The Workers' Paradise

April 5, 2010

Comments About Union Cab’s Bonus Segment in Michael Moore’s Movie

Filed under: Society — Tags: , , , , — Fred Schepartz @ 6:23 pm

In Michael Moore’s latest film, “Capitalism: A Love Story,” his basic point is that Capitalism is inherently evil. He cites various examples of antidotes to Capitalism, including worker cooperatives. Union Cab, where I’ve worked for 22 years, was one of three worker cooperatives Moore’s film crew spent time with last spring. We didn’t make it into the theatrical cut, but we are included in the bonus features on the DVD that came out last week.

It was gratifying to see my workplace portrayed as a force was positive change in our society. Basically, Moore is saying that Union Cab is everything that is good and wholesome, a workplace that puts people before profits, that is democratic, that sees the community as something to serve, not something to exploit and mine for profit.

More importantly, Moore accurately portrays Union Cab as one of many entities seeking to change society through economic means. There is a zeitgeist regarding worker cooperatives right now, and Moore is out there on the forefront. Amazingly, a great deal has happened in the worker cooperative movement since he started filming last year. In Cleveland, the first of the Evergreen Cooperative‘s opened for business. They are just beginning, but this burgeoning network of cooperatives has been highly touted as “The Cleveland Model.” (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100301/alperowitz_et_al)

And then last fall, it was announced that United Steelworkers had formed a collaboration with Spanish super cooperative Mondragon to create manufacturing worker cooperatives here in the United States based on the Mondragon model in Spain. (http://www.usw.org/media_center/releases_advisories?id=0234)

One thing I particularly liked is that the bonus features includes an interview with Tom Webb. Webb is on faculty at St. Mary’s University in Canada. St. Mary’s offers a masters program in cooperative studies. In fact, my best friend and fellow Union Cabbie, John McNamara, is graduating from the program this spring. (John set up the interview and the whole visit with Union Cab, but when the time came for the visit, John was out of town visiting family.) The interview is quite useful in terms of putting these various syndicalist elements into perspective and realizing it is all part of a movement, albeit a movement that may or may not realize that it actually exists as a movement.

As far as how Union Cab is portrayed, for the most part I was pleased. There was a great deal of trepidation and anxiety in anticipation of the release of the DVD. I had heard that a couple of our members who were interviewed felt like they were being treated in a bit of a confrontational manner. Our General Manager, Karl Schulte, was a bit upset. He was asked about how much he was paid compared to the lowest paid employee—the ratio is about three or four to one compared to 300 to one for the average corporate CEO. In response to Karl’s answer, the interviewer barked, “What are you, a commie, a hippie?” Rebecca Kemble, the other Union Cab member who drove them around, also said she felt they got a bit confrontational with her as well, hence her being a bit defensive when she says on camera, “I don’t think we have any Communists working here,” when she talks about the diversity of our membership, with some Democrats, some Republicans, as well as socialists and anarchists.

While I felt like I was treated with the utmost respect by Basel Hamden and his crew, my nose was certainly bent out of joint by a comment Moore made during a couple interviews when the theatrical cut was released. He said he liked Isthmus Engineering because they all “look like a bunch of Republicans.” He said that kind of cooperative interested him more than some “hippie-dippy food coop.”

But now that many of us have seen our segment on the DVD, I can say that our fears were unfounded. For the most part, it’s just us, speaking for ourselves, and I have to say we do a good job. The segment comes off in a very positive manner.

After a nearly perfect imitation of the opening shots of “Taxi Driver” with me channeling Travis Bickle (actually, it’s not Bickle but former Union Cab driver Steve Fleischman who used the line to shut up some drunk Young Republicans the night Tommy Thompson was elected governor in 1986. John McNamara told me this story.), I talk about seniority pay increases. Rebecca talks about earning roughly $18-27 an hour on a good Saturday night. She also has a nice line about how Union Cab counts among its ranks many of the “walking wounded from corporate America.” Karl, when asked about how much he’s paid, comments that he doesn’t understand how somebody would want more. He’s able to put food on the table. Isn’t that enough?

Now if I were to quibble, I would have to say that I wish there was more in the way of nuts and bolts details to the specifics about what makes Union Cab a special place to work. I get into that some with my description of our institutionalized system of seniority pay increases, a percentage point for every 2500 hours one works. That’s nice, but I wish Moore would have included the other things I said about our structure, that we have a board of directors elected from the membership by the membership, that we do have a management structure, but it is counter-balanced to protect our members from abuse. We give managers the authority to do their jobs, but they are supervised by the board, so they work for us. We have the Worker’s Council where any member can appeal discipline. We have committees that anyone can join that write policy, which may be eventually approved by the board.

