make sense within a planned system, run >> democratically at the macro-level. >> > > Exactly. > > Lenin, "On Cooperation": > http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1923/jan/06.htm > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
