Supportive wisdom from a reflective champion of worker co-ops and a cooperative economy
Nancy Folbre teaches economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She posts regularly on the NY Times blog, Economix. I discovered her when she posted two blogs on worker cooperatives--The Case for Worker Co-ops and Workers of the World, Incorporate. Her wit is razor sharp, her analysis of specific problems penetrating, her compassion clearly out there, and her pragmatic inquiry of issues so wonderfully disturbing to hope-inflated confidence. In a word, what she offers is of immense value to real change.
Yesterday she came through with another one--Is Another Economics Possible. Before I say any more I need to own up to my personal relationship with her. I work with the Valley Alliance of Worker Cooperatives as a volunteer organizer. I contacted her after her reading her earlier pieces. This led to her meeting with VAWC, and this led to further meetings with more and more professors, students, etc., and this led to a project that is developing a curriculum on cooperative economics at UMass. So be alert: I may just be charming her with this post.
Her latest post is classic Folbre. She starts off with a snapashot of the USSF, then effortlessly rolls on to the media's almost non-existent treatment of the Forum, then to the Tea Party, and then runs through a brief but highly relevant review of the literature on co-ops and other economics (with links).
She ends with this:
One could say, therefore, that another economics is now under way. Still, it seems fragmentary and incomplete and not yet adequate to the task of institutional design. We still don?t know how best to organize cooperative efforts or how to mobilize the capital necessary to support them on a large scale.
Like the better world it could help deliver, another economics remains merely possible but profoundly necessary.
The slogan for this year?s worker co-op conference is ?The work we do is the solution.? Nancy has given us a sobering and supportive backdrop for that slogan.
I am thinking of nominating her to keynote our next conference.
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Comments
Great to see Folbre
Fantastic, Michael! I had found some of Nancy Folbre's posts, and am inspired to find your reference to her here. I want to check your links to see if I've missed anything, and to review more.
Mark Rego-Monteiro was a member of the NY Park Slope Food Co-op for more than 10 years, has an MS in Sustainable Development, and is currently volunteering on a farm with a Brazilian NGO, Centro Ecologico.
And Folbre's Green Behind the Ears...
After reading Is Another Economics Possible, I'm interested to see that Nancy Folbre is in for a few surprises. A few of the posted responses to her article there, such as John D and Lydia on July 20, suggest the larger reality that awaits her. I am happy that I just completed my masters, and had the chance to pursue the field of co-operative economics a bit as I studied political economics.
Joyce Rothschild has written a 2009 survey article based on a sociological approach in Applied Behavioral Science, William Greider's 2003 The Soul of Capitalism is a sophisticated popular survey which revolves around co-ops, and Guadano's 2009 article in the International Jnl of Social Economics are some starters. One of my favorites that I want to delve into is Anna Milford's paper on Co-operatives and the coffee sector from 2004, available online at www.cmi.no . And we still haven't mentioned Mark Lutz's social economics and David Ellerman's decades of work, including a stint under Joseph Stiglitz at the World Bank.
Fortunately, in addition, solidarity economics and the World Social Forum have plenty of background to build on since the Rochdale co-op in 1844 and the International Cooperative Alliance was started in 1895. Johnston Birchall's got a great book that reviews the scope of the model around theh world, moreover. Those of us who are ready have plenty of reading we can do....besides the practice. We aren't even getting into the recent ILO report on how co-ops fared in the economic crisis. Nader also wrote a piece on that situation.
I do agree that much remains to be done in integrating the theories and practice. Conventional economists are not highly qualified in that regard, as we see from whole cost accounting ideas like those discussed in Cobb et al 1995.
I think it all only bodes well, since Folbre seems to on the verge of greater exposure thanks to you and the VAWC, Michael!
Mark Rego-Monteiro was a member of the NY Park Slope Food Co-op for more than 10 years, has an MS in Sustainable Development, and is currently volunteering on a farm with a Brazilian NGO, Centro Ecologico.