I believe all of this is very important. Touchy-feel words don’t make us what we are. It is the structure of our organization and the various entities without our organization along with the energy of our members that makes us special. That is exactly how we are able to provide jobs at a living wage in a democratic and humane work environment.

In our segment, I’m shown for 30 seconds talking about Union Cab. I wish I had been given more time because there’s so much more I said that I wanted people to hear. Also, and forgive me for sounding self-centered and self-serving, I was rather disappointed that Moore didn’t allow me to plug my novel, “Vampire Cabbie.” Frankly, I was surprised that Moore didn’t include any mention of my book. The idea of a cab driver who drives at night who has published a book about a vampire cab driver, that struck me as the sort of thing that would attract Moore like a moth to a flame. If anything, I was worried that Moore might make me look some kind of kook. But, nooooo! No plug! No love!

All kidding aside, what particularly disappointed me about that omission was that while talking about my book, I also talked about how Union Cab attracts and nurtures various artistic types. Within a year of the publication of “Vampire Cabbie,” two of my fellow drivers published books. Last year we had a successful Union Cab art show. There’s always several musicians driving at Union at any given time. In fact, earlier this year, a second Union Cab music CD was released.

As I said to the camera (and to local reporters Doug Moe and Rob Thomas in interviews this week, neither of whom felt the need to quote me on this point), Union Cab does a great job of nurturing artistic types because, first of all, we pay a living wage, which means you don’t have to work a ton of hours to get by, so you have time to devote to your art. Second, Union Cab is not the kind of workplace that sucks out your soul, so that when you’re not working, you still have enough gas in the tank to pursue your artistic endeavors.

Still, all that said, it was an honor to be in a Michael Moore film, even if it was just the bonus features on the DVD. While I felt a bit disappointed by some aspects of the segment, it was a strong, positive portrayal of a worker cooperative that is, in it’s own way, an important part of a bigger movement.

There is one last point I do need to make. I have to take exception with Rebecca’s comment that “we don’t have any Communists working here.” Actually, we do. I know for a fact that we have at least one, and he’d be a bit pissed to hear that comment. Rebecca seems a bit defensive when she makes that remark. I want to be clear that we’ve always had Communists working at Union Cab, and they have, at various times, played an important role and taken leadership positions, but not for power, not because the Central Committee told them to, but because they chose to sacrifice their time for the common good.

Look for us on page two of the bonus features. Our segment is titled, “You Talkin’ To Me? Commie Taxi Drivers in Wisconsin.”

January 18, 2010

#19 Participatory Management

Filed under: Identity Statement Series — Tags: , , , , , , — John McNamara @ 12:05 pm

The next principle from Mondragon is that of Participatory Management. This seems like a no-brainer for worker co-operatives. What is the point of going through all the work of setting up a worker co-op if the workers don’t actually have a say in how the place is run? They would be better off in a unionized Employee Stock Ownership Program.

I’ll get more into this in a second. First, I want to share the language of the principle from Mondragon (translated, as they all are, of course):

“The Mondragon Cooperative Experience believes that the democratic character of the Cooperative is not limited to membership aspects, but that it also implies the progressive development of self-management and consequently of the participation of members in the sphere of business management which, in turn, requires:

a)     The development of suitable mechanisms and channels for participation.

b)    Freedom of information concerning the development of the basic management variables of the Cooperative.

c)     The practice of methods of consultation and negotiation with worker-members and their social representatives in economic, organisational and labour decisions which concern or affect them.

d)    The systematic application of social and professional training plans for members.

e)     The establishment of internal promotion as the basic means of covering posts with greater professional responsibility.”

(source: The Mondragon Cooperative Experience, by José María Ormaechea, 2000)

Second, I want to parse the word management. We manage our co-operative whether or not we have a person holding a title with the word “manager”. Some co-ops manage collectively, some manage through a hierarchy, but we all manage the same things: assets, liabilities, equity, work performance, customer satisfaction etc. In this, as in most posts, I use the term management and manager in the broad sense.

Participatory management does not mean democracy and democracy does not mean participatory management. I say this because they are often linked together in a synonymous manner. A worker co-operative can have a strict top-down hierarchy that allows little or no member input and still elect its board of directors. Likewise, the concept of participatory workplaces can exist in capitalist organizations.

