From: szOFutzmYN@iogWp.com   
      
   Welcome to another edition of PROUT Gems.   
      
   The conservative economists will tell you that there are no alternatives   
   to capitalism.  But they fail to look at co-operatives and blindly   
   mistake them for communes in the Soviet era.  They are wrong.   
   Co-operatives would have to be the most efficient and effective vehicle   
   for economic enterprise.  Why because of the safeguards of   
   worker-shareholder control, the desire to benefit consumers and to seek   
   only a rational profit rather than profits driven by greed ... and many   
   other reasons.  There can only be an efficient market through   
   co-operative structures.  For over 200 years capitalism has not solved   
   any problems about poverty or the like.  200 hundreds years or more it   
   has had - it is an insult to humanity.  Time for alternatives =   
   cooperatives, decentralised economy, economic decentralisation.  Let us   
   examine them.   
      
   --   
      
   Cooperative Economics: An Interview with Jaroslav Vanek   
   interviewed by Albert Perkins   
      
   Albert Perkins: Professor Vanek, how did you first develop your ideas on   
   economy?   
      
   Jaroslav Vanek: I had four major influences. First, I experienced the   
   evils of communism when I was a refugee in Czechoslovakia from   
   Stalinism, and later, when I came to the West, I also experienced the   
   evils of western capitalism. Then, in between, I was fortunate enough to   
   spend time with my late brother who did extensive work for the I.L.O.   
   (International Labor Organisation) and wrote the first book about the   
   workers' councils in Yugoslavia. I learned many of my basic ideas from   
   him. He was a sociologist and I was an economist, and I was able to   
   transpose his ideas into my field. Third, was the doctrine of the   
   Catholic Church. Pope John 23rd went a long way toward suggesting the   
   desirability of economic democracy. Finally, I was influenced by   
   Dubceck's model of social democracy. It could have been more successful   
   than the Yugoslavian experiment, but for the Soviet tanks. I have had   
   several interests in my life, including the area I call economic   
   democracy. Economic democracy is a transposition of the idea of   
   political democracy. It implies that economic life is governed by people   
   who are involved in that economic life. Capitalism is based on property   
   rights, and democracy on personal rights. Perhaps the most important   
   aspect of capitalism, its objective function, is to maximise profit. If   
   you look at it more carefully, profit is revenue minus labor costs and   
   other costs. This means then human beings enter the defining objective   
   function of the system with a negative sign.  By contrast, economic   
   democracy has an objective function where people are on the positive   
   side of the equation. The idea is to maximise the welfare of the people   
   participating. This is an enormous difference, and I'm convinced that   
   the tragic difficulties of our culture -- ecological devastation,   
   starvation, etc - can be traced to this negative side But capitalism   
   could be cured slowly if we developed economic democracy. One of the   
   main reasons why the western world is so schizophrenic is that we have   
   political democracy and economic autocracy.   
      
   AP: What would such a system look like?   
      
   JV: The system should be a market system, not ruled from a central   
   ministry, but by the rules of supply and demand This is the only true   
   market economy.  The capitalist economy is not a true market economy   
   because in western capitalism, as in Soviet state capitalism, there is a   
   tendency towards monopoly. Economic democracy tends toward a competitive   
   market. The system is composed of households, enterprises, government,   
   and so on. The main distinguishing characteristics are in the area of   
   production. Productive enterprises are small republics. Everyone who   
   works is a member and the enterprise is run democratically and directors   
   are elected democratically and the bourse stockholders have no control.   
      
   AP: Do you see all firms run cooperatively?   
      
   JV: There are many possibilities. In Mondragon you have cooperatives   
   developed from the Rochdale principles, characterised by democratic   
   management. And the Yugoslav firms, although poorly designed, were   
   democratically run and semi-cooperative. In an article to the Russian   
   Academy of Sciences concerning Khabarovsk, I argued that during the   
   transition period they should have democratic, but not necessarily   
   cooperative enterprises. These could be associations of workers in a   
   democratic firm who would lease the assets of the factory from the   
   state. The American ESOP co-op provides a good model. By insisting on   
   co-ops we narrow things down unnecessarily. The idea of economic   
   democracy is broader than just co-ops. Visualize two sets of loops. One   
   set is co-ops and one set workers' participation. Where they intersect   
   on the co-op side we could have housing, credit, etc. On the other side   
   we can have participation as simple as suggestion boxes. There are   
   workers coops where the owners make $2000 a week while the workers make   
   $200. I wouldn't call that economic democracy.   
      
   AP: Why aren't co-ops working in the West?   
      
   JV: If you go to a bank and ask for a loan to start a co-op, they will   
   throw you out. Co-ops in the West are a bit like sea water fish in a   
   freshwater pond. The capitalist world in the last 200 years has evolved   
   its own institutions, instruments, political frameworks, etc. There is   
   no guarantee that another species could function if it had to depend on   
   the same institutions. In capitalism, the power is embedded in the   
   shares of common stock, a voting share. This has no meaning in economic   
   democracy. Economic democracy needs its own institutions for one simple   
   reason. Workers are not rich. Let's face it, most working people in the   
   world today are either poor or unemployed. They do not have the   
   necessary capital to finance democratic enterprises. Hence, we need some   
   instruments and institutions which make this possible. Why? Because we   
   know that once democratic firms are organized, or even if they have all   
   the elements of democratic principles, they work far better than   
   capitalist enterprises.   
      
   AP: Tell us why'?   
      
   JV: There are many reasons. First of all, if you know that your employer   
   is maximizing profits and you are a negative aspect of production for   
   him, it creates a terrible situation. In the UK recently, the miners   
   said "Don't fire the miners. Fire Prime Minister Major." This is the   
   conflict. Major is like a director of a state enterprise. But if the   
   director is elected by the workers to represent their will, as in   
   Mondragon, there is a greater likelihood of mutual respect. One of the   
   greatest advantages of economic democracy in well organized co-ops is   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)