thanks for the reference. i'll put the Encyclopedia of PE on my list that
seems to grow faster than my purchases. no wonder my psychiatrist daughter
calls me a "bookaholic". (so how can i refute a Board-certified shrink?)
interesting you mention the Mondragon market because Chomsky is always
singing praises to it and Orwell's "Homage to ?" - about the workers' co-op
movements in Spain prior to being crushed by Franco. that is also on my
list.
with all these persuasive co-op comments from listers, though, i'm still
missing an important ingredient on people's motivations for cooperative vs.
competitive behavior that underlies all discussions of social institutions,
including co-ops, i.e., the genetic ("nature") causes and environmental
("nurture") causes of cooperative and competitive behavior.
co-ops may be limited by people's limited motivation for cooperation with
each other. e.g, if we are 25% genetically programmed to cooperate with
people (for survival purposes) and 75%% genetically programmed to compete
with people (again, for survival purposes), then cooperative ventures will
always be subordinate to competitive ventures on the average. if this
assumption is true, then no matter how much leftists try to change the
environment ("culture") to promote more cooperation and less competition,
their efforts will always be limited by "human nature" (genetic
programming).
an extension of this assumption is that leftist ventures to make classless,
egalitarian, non-hierarchical societies are hopeless dreams.
norm
------------------------
-----Original Message-----
From: phillp2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:phillp2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2000 10:00 PM
To: pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [PEN-L:5649] Re: Re: co-ops
Norm,
If you want to study co-ops as a system, complete with their own
credit union bank and education system, have a look at the history
and success of the Mondragon co-ops in Spain. With all their
limitations, this is probably the best example of what you are
looking for. I would also refer you to the Encyclopedia of Political
Economy which has a digest not only of Mondragon, market
socialism, social ownership, Marxian political economy and just
about everything else you have asked about complete with short
bibliographies on each topic. It is an invaluable resource.
Paul Phillips,
Economics,
University of Manitoba