This principle exposes some dangers to worker co-operatives in that it is this area that the co-operative movement may be co-opted. World Blu has created a list of the “most democratic workplaces” for a couple of years now. While I have nothing against their mission, they misuse the word democracy when they mean participatory management. Only a handful of the companies on their list are co-ops or esops. In other words, they are honoring workplaces as “democratic” when the workers have no control over the governance of the organization. While I think that participatory management is a noble thing for a stock corporation to entertain, it isn’t democracy, it isn’t a right. It can be taken away as soon as the stockholders decide the experiment isn’t making them enough money. While I support World Blu’s efforts to humanize capitalism, I don’t think it will ever succeed on a grand scale but am glad that the workers in those business have a decent place to work.

A worker co-operative should abide by the values and principles of democracy. Participatory management should be another user principle for co-operatives even if it isn’t in the Identity Statement. It is the means by which the workers of the co-operative “use” their co-operative. Just as consumers use the products and services of a consumer co-operatives, workers use their ability to participate in decisions affecting their work life (roughly ¼-1/3 of our lives) as their right of membership.

Mondragon has created an excellent definition of participatory management. It isn’t simply deciding what type chairs to get for the office, it involves a complete involvement of the workforce in the operations and planning of the organization.

Note though, that the principle discusses the creation of “suitable” methods. Decisions have to be made and they have to be made in a way that enhances the organization in terms of serving their customers and succeeding in the market place. A restaurant can’t hold a membership meeting to discuss which person serves which table every time a customer walks in for dinner. A cab company can’t hold a debate about call assignment for each and every order. However, the co-operative can create methods of having these discussions about systems that ensure fairness and those methods should involve a wide range of voices from the membership.

Information has to be available to everyone or how can it truly run as a democracy. This isn’t on a “need-to-know” basis, but on the basis of ownership.

Another key point is that the co-operative needs to create bodies that will assist the worker-members in finding their voice. This might be a peer support program, a traditional stewards’ council, or even a labor union (although that is decidedly not what Mondragon is talking about). The bigger point being that management in a worker co-operative (whether run with a hierarchy or not) needs to establish means for worker’s to have a real voice in the discussion. Depending on the size of the organization (and the work week schedule) this will have different levels of formality. Rainbow Grocery is famous for its collectivist approach while Union CabMondragon models the labor movement through a stewards’ council and committee structure. uses a “social committee” in which elected representatives help provide input to the board and management as well as acting as a watch dog.

The last two points of the principle create an imperative of making participation systemic. As with the Sovereignty of Labour, this principle promotes the belief of internal promotion. The top end positions of a worker co-operative should generally not be hired from the outside of the worker co-operative movement. It is better for worker co-operative to create strong in-house training (and utilize professional development programs such as the Masters of Management: Co-operatives and Credit Unions) to develop the future leaders of the co-operative. One of the problems, in the United States, is that our co-operatives tend to be small and this limits opportunity for workers to advance and develop. It also limits the level of education and training that can be provided. However, we need to think beyond our stand-alone co-operatives. Just as Mondragon is a system of 180 or so co-operatives, we should start thinking of US Worker Cooperatives existing as an economic base.

Ormaechea chose this particular quote from Don José: “Co-operation brings people together in a collective task, but it gives each one responsibility. It is the development of the individual, not against the rest, but with the rest.”

By creating a base of strong management of our co-operatives we build the capacity for the movement to grow. We create the means for our co-operatives to cross-pollinate, to occasionally go outside of our stand-alone co-ops and we also create the means for the rank-and-file members to expand themselves, to develop themselves as people.

Next Week: Payment Solidarity

December 9, 2009

#14 Democratic Member Control

Filed under: Identity Statement Series — Tags: , , — John McNamara @ 9:09 am

After missing my Monday morning deadline due to a funeral, Mother Nature has given me the gift of a day away from the office (I really haven’t anyway to get to work) so I can at least catch up on the series.

The Identity Statement created the following definition for the Second Principle of Co-operatives:

Co-operatives are democratic organisations controlled by their members, who actively participate in setting their policies and making decisions. Men and women serving as elected representatives are accountable to the membership. In primary co-operatives members have equal voting rights (one member, one vote) and co-operatives at other levels are also organised in a democratic manner.

This principle acts as the second of the “User Principles.” In this case, the users of the co-operative control the co-operative. In a worker co-operative, it is the workers who are using the co-operative in order to earn a fair living.

The Identity Statement Background Paper makes the following point about this principle: “Within co-operatives, ‘democracy’ includes considerations of rights; indeed, rights and responsibilities. but it also means more: it means fostering the spirit of democracy within co-operatives, a never-ending, difficult, valuable, even essential, task.”

