Ernie: Now and then I watch KLCC, the radio station of Lane Community College.
Sometimes there simply is nothing at all being broadcast on the TV stations, nothing that interests me anyway, and one station, sometimes short of visual programs, simply shows a bulletin board with local information while the soundtrack is the college radio station. Today the radio station highlighted the way that Oregon's various Indian tribes spend the money made from their casinos. Fascinating stuff. Each tribe has launched a number of investment projects using seed money from a casino to get started. Can be almost anything- a company that makes fireproof doors a ranch that is also a large farm that specializes in boutique foodstuffs a micro version of Starbucks to use a few examples. The goal is NOT profit maximization, The goal is helping the tribe economically by creating jobs -and the goal is acting as a steward for the tribe's land, protecting the environment, and encouraging development of cultural resources of the tribe. The tribe is local; no-one is going anywhere else. Hence each business also helps the general population of a county or small town, with potential to help larger jurisdictions -depending on the success of a casino and its businesses, Each business is, in effect, a family business -except that the "family" consists of all tribal members, which might be a few hundred people or several thousand people. This got me thinking. A new kind of economics similar to a co-op but wedded to a location, like a county or a city or a neighborhood. And there is one example that is not Indian to add to the mix, the community ownership of the Green Bay Packers, which the NFL utterly hates but can do nothing about. That is, suppose that a "tribe" was organized locally around a neighborhood. In order to become a tribal member you need to live in that neighborhood, and if you move out you can no longer remain a member. You own your shares but, by contract, can only sell to other people who actually live in that area. However, there could be an addendum; if the tribe purchases land within a certain radius from the neighborhood, that land de facto expands the boundaries of the neighborhood. But this has nothing to do with speculative purchases in Mexico or Korea -or Idaho. Everything must be local and within a "commute" range of people who live in a neighborhood or, in cases, a town or rural county. What would be essential would be a "casino," that is, a money making business that is set up to funnel a large percentage of its profits into start-ups by people in a certain community, and no-one else, viz, a new kind of "tribe." Suppose 1,000 people in a neighborhood signed up for a trial project. They would buy shares in the business and expect a decent % of money in return but would know that 50%, say, of profits would be plowed back into the neighborhood or town or community. If you like it there and have put down roots this would be an advantage for your kids, who would have better schools, or a better environment, or better stores to buy products at good prices, and so forth. I have not thought this through but some issues would need to be addressed, such as geographical continuity. Ideally, as an example, a "neighborhood" would consist of maybe 20 square blocks all owned by "tribe" members. But in real neighborhoods there is some or a lot of diversity and some people come and go every few years. And there would be the free rider problem, Still, there may be solutions, for instance, a new kind of gated community where everyone expects to stay year after year, because it is so nice. And maybe this could tie in with another problem that was discussed on NPR recently, the terrible housing problem in Silicon Valley. From what I gather, there is a serious shortage of places to live in the Valley itself. Hence, from necessity, many tech people must live in SF or San Jose and commute and pay exorbitant rents plus the costs of vehicle use, which can be expensive. But what if there was a "tech tribe" that pooled its resources and created its own "neighborhood" or de facto small town? With a contract that established a "tribe" nobody would need to fear that profit seekers would try and make a killing and then vanish from the scene, and there would be guaranteed investment in good schools, clean streets, nice parks, and so forth. Just thinking out loud, but maybe this is suggestive. Not every community will have a casino, maybe none will have a casino. The idea is simply some kind of business that, as much as possible in the real world, can make serious money, so that a large part of its profits is invested in the community and in jobs for "tribal" members, and in capital improvements locally. There is no plan to maximize profits, the opposite is the case, profits would be kept within limits. The whole idea is to re-think capitalism for community benefit -which means the people in that community, NOT absentee financial interests. For your consideration Billy BTW Something like this ought to be a natural for Quivira -but Quivira only talks to other Quivira people......... -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
