Archive for May, 2009

The New Within the Old: Karl Marx and the Solidarity Economy

by Editors @ Monday, May 25th, 2009. Filed under Economic Democracy, Marxism, Socialism

Marx, Marxism and

the Cooperative Movement

By Bruno Jossa
Economics, University of Naples

Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2005

1. Introduction

On several occasions Marx declared himself strongly in favor of cooperative firms, maintaining that their generalized introduction would result in a new production mode. At different times in his life he even seems to have been confident that cooperatives would eventually supplant capitalistic firms altogether. Lenin also endorsed the cooperative movement and in a 1923 work (entirely devoted to this subject) he went so far as to equate cooperation with socialism at large. More precisely, besides describing cooperation as an important organizational step in the transition to socialism, he explicitly argued that "cooperation is socialism" (Lenin, 1923). All the same, ever since the time of the Paris Commune the cooperative movement has received little attention from Marxists.

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Green Reconstruction vs. Speculative Capital

by Editors @ Thursday, May 21st, 2009. Filed under Economic Democracy, Environment, High Road Economics

How a Green Economy

Is an Antidote to

Casino Capitalism


By Robert Pollin

New Labor Forum

April 2, 2009 - The convergence of a profound economic crisis and the inauguration of Barack Obama as President has created both tremendous challenges and opportunities for progressives in the United States. Two of the overarching economic issues around which progressives will need to struggle are: first, how to build a clean energy economy, creating millions of good jobs in the process; and second, how to create a financial system focused on channeling money toward productive investment as opposed to destabilizing speculation.

In fact, the link between these matters becomes clear once we pose the simple question: how can we pay for the transition to a clean energy economy? Realistically, there is no way to construct a clean energy economy -- driven by solar, wind, and geothermal power and biomass fuels, and operating at dramatically higher levels of energy efficiency -- unless trillions of dollars are channeled into this project over the next 20 years.

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A Better Plan: Forget Wall St, Fund Local Credit Unions Directly

by Editors @ Sunday, May 17th, 2009. Filed under Economic Democracy, Financial Crisis, High Road Economics

 

Graphic: Ptolemy, the Earth Centric

 

Team Obama's Flawed Cosmology:

A Universe Revolving Around Banks

By Arianna Huffington
Huffington Post

A series of recent meetings with members of Barack Obama's economic team (including running into Larry Summers on my way to an appointment in the West Wing, leading to a spirited back-and-forth that made me feel like I was back at Cambridge, debating the smartest kid in the class), left me with a pair of indelible impressions:

1) These are all good people, many of them brilliant, working incredibly hard with the best of intentions to solve the country's financial crisis.

2) They are operating on the basis of an outdated cosmology that places banks at the center of the economic universe.

Talking about our financial crisis with them is like beaming back to the 2nd century and discussing astronomy with Ptolemy. Just as Ptolemy was convinced we live in a geocentric universe -- and made the math work to "prove" his flawed theories -- Obama's senior economic team is convinced we live in a bank-centric universe, and keeps offering its versions of "epicycles" and "eccentric circles" to rationalize their approach to the bailout. And because, like Ptolemy, they are really smart, they are really good at rationalizing.

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Prairie Power: Iowa Communities Own Wind Power Farms

by Editors @ Thursday, May 14th, 2009. Filed under Economic Democracy, Environment, High Road Economics

  Community-Owned

Is Business Model for

Two Wind Farms in Iowa



By Apollo News Service

4/21/2009 - The farmland of Iowa’s Emmet and Dickinson counties will soon be home to the nation’s two largest community-owned wind farms. Red Rock Wind Energy LLC and Emmet County Energy LLC, both based in Estherville, Iowa, announced in December their intent build 300 and 200-megawatt wind arrays respectively near Estherville, a northwest Iowa agricultural community of 6,000 residents east of Sioux Falls near the border with Minnesota.

Both projects are much larger than Minnesota’s 100-megawatt Trimont array, currently the country’s largest community-owned wind farm.

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Exposing the Crisis: Richard Wolf’s DVD

by Editors @ Monday, May 4th, 2009. Filed under Economic Democracy, Economy, Financial Crisis, Socialism

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DVD promo image above: Still of title from Richard Wolfe video. Use link below to view the entire one hour lecture in a Preview Mode. 

Capitalism Hits the Fan

 



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Message to Obama: What To Do When a Flawed Bailout Fails

by Editors @ Saturday, May 2nd, 2009. Filed under Economic Democracy, Financial Crisis, Socialism

 

What To Do When

the Bailout Fails

By David Schweickart

Tikkun Magazine


May 1, 2009

Dear President Obama,

We have never met, although we are neighbors of sorts. I live a couple of blocks from your Hyde Park home. We vote at the same polling place, Beulah Shoesmith Elementary School.

My daughter Karen has met you. She took two classes from you when she was in law school at the University of Chicago. My granddaughter Lauryn has met you, too-although she doesn't remember the occasion. Karen brought her to class one day, shortly after her birth. Karen and Lauryn both attended your inauguration, ticketless but with much enthusiasm. I wasn't there, but I share their enthusiasm.

Which is why I am writing you this letter. You have somehow, against all odds, become president. You are in position to do things that few others on this planet are in position to do. (more...)

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