Corporations/Side Issue

[paul phillips <phillipsp@xxxxxxx>]

Mike B wrote

> I agree, it would be much better, if workers ran and
> managed the the firms in which they exploited
> themselves for surplus value.  Honestly though,
> hasn't the history of creating such entities, like
> say
> Mondragon or the Amana Colony or the kibbutz
> movement
> and all the utopian socialist movements of the
> past--
> co:operatives included--proven that they always
> morph
> into the undemocratic, totalitarian corporate
> structures which we see ruling us today?
>
> In other words, hasn't wage-labour always resulted
> in
> the developement of capitalist social relations?
>
> Sincerely,
> Mike B)
What evidence is there that Mondragon has morphed
into an "undemocratic, totalitarian corporate structure?"

Last I heard it was still going strong and expanding without
any change in its co-operative structure.  Check out the
Mondragon website.

On the theory of 'market socialism' more up to date than Vanek
and the others mentioned is Bruno Jossa and Gaetano Cuomo, "The
Economic Theory of Socialism and the Labour-Managed Firm." (EdwardElgar,
1997).  I also like Branko Horvat's "The Political Economy of Socialism"
(Sharpe, 1982).  On Mondragon, a recent book by Greg MacLeod, "From
Mondragon to America: Experiments in Community Economic Development"
(University College of Cape Breton Press, 1997) is an interesting
interpretation written by an activist in co-operative community
economic development in the Maritimes.  (I met Greg in Mondragon
where I was doing some research on worker co-ops and he was leading
a group of Canadian students studying the Mondragon and its derivative,
the Valencia, model.)

For a depressing and entertaining history, origins and abuse of
corporations which addresses most of the issues in the main thread
see the new 3 hour documentary "The Corporation" that has won a number
of awards at film festivals (including Sundance I believe). Mike Moore,
Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky and Elaine Barnard are featured in the film as
well as Milton Friedman and Michael Walker of Canada's ultra-rightwing
Fraser Institute. The film was made by a Canadian and has been in general
release as a feature film for the past few months. It is particularly
interesting in view of the discussion on this thread because it
analyzes the corporation as an individual suffering from all the
medical symptons of a psychotic personality.

By the way, corporations are legally individuals in Canada and thereby
their right to free speech is protected by the Charter of Rights in
Canada's Constitution.  This status was used by the big tobacco companies
when they appealed against a law restricting what they could put on their
tobacco packaging.  If I remember correctly, the tobacco corporations won.
So David Shemano is definitely wrong when he says that a corporation does not
speak as an individual.

Paul Phillips
Senior Scholar,
Economics,
University of Manitoba