Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Worker Coops, Worker Banks, Worker Skills -- Day 4 Mondragon

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Worker Coops, Worker Banks, Worker Skills -- Day 4 Mondragon

by Carl Davidson from his blog.

Join Carl on his fourth day of the tour of the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation to hear about how credit and higher education function in the MCC.

Most new small businesses fail. That's a fact, whether they are in the Basque Country or in the U.S. Or anywhere else, Yet the Mondragon Coops, which all started as small worker-owned businesses, have hardly ever failed. Why? The key is in Father Jose Maria Arizmendi's original founding conception of cooperatives as the interlocking of school, factory and credit union.

You can also access Day 1 (my commentary included), Day 2, Day 3.