In general, this principle leads to the membership empowering a board of directors to make decisions who then often empower a manager to make operational decisions. However, in many worker co-operatives, this principle comes to life with non-hierarchical structures in which all decisions (the big strategic and philosophical to the small operational) allow input and decision making by the collective. There is a basic concept that for a collective to truly operate as a collective it needs to stay under forty members. Obviously, the larger and more spread out the operation, the more likely it is need levels of hierarchy to manage effectively.

This principle brings up one of the more exciting differences between worker co-operatives and other sectors. Because the users/members are the workers, the function of democracy takes a significantly different role. Even in large co-operatives, the operational issues get debated by the membership. Management generally involves working with people to develop a consensus as opposed to barking orders. It also involves clearly defined roles for those times when someone does have to bark orders.

Mondragon has a famous saying that “there is no democracy on the shop floor.” I understand that concept, but disagree to a point. Obviously, every decision cannot involve a consensus of the majority. People have to be assigned roles with authority to act and have those decisions respected. However, there are ways to build in a sense of democracy into the operations. To me, that is one of the challenges of worker co-operatives. As stated earlier, we have a responsibility to foster the spirit of democracy throughout our actions. For those of us who have hierarchy in our co-operatives (especially those of us who have the title of “manager”), we need to find ways to manage that reflect the spirit of the principles. We cannot simply model our competitors and say that we have democracy because their is an annual meeting and board of directors.

Another key point in the discussion of democracy involves the middle sentence of the principle description: “Men and women serving as elected representatives are accountable to the membership.” The Background Paper makes the following concept: “This sentence reminds elected representatives that they hold their offices in trust for the immediate and long-term benefit of members. Co-operatives do not ‘belong’ to elected officials any more than they ‘belong’ to the employees who report to these officials.” In a worker co-operative, the sense of ownership is vital to its success. However, we must remember that we are a democratic organization and while we may be owners, our control is collective. To paraphrase Chief Seattle, “We belong to the co-operative, it does not belong to us.” As a result, it is our duty as leaders, directors and owners to take care of the co-operative for the generations of workers who will be looking to it for their healthy workplace.

Next Week: Member Economic Participation–the last of the user principles.

October 19, 2009

#7 Solidarity

Filed under: Governance,Identity Statement Series,Uncategorized — Tags: , , , — John McNamara @ 10:20 am

Solidarity, to me one of the most beautiful words in the English language, is not simply a cooperative value. It is a human value. To have a discussion about this value involves talking about so much more than the cooperative world, or of purchasing at the cooperative store. It involves talking about the key quality that creates societies and communities.

Of course, the first thing that must come to mind, upon hearing the word Solidarity, is the great labor anthem of the 19th Century that gave rise to the Industrial Workers of the World, the Congress of Industrial Organizations, and Solidarnosc. Solidarity is a key part of other movements, specifically, the labor movement. The polish workers of Gdansk chose Solidarity to name their union because it is the hallmark of the labor movement from the days of the Knights of Labor to the democratic resistance in fascist Europe to the battles of the anti-imperialist movements of Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa. It is about loyalty and the United Front.

Solidarity is a human value. It is what has allowed us to survive as a species. Sadly, upon achieving survival, we created economic systems that discourage solidarity and actively attack it through greed and avarice. A wonderful series called Ishmael and My Ishmael by Daniel Quinn discusses some of these concepts in human philosophical development. In her work, The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein discusses how the fascists of South America (led by the Chicago Boys and Nobel Laureates Milton Friedman and Henry Kissinger) specifically attacked solidarity as a means to break the resistance to their new economy. Solidarity is the anti-thesis of ne0-liberals. It runs absolutely counter to the anti-value of self-interest expressed by Adam Smith, Milton Friedman and, to a lesser extent, Jeffrey Sachs.

Solidarity is a major part of the human experience, so nailing down its meaning can be quite difficult.

One of my favorite songs from my youth, Solidarity by Black Uhuru, explores this value:

“Everybody wants the same thing don’t they,
Everybody wants a happy end
They wanna to see the game on Saturday,
They wanna be somebody’s friend.
Everybody wants to work for a living
Everybody wants their children warm
Everybody wants to be forgiven
They want shelter from the storm.
Look at me, I aint your enemy
We walk on common ground
We don’t need to fight each other
What we need, what we need
Solidarity.”

