Sustainable Cooperatives

As the age of corporations winds its way down, we must find a way to organize ourselves in such a way that fosters economic activity, but at the same time considers the greater good of everyone and the long-term effects of our activity, something corporations were never structured to do.

A “cooperative” is an activity essentially owned by those who participate.  We already have these in the form of electric and telephone “cooperatives”, and others.  A “sustainable” cooperative would be a user-owned activity that chooses to work in harmony with the environment and climate, instead of exploitation.

See the following resources.

Siskiyou Sustainable Cooperative

Western Massachusetts Sustainable Communities

Re: Sustainable Cooperatives

This gets back to the idea that we're going from an economy based on agricultural production and industrial production, to information-based, and now to…values-based.

I think it's not just possible, I think it's probable as we learn how to take care of the basic needs of everyone on the planet.  As those basic needs are met, (as we've hopefully all found out) we have time for the kind of self-development that precedes changes in our social development and structures.

Yay co-ops!

With appreciation for this pod,
Helen

Re: Sustainable Cooperatives

I appreciate you bringing “value-based” into the conversation.

As the purpose for this pod is to come up with workable plans for growth or solutions to current problems, I see this as an essential component to anything that is decided here.

To state the purpose for the pod, the intent here is to incubate change, to be catalysts.  Instead of pointing fingers at everything that is wrong and complaining about it … we want to talk about solutions.  This is a very, very good criteria to keep in mind.

Offer more suggestions, if you would.  How would you suggest we implement “values-based” planning to take care of the planet's basic needs?

Re: Sustainable Cooperatives

I'm with Helen on co-ops!  I belonged to one when I lived in Virginia.  And although the co-op thing isn't that prevalent here in Tucson, I have been participating in Community Supported Agriculture.  What do you get?  Good, wholesome, mostly organically produced fruits, vegetables, grass-fed and free-ranging meat and poultry, and fresh goat cheese, produced using sustainable practices.  What do you have to give up?  Choice - you get what is harvested each week, so you are required to be flexible in your ability to prepare different, and sometimes unusual produce.  You also may get tired of the same thing weeks in a row.  But, to me it's worth it to eat fresh food that isn't shipped all over the country, food that's grown where I live - in my 'place', and a way to support the local growers.

I also visited an Arizona winery recently and was so pleased to see that the grower and producer was using sustainable practices to produce his award-winning wines.

I think it's a matter of supporting what is already in place with sustainable products, as well as new enterprises, and in that way, letting the status quo grocers, producers, marketing people, etc. know that there is support for something better, and maybe they should change their ways!

Re: Sustainable Cooperatives

This is something I've given quite a bit of thought to.  And in Washington, co-op communities are sprouting up everywhere.  There are farming co-ops, where the members live on the property together and work the land, sharing the profits.

There are spiritual co-ops in apartment complexes that only rent to like-minded people.

The co-op community demand is rising.  I'm sure a co-op can be whatever it is you want it to be.

I, for one, always wanted to participate in a sustainable co-op with the many tools and info that I have!  I think it would be greatly rewarding spiritually, financially, and emotionally! 

Ironically, just yesterday, I wrote about it in my blog!  I didn't name it as a co-op, but that has always been the dream.

I would think the first step is to figure out what measures 'sustainable'.  Sustainable via…. farming? construction? a variety?  Who can contribute what and how beyond the basic needs of food, water, shelter?

Re: Sustainable Cooperatives

Greetings fellow Podlings,

I have two points that I'd like to discuss, the first is off-topic, I think. Put simply, there is a difference between economics and business. They are at different levels of the hierarchy of scope, and should probably be separated topically, lest one conversation devolve into the other in an endless loop that does not get plans made, as per the purpose of this pod.

The on topic point is that cooperatives at large are as isolationist as corporations, in fact even more so. Benefits of action are reaped only by those who participate. Very chic.

Economic systems as we know them will begin to breakdown soon, but for reasons that get a little disconcerting for many. We will have outsourced almost all physical labor to automation. The role of the human in this context, at least the economic one becomes that of knowledge synthesis and creation. Creation is the ONLY currency of the new economy. Ask Nintendo - their product is technically inferior to the current consoles on the market. They redefined the market with creative capital. Cooperatives in almost every context start to look ambiguous. We will define economies  by what we freely give to each other. I use wikipedia as a good example of how this could/does work on a daily basis.

