Comments on: Cooperative Economy in Salinas

By: Mark Rego-Monteiro

Sun, 31 Oct 2010 14:44:37 +0000

I just had a chance to peruse Massimo De Angelis’ account. He mentions there the export of foods like mushrooms. I also recall that the region, perhaps in Ecuador itself, also exports flowers, some of which has entered the Fair Trade networks.
In thinking further of the question of food sovereignty and self-sufficiency, I am impressed by the role of technical education and local networks. While agriculture has a fundamental value, it has been industrial-scientific development that has been most powerful and determined the ability of countries like the US, European ones, and Japan to assume control of the world economy, also involving the aggressive aggrandizement of neoliberalist profit maximization.
Here in Brazil, I’ve been impressed with a TV channel called “School TV” which has an impressive balance of cultural and science education. While I like to recall the importance of the World Social Forum and the solidarity economy networks, I think the co-operativist value of education needs to keep in mind the fundamental value of science education, not least of all ecology, along with those grassroots solidarity networks. McDonagh-Braungart Design has initiated a “Cradle to Cradle” green technology certification from that end, and Mondragon has established production units in the offshore centers, including China, I believe. The suction of globalized economic thinking is shocking, but efforts along with Salinas, like the factory recovery movements in Latin America, I like to think offer hope that they can be combined with visions of solidarity networks, science and ecology education to help us envision and empower the necessary balances to lead co-op development to strength in the face of neoliberal illusions and ultimate social and environmental sustainability.

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By: Mark Rego-Monteiro

Sat, 30 Oct 2010 18:43:25 +0000

Self-sufficiency is an important objective to some extent, but in reality faces certain limitations and structural necessities. In terms of industrial development, for example, while India and China have taken important steps to produce their own models of cars, how might that production be distributed within a nation’s area?
Come to think of it, the most radical efforts would pursue distributed production, balanced with sources of raw materials. Self-sufficiency certainly provides a healthy hypothetical conceptual basis. However, in terms of realistic starting points, I think we need to start at current levels of capacity. Mondragon itself didn’t start making refrigerators at the start. In the case of Latin America, the progress of Mercosul combined with the recovered factory movements not just in Argentina, offer significant hope for accomplishing greater regional capacity. Co-op approaches promise to combine with political movements towards the Left in the region, I’d say.
The U.S. itself faces a similar challenge due to the off-shoring of industrial production, and the broad socialization of consumerism. Awareness of socialized messages, such as advertising corporate consumer culture, is an issue that relates closely to these dynamics, it seems to me.

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By: Kevin Carson

Wed, 07 Apr 2010 16:08:29 +0000

TGGP: Good point–also true of Mondragon to some extent, as it’s undergone “capitalist drift.”

C. T. Mummey: Thanks for the tip. According to Piore and Sabel, construction and apparel have also followed a flexible/networked model.

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By: c.t.mummey

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 13:35:45 +0000

kevin, i wonder if you’ve looked much at the printing industry in the us as, despite problems, it historically and even now fits

2) integrating smaller, cheaper general-purpose machinery into craft production, frequently switching between short runs of different products and gearing production to changes in demand on a lean, demand-pull basis.

a lot more than a lot of other industries anyway.

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By: TGGP

Sat, 03 Apr 2010 06:59:44 +0000

I believe Israeli kibbutzim over time also shifted toward the use of “second tier” nonmember labor.

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