Solidarity is friendship within the community, within the society. A mentor of mine, Tom Webb, program manager for the Masters of Management: Co-operatives and Credit Unions, recently made this comment on the nature of friendship: “Friends are people who can be relied upon. They care about you and you care about them. Friends forgive each other when they ‘mess up’ or lapse into human folly. You know each other’s true worth. You know where they stand and as time progresses you even can imagine with some accuracy what they might say in the face of some event. It is with friends that some of the best things in life are done. If you are truly fortunate in life you get to work with friends.”

Solidarity is about something bigger than the needs of an individual. It is about experiencing the rites of friendship not only with the individuals that we determine to be our “friends” but also with our fellow travelers or in the case of the identity statement, the group of people who, along with us, voluntarily choose to associate to support our common culture, aspirations, and needs.

The Background Paper on the identity statement talks about solidarity as follows:

“The last operational value is “solidarity”. This value has a long and hallowed history within the international movement. within co-operatives, this value ensures that co-operative action is not just a disguised form of limited self-interest. A co-operative s more than an association of members; it is also a collectivity. Members have the responsibility to ensure that all members are treated as fairly as possible.; that the general interest is always kept in mind; that there is a consistent effort to deal fairly with employees (be they members or not), as well as with no-members associated with the co-operative.

Solidarity also means that the co-operative has a responsibility for the collective interest of its members. In particular, to some extent, it represents financial and social assets belonging to the group; assets that are the result of joint energies and participation. In that sense, the solidarity value draws attention to the fact that the co-operatives are more than just associations of individuals; they are affirmations of collective strength and mutual responsibility.

Further, “solidarity” means that co-operates and co-operatives stand together. They aspires to the creation of a united co-operative movement, locally, nationally, regionally and internationally. They co-operative in every practical way to provide members with the best quality goods and services at the lowest prices. They work together to present a common face to the public an too governments. they accept that there is a commonality among all co-operatives regardless of their diverse purposes and their difference contexts.

Finally, it d to be emphasized that the solidarity is the very cause and consequence of self-help and mutual help, two of the fundamental concepts at the heart of co-operative philosophy. It is this philosophy which distinguishes co-operatives from other forms of economic organization. In some countries, the concepts of self-help and mutual help have been ignored by governments, and co-operatives have been organized through government initiative, sponsorship and financial assistance; the unfortunate result is movements controlled and managed by governments. It is essential, therefore , the at  the solidarity of co-operators and co-operatives, based on self-help and mutual responsibility, be understood and respected, particularly in developing countries, but in industrially-developed countries as well. “

It is hard to add to the the background paper. Certainly, Solidarity does not mean turning a blind eye to the actions of friends or allies. It does mean keeping the discussion of those actions inside the cooperative community. For a worker co-op, Solidarity means that we honor each other (and express solidarity) by focusing our discussions and arguments in pursuit of the greater good for the co-operative. This means making our agendas and personal interests public to those in our co-ops. It means examining our own actions and positions to determine if we would still support it if we were an uninterested outsider. It means, to some extent, publicly supporting the co-operative–not complaining about our issues when elsewhere (coffee shops, taverns, and the like). It means accepting the decision of the group (blocking consensus only in extreme situations).

Ultimately, solidarity is the recognition that a community requires more than one person’s viewpoint to be heard and agreed upon. It requires more than one bloc or segment. It is a mosaic or a Mandela of people’s cultural, social, political and personal histories. When we join a co-operative, we are choosing a specific team. We are choosing to be part of something bigger than ourselves. With that membership and choice comes the responsibility of making ourselves subservient to the whole. This might run counter to some people’s ideas of individuality–that is fine. For them, the majority of the economic world has been built around the promotion of the individual and they should feel free to explore it. For those of us who believe that our economic world should express our humanity, solidarity is a value that shines bright and baths all of us in its glorious light.

October 12, 2009

#7 Democracy

Filed under: Identity Statement Series — Tags: , , , — John McNamara @ 12:13 pm

By nature of writing on worker co-operatives, I have touched on the subject of democracy countless times. It is the foundation of co-operation. It is part of the definition, the values and the principles. If we could only use one word to describe co-operation, it would be democracy (which is I think that Michael Moore almost had it right when presented the choice between capitalism and democracy). Of course, the word “democracy” can be co-opted. Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman often claimed that capitalism, in its pure form without government intervention, was the purest form of democracy as people could “vote” on every transaction and the power of their vote was equal to their significance to the economy. For that reason alone, co-operators need to understand and defend democracy as a definition, a value and a principle.

The founding pioneers of Rochdale included a large number of Charterists. They were fighting for Universal Suffrage—the vote. They saw co-operation as a backdoor method of achieving property for working people. Once they owned a share of stock, they could argue for the right to vote as an owner of property. They truly believed in the concept of “one man, one vote” and that if everyone had a vote, they would create a shining city on a hill and usher in an era of peace and prosperity.