Your post seems to add a bit of confusion to the mix by bring up sustainable in the same context as cooperatives, which wile appropriate if you are trying to create a sustainable cooperative disregards corporations as potentially being sustainable, and also that not all cooperatives are sustainable.

I have a lot of energy for topics like this and would like to know more about the original intent of the post in order to serve the pod better.

Re: Sustainable Cooperatives

LOL! Wiseman!

When the pod began everyone rushed to post and within a short time every board had a thread going strong … with the lone exception of this one.  So I jumped in here and jotted something down, just to get this started.  The direction of the thread is entirely up to the participants.

Thank you for contributing.

Re: Sustainable Cooperatives

Keith et al,

I love it! I am still beaming minutes later. Your response provides a lot of clarity to why I was so confused. I would, though, like to explore the original post, or the evolving direction of the dialogue if anyone else has energy for it. If not, I'll probably start a new post once I can come up with something appropriate.

My offtopic sentiment though does directly refer to the structure you have implemented in this pod, and I believe that we should consider and discuss the merits of creating a business branch vs an economics branch.

Warmest regards,
Wiseman

Re: Sustainable Cooperatives

Since corporations are entities designed to extract maximum benefit for the stake-holders while requiring minumum cost (lowest possible investment in wages and raw materials) it does not seem that they will ever be sustainable, unless they are redefined. If they are redefined, then they are (probably) no longer corporations and should be called something else.

Co-operatives can be sustainable if designed to be, and are generally local, serving a region or community. But we need to define what we mean by “sustainable”. For instance I wonder how a winery in Arizona could be sustainable? how do they get the water? If they are pumping water from the ground they are doomed, not sustainable. Tuscon, Phoenix, much of Arizona is living on borrowed time as long as more and more people keep moving there pumping more and more water out of the depleting aquifers.

So what do we mean by sustainable? and how do we acheive it?

Here is another idea: disintermediation. Cutting out the middleman, including banks. Mutual aid. Mutual aid is practiced in rural (at least in New Hampshire) volunteer fire departments: I come to your fire and help, knowing that you'll come to my fire and help. Laconia has a ladder truck? put out a call to Laconia for the three story apartment fire… don't call for New Hampton's ladder truck, they won't let their ladder truck leave town because of the school, which is fine… etc. I'll help you install your woodstove and you'll help me split up those two cords of wood. This is a local phenomenon… a relocalization phenomenon. This is good because relocalization is where it will be at (should be where we are going) as globalization collapses.

Re: Sustainable Cooperatives

This is an addendum to my previous post… running out of time…

I do not see that we are going anywhere but back (forward?) to agricultural- and (more or less) local manufacturing-based economic systems. The project of globalization is a doomed project, and nations and regions will have to return to producing much or most of what they consume (assuming nation-states survive, which is up for debate), and I don't really understand the term “values-based”, as applied to economy, could somebody explain it? I mean, it sounds nice but does it have content?

If we are to discuss “Sustainable Co-operatives” we need to include changes to our consumption and production as well… or maybe first? Sustainability is a complex subject, not necessarily obvious to such voracious consumers as we are.

Re: Sustainable Cooperatives

I cannot presume to understand completely what Helen was saying with “values-based” but only how I interpreted.

The key is motivation.  Why do we do what we do?  At present, the motivating factor is profits, exploitation of the environment, least expense, greatest amount of income.  The old “buy low, sell high” economic theory.

What I understood Helen to interject was a basic need to reorient our activity to consider “values”.  In this instance, lets say we have vast tracks of forest on government-owned land in the west.  A major corporate logging company wants to harvest the timber.  The trees are there, the land doesn't belong to anyone specifically, so why not pay the government a nominal fee and harvest the resource.  Buy low, sell high.

From our present corporate perspective this is perfectly logical.  Now, if factoring in “value” a different story emerges.  A virgin forest is rare these days and leaving this pristine is good for the environment, prevents erosion, creates oxygen, enhances national beauty and offers a place for citizens to visit away from the congestion and stress of urban population centers.  The forest viewed from this perspective has greater value leaving it along than exploiting it for profit.

Helen, if I'm off-base here, chime right in.