Interlinking the Cooperative Economy for Growth

Introductions

• Carla: The Data Commons Co-op greases the flow of data between
  communities in the cooperative, solidarity, new, call-it-what-you-will
  economy. The co-op not only serves these communities, it is owned by
  them.
  • How do we share data? (technical question)
• Brel: Expand housing cooperative & raise awareness
  • Madison’s housing cooperative sector is growing & interlinking with other coops (worker, grocery / food)
  • Housing cooperative sector is a good generator of other cooperatives
    • E.g. baker, bicycle, food coops generated from housing cooperatives
    • Then housing cooperatives do business with these other cooperatives to bolster the cooperative sector
    • Advocacy for the cooperative sector — Madison is a hotbed of cooperative development, with city support to set up the groundwork for stronger social support & community development benefits
• Daniel: Working on map & list of cooperatives!
  • Everyone who’s a this conference is here because we want to link cooperatives
  • Worker / owner at an accounting firm, Rogers Park, disaster relief
  • Everyone can learn about all the ways we an come together outside silos of particular focus
  • E.g. Housing co-op vacancy board, member discounts across worker co-ops
  • Vertical integrations, public / private partnerships — rarely impact working class lifestyle as much as the community driving its own cooperative development
  • Lead with “What does the community need?” — “the Chicago way”

Discussion

• What does linking the cooperative economy mean?
  • Mapping the resistance
  • Defining terms
  • Creating alliances
  • How do we take over enough of the economy to tip?
  • Accounting for needs
  • Reaching out to people who would benefit but aren’t aware of cooperative options
  • Application across industries
  • Building a sustainable socialist economy from the bottom up (not top down)
• Growth
  • Scalability
  • Taking over the world
  • Success
  • Sustainability
  • Making the economy cooperative in general — keeping control local, instead of scaling (federated)
    • Not a hierarchical economy, top down
  • Awareness & education
  • Lifting the community as well as members — not driving out others
  • Measurement:
    • % of economy that is cooperative
• Solidarity vs. classical economy — the true sharing / informal economy
  • Countering capitalist hegemony — growth outside the capitalist framework
  • Reject that capitalism is the classical economy, and sharing economy is the new economy
    • There are a lot of cooperatives around the world, not in the West
    • Cooperation is not a concept born in Europe
• Building a database of information — what are the key information?
  • Relationship-building / conferences / coalitions
  • Peer-rating system — e.g. the co-op scorecard (from Canada)
  • Capital flows — investment in / divestment from extractive economy
  • Education about cooperation & other cooperative sectors
  • Incentivize collaboration across co-ops (e.g. member deals)
    • Lots of points of failures between co-op cooperation because of cash limitations (cheaper to patronize other businesses)
• Do co-op prices squeeze out those who are economically disadvantaged?
  • Yes, the market is fucked (says Daniel) — market prices don’t account for externalities
  • Co-ops that are doing okay should re-invest in other cooperatives (e.g. Shared Capital cooperative, co-ops reinvesting in co-ops)
  • Co-ops should have discounts for other co-ops / volunteers / social sector employees (this idea has been repeated a lot a lot)
  • Tension between pragmatism & idealism
  • Can we beat capitalists at the pragmatic game?
• Who should be involved in interlinking cooperatives?
  • Ideal is everyone to have some sort of involvement
  • Everyone should steward this — should not be tasked to a specific group
  • Co-operate or die — the current economic structure is indeed fucked
  • Make a bat signal so that people can reference it later
• Interesting that the conversation has included a lot about capital / pricing / marketing (capitalist concepts), and less about democratic participation
  • How to scape democratic structures, etc?