It didn’t quite work out that way, though. It underestimated the power structure and its ability to manipulate, obfuscate, and control the process. Here is a sad and cynical take on democracy from Ghana:

The movie does make a point: democracy is expensive. The lack of democracy is even more expensive. I often hear members complain of the cost of democracy–it tight economic times, it can be seen as an unnecessary expense–a competitive disadvantage even. That is false logic, however. Democracy pays for itself by creating a loyal and dedicated workforce that has a vested interest in the success of the company. The money spent on committee time, member forum, and meetings easily gets made up by the ability of the co-operative to survive tough economic times without layoffs or even financial losses.  Of course, this film focuses on the electoral democracy, rather than participatory democracy. Electoral democracy is only one aspect of a truly democratic process. I get into this argument quite often in Madison, which is a town dominated by pols. People often see democracy as the right of the people to vote an idea (or person) up or down. I see democracy as the process of creating the idea. It may be that being in Madison causes people to have a negative view of democracy and not see the real democracy that takes place when they can attend a forum and denounce the cost of the forum!

In our co-operatives, we need to be mindful of the democratic functions. For worker co-operatives, this means flattening hierarchy whenever possible. We need to move away from the “Big Man” theory of history and governance and consider, instead, that leaders get created by the movement that created them. If you have a leader who is manipulative and counter-productive, it is likely that the people who elected them gravitate to that type of leadership. The problem is one of culture, not votes.

The question, then, becomes “How do we create a participatory democratic culture?” The answer isn’t that simple. Part of it involves the culture of the organization, the culture of the industry, the region of the of the world, and generation of the workers. It really gets incredibly complicated which is likely the reason for focusing on voting. Voting is simple. Everyone can understand it. Complex ideas distill into simple yes and no questions. Business can move at the speed of business not at the speed of everyone’s comfort level.

This video offers a great perspective:

It is up to us, the members of worker co-operatives to define democracy within our generation, accept that the next generation will want something different, and create an evolutionary culture that honors knowledge, history and change.

As the shibboleth of the co-operative movement, democracy needs advocates and we must accept the role of stewards. We need to develop democratic cultures and processes that honor the individual and the community. Sometimes this will mean supporting the decision our co-operative makes even if we know it is doomed to failure—helping it to succeed against that fear—and being present, without admonition,  to find new solutions if it does. Ultimately, it is about educating our membership and creating a sense of openness that allows members to really control their co-operative free of silent or hidden cliques. For those of us who have been in the movement for a while, we need to remember how it was when we were the new kids with the great ideas that nobody wanted to hear. Democracy means, in part, to have the courage to change the culture and accept the voices of others even if we disagree.

I accidentally wrote on the values out of sequence. Democracy should have been posted prior to equality. The authors of the Identity statement certainly chose the order of the values carefully. Equity follows Equality for a specific reason. Likewise, democracy follows the more individual values of self-help and self-responsibility. As equity is a check on equality, democracy is a check on the individual. This, again, shows the inter-relatedness of the values (and the principles).

Next Week: Solidarity—the last, but not least, of the six values.

October 7, 2009

Capitalism: A Review

Filed under: Society — Tags: , , , , , , — John McNamara @ 8:12 pm

****DISCLAIMER****

In the spirit of openness, please consider the following as you read this post. My name appears in Capitalism: A Love Story’s credits under the heading “Special Thanks”. I provided significant information to DogEatDog Productions regarding worker co-operatives, Mondragon, and the St. Mary’s University program, Masters of Management: Co-operative and Credit Union. I also assisted the production company in coordinating interviews and filming of my co-operative, Union Cab of Madison, which ultimately did not make the theatrical release (although I hope that it will be included in the dvd release).I attended a special screening provided at no cost to the membership of Isthmus Engineering and Union Cab on October 1, 2009.

The following comments are my own and should be read in light of the above disclaimer.

*******

For a true “review” of capitalism, one should consult what remains the definitive work on the subject (regardless of your political views). That is the work Das Kapital by Karl Marx. In his expansive three volume treatise, one can find such poignant pearls as this comment from volume 1:

“Owners of capital will stimulate working class to buy more and more of expensive goods, houses and technology, pushing them to take more and more expensive credits, until their debt becomes unbearable. The unpaid debt will lead to bankruptcy of banks which will have to be nationalized and State will have to take the road which will eventually lead to communism.”**

Capitalism: A Love Story provides the highest public profile for worker cooperatives in the United States that they have ever received. While it falls far short of the economic analysis of Marx, Moore correctly taps into the basic lack of fairness within the economic system and puts human faces on the statistical failure experienced during the last year.

The film is a great example of Michael Moore’s sense of humor and fair play. As with Sicko, Moore takes on the complexity of Capitalism and brings it down to earth with personal accounts of its effects, the disclosure that even the people who created derivatives can’t define them, and offers a real-life alternative to running a market economy based on the value democracy instead of greed.

One could probably write volumes on what Moore left out. As mentioned, Marx already has. However, in about 120 minutes, C:aLS tries to remove the social support that Capitalism receives from those that don’t benefit from it without making us feel too foolish for being suckers. Moore also correctly avoids the conspiracy theories of who runs the government by focusing on what Wall Street and our elected officials did in the light of day in front of the C-SPAN cameras.

For a large part, the movie preaches to the converted and for those of you who already identify as being “on the left” the movie is a fun, affirming event rather than the call for action with which it seems to end. For others, I am not sure that the film will resonate that much and may also be affirming to those who don’t really trust Moore or like his style. It was this latter group that seemed to be Moore’s primary focus and I think that may have hurt the overall ability of the film to get a coherent message out.

As with many reviewers, including The Economist, I was a bit shocked that Moore’s choice for economic advice was Wallace Shawn especially when I know that he spoke with people that had much more veritas in the area of economics, but the ones that I know about aren’t from the United States. Still, Moore has never shied away from foreign ideas and, one could argue, that Capitalism was an import for which our founding fathers saw as a threat to the republic. I think that the choice of Shawn suggests that the focus of the movie wasn’t to create a viable alternative as much details just how much capitalism sucks.

My biggest critique of C:aLS was the inclusion of the lengthy discussion about theology and WWJD. One that Moore continued on his blog the Sunday of the first weekend after the movie opened. This segment, to me, exposed a trait among the American Left that is almost as obnoxious as their unwillingness to understand market economics. The Republican Party may have risen to power on the basis of Gods, Gays, and Guns as Wisconsin lawmaker Mark Pocan has proclaimed; however, those social issues have absolutely nothing to do with capitalism. Too often, however, the Left assumes that religious people are reactionary because they elect republicans. However, the republicans have never run on deregulating the economy, closing plants and shipping jobs overseas–they win by getting social conservatives to the polls to vote against gay marriage, abortion, and immigration.

Attacking capitalism and what happened on Wall Street by pointing out the teachings of Jesus seems a meaningless gesture and assumes a lot about people who go to Church. In my travels, I find that the christian movement types tend to see Wall Street as much a den of iniquity as Las Vegas–with the same rules. They already see the sin of greed at work. In the more extreme cases, the conspiratorialists even see the combination of non-christian forces at work controlling the economy and the government. They already agree that Jesus would disapprove of the type of capitalism (cheating capitalism) at play with the Banks. Using this imagery might have the unintended consequences of reinforcing beliefs about the role that non-Christians play in the economy.

I think that this time would have been better spent explaining why co-operatives are a better market economy. He could have made it a nice transition by asking the question, WWJD and then focusing on to incredible works to come out of the energy of Jesuit Priests: Moses Coady with Co-op Atlantic and Don José María Arrizmendiarietta with Mondragon. Instead of the discussion with the priest and bishop, he could have talked to Andrew McCleod a co-op developer and author of the book, Holy Co-operation which details how the teachings of the bible (Old and New testaments) promote the idea of a co-operative economy (had I known this was part of the focus, I would have let the production company know).

I argue this not just to see my co-op in the film, but to make the case that we can have a market economy based on democracy. Moore gives us the false choice between and economic model and a philosophical value (capitalism or democracy). This is the other short-coming of the film–it doesn’t seem to know what it wants or to understand the subject. We are taught that capitalism replaced feudalism. To me, capitalism did not replace feudalism it simply replaced the human at the top with currency. Instead of owing service to the lord for a piece of land and the ability to work, people now serve the dollar. As the barter/trade/service system became replaced by a market economy, we kept the basic anti-democratic structure of feudalist practice known as “The Golden Rule” (those who have the gold, make the rules). Capitalism, keep in mind, came of age when slavery was a constitutional right in the United States of America and the right of kings was only beginning to be successfully challenged. As our communities became more democratic, we started to resist the excesses of capitalism to make it fit to our collective world view. This led to government regulation and the constant push and pull between the masses and the wealthy elite.

So, Moore is correct. Capitalism is not something that we can fix. It isn’t evil, though, it is just an economic system using the market place for a society that no longer easily exists with the majority view of the governed populace. The idea of democratic capitalism is an oxymoron. Co-operation on the other hand, is a democratic method of market economy that has stood the test of time. I wish that Mondragon has allowed Moore to film (the rumor is that they were worried about the response by General Motors, one of the major customers). I would love to see Moore follow this movie with one about Co-operation. He could tour the co-operative societies and movements of the United Kingdom, Canada (Maritimes, BC), Spain, Italy, Argentina, Japan, and countless other countries. This is a market economy that began in earnest in 1844 with 24 pioneers in Rochdale, England and now numbers over 800 million people world-wide. Even in the United States, the co-operative movement provide wages of around 75 billion dollars a year, 2,143,256 jobs and revenue of 652 billion dollars (source: UW Center for Co-operatives)

In summary, go see the film. It is fun and will be worth your time and money (especially if you like hiss-the-villain movies). The version of The Internationale at the end is worth the price of admission. Moore does make us realize how basically unfair capitalism has become especially when the top 1% make the rules for the rest of the 99% to play by (and how willingly they will destroy each other proving that the is no honor among thieves).  In interviews, Moore uses the analogy of a pie served to ten children. If one child takes 9 of the pieces for himself, the other kids will immediately know that act is unfair, yet we accept it everyday in our economy. You will cheer for Marcy Kaptur*** and wish that we had more elected representatives like her. You will leave, I hope, feeling inspired to change the world.

If you also leave the theater completely unsure of how to change the world, I would suggest going down to join your local consumer co-operative, moving all of your banking to the credit union that serves your area, switching your insurance to a mutual insurance company such as Nationwide and, if you feel really into changing the world, discussing with co-workers the idea of collectively going into business as a worker co-op and putting your boss out of work.

As Ghandi and others have said: Be the change you want to see.

**I want to thank Rob Rowlands (University of Birmingham, UK) who presented this quote as part of his paper on a Mutual Neighborhood. Please watch Breathing Lessons for a future post on that intriguing subject.

***Having grown up in Toledo, OH, the movie made me feel proud of that my history (not only because of Kaptur, but the Cleveland: We Not Detroit video as well).

August 19, 2009

Democracy–practice makes perfect?

Filed under: Governance — Tags: , — John McNamara @ 7:51 pm

It is election season for a couple of cooperatives that have me as a member*. One is a worker coop and one is a consumer coop. In both, the main aspect of democracy is voting for the board of directors. this seems to be the one time of the year when the membership acts as a group and makes its will known. Our process seems very similar to the democracy practiced in our towns and on the national level. Once every couple of years we have a “meeting” of sorts and cast our vote for Mayor, Representative, Governor and President. Then we get  back on with our life (and maybe even kvetch about the people that we elected).

This seems to me a rather weak form of democracy. In my work with St. Mary’s University, I have been writing about measuring democracy (and other coop principles) in worker cooperatives. In everyone of our discussions about membership, the incidence of voting seems to be a minor or unimportant issue.  Instead, the measurement of democracy in a cooperative centers on worker development, communication and feedback systems, education of the membership about the business and the cooperative model, transparency, a humane and safe workplace, and the level of mutual respect between the internal stakeholders (managers, leaders, members, employees, insert-a-label-here, etc.).

Elections, I think, represent the worst form of democracy. It really works against building communities by creating winners and losers. At its worst, it creates cults of personality while repressing real issues that face the cooperative. This summer we have witnessed how people act when they feel that they have lost. Whatever you think of the angry mobs appearing at town halls (I don’t quite care if they are grass root or astroturf) the energy isn’t too far from the mobs in Seattle several years ago chanting the slogan “This is what democracy looks like!” Neither groups were building a lot of community or true democracy. In Seattle, at least, other groups were trying to engage in something other than shouting and building coalitions to oppose the forces of globalized capital. I can attest to having seen a few membership meetings in my 21 years as a coop member reach those same levels of frustration, so I know that coops aren’t immune to the problems of electoral democracy.

The solution, of course, is participation, transparency and building safe areas of communication. This isn’t easy though as our society seems determined to act differently and create a paradigm of democracy that is the opposite of these qualities. All we can do is practice what we preach. Practice making democracy a living thing that expresses itself each day in the work place. This might create some difficult and even heated conversations at first, but practice make perfect and eventually it might even seem quaint and odd to take a vote of the membership to find out what they think.

*As a disclosure, I got my butt handed to me last night coming in 12th out of 13th at the consumer coop–ouch!

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