People over capital the co operative alternative to capitalism

Acknowledgements First, we should thank all the authors submitting entries to the 2012 Prize – not just those that are reproduced here Entrants came from all walks of life and submissions arrived from as far afield as Argentina and Italy Giles Simon and the communications team at Co-operatives UK played an important role in getting news of the competition out into the wider world Essays with the authors’ names removed were distributed to the four judges, whom we also thank: • Ed Mayo – Secretary General, Co-operatives UK • Rob Harrison – Director, Ethical Consumer • Paul Fitzgerald – Radical Political Cartoonist (with help from Eva Schlunke) • Katy Brown – Director, Ethical Consumer Thanks to Liz Chater and Jane Tuner at Ethical Consumer for administrative support for the submissions and judging process Adele Armistead provided the web design and Tom Chafer-Cook the web programming for the Co-operative Alternatives website which helped to promote the project Thanks also to Demetrio Guzzardi for working on the references Thanks to Dan Raymond-Barker (marketing) and Chris Brazier (editing) at New Internationalist for their invaluable help with bringing this book to light And, last but not least, thanks to Unicorn Grocery, Co-operatives UK and Ethical Consumer magazine readers for their financial support for the project People Over Capital: The Co-operative Alternative to Capitalism First published in 2013 by New Internationalist Publications Ltd 55 Rectory Road Oxford OX4 1BW, UK newint.org Copyright of all chapters is held by Ethical Consumer Research Association apart from Chapter (Red Pepper) and Chapter (New Internationalist) All rights to text specifically created for this book are reserved and may not be reproduced without prior permission in writing of the Publisher Front cover design: Andrew Kokotka/New Internationalist British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress ISBN 978-1-78026-162-1 Contents Foreword Ed Mayo Introduction Rob Harrison History and current opportunities Robin Murray The potential for an alternative economy Wayne Ellwood Can co-ops crowd out capitalism? Cliff Mills Past, present and future A new co-operative economy Dan Gregory Towards a new economy based on co-operation Daniel Crowe Between the market and the state James Doran Working towards economic democracy Co-operatives, open source and new global networks Nic Wistreich Open source capitalism Robbie Smith Renovating the house of co-operatives Co-operatives and a sustainable future Adam Fisher Is there a co-operative solution to sustainable development? 10 Steve Mandel Why we need to replace joint-stock companies with co-operatives in the sustainable economies of the future Co-operatives and the wider alternative economy 11 Cheryl Lans Co-operatives and their place in a global social economy 12 Arianna Lovera Experiments in solidarity economics – alternative financial organizations in France and Italy Critical perspectives: why a world of co-operatives may not be enough 13 David Leigh Rebuilding the collective spirit through the experience of co-ops 14 Chris Tomlinson The false alternative of co-operative choice under capitalism Afterword: What one thing needs to change to make co-operatives the dominant business model? A selection of the most popular entries from the ‘what one thing?’ online voting platform in 2012 About the authors: short biographies Index Foreword Ed Mayo If the claim of capitalism is that a system focused on and oriented around the accumulation of capital best serves society overall, then the idea of co-operation is its natural opposite Co-operative models of economic life are focused on forms of wealth creation in which the needs of capital are subservient to the interests of people involved It is a simple enough contrast, generating a wealth of insight included within the contributions of this book, and it does reflect an enduring challenge – in economic life, is money our servant or our master? Co-operative enterprises are member-owned businesses with some distinctive characteristics in terms of form and ethos At an abstract level, the nature of co-operatives is defined by a cooperative identity statement proclaimed by the International Co-operative Alliance in 1995 These were endorsed by United Nations Guidelines in 2001, by an International Labour Organization Recommendation (193) in 2002, and have now been written into many co-operative laws around the world In practice, there is a diversity of co-operative forms in the UK and overseas Apart from the investors of capital, there are three main economic stakeholders in any business: its consumers, the producers who supply inputs to or take the outputs from the business, and its employees In a cooperative, usually one of these other stakeholders is put at the centre of the business as member owners There are, therefore, four groups of cooperatives: consumer owned, producer owned, employee owned and multi-stakeholder combinations or hybrids of these There is also continuous experimentation around key issues, such as the nature of membership, interest in community benefit and new models of financing The co-operative business model has a strong presence across a range of international markets There are more than 800 million members of co-operatives in the world Between them, they employ over 100 million people This is 20 per cent more than the multinational enterprises The largest 300 cooperatives in the world have an annual turnover of $1.1 trillion In a few countries, co-operatives may have a dominant role in the economy The market share of co-operative enterprises provides a practical demonstration of the value that can be created on the basis of co-operative principles In Finland, the co-operative sector is said to account for 21 per cent of GDP, in Switzerland 16 per cent and in Sweden 13 per cent In Switzerland, for example, two societies dominate retail trade: Co-op Suisse and Migros, the latter having originally been a private company that was donated by its owner to its customers They have a market share of 17 per cent and 32 per cent respectively In New Zealand the largest domestic business, Fonterra, is a cooperative Meanwhile, three-quarters of all fair trade goods are produced by co-operatives in developing countries Today, new technologies are reducing the barriers to mass participation and allowing an everwidening circle of people to engage online in collaborative communities In Charles Leadbeater’s words, we are passing from an economy of ‘by’, ‘from’ and ‘to’, to an economy of ‘with’ ‘In the 20th century’, he writes, ‘we were identified by what we owned; in the 21st century we will also be defined by how we share and what we give away.’ As discussed in some of the essays in this book, Wikipedia is a collaborative encyclopaedia project beyond the dreams of Robert Owen Open source software is similarly based on collaborative volunteering and now accounts for 80 per cent of the software on computer servers worldwide In health, for almost every chronic disease there are mutual support websites and email lists, many of them global In the arts, creative collectives are emerging as new forms of mutual aid In education, mutual learning sites have multiplied and there has been a proliferation of web-based communities of practice Robin Murray, who has contributed the first chapter in this book, produced a review of the UK co-operative sector in 2010 called Co-operation in the Age of Google In it, he concludes that: ‘all these and a multitude of other examples are co-operatives without walls Their practices reflect many of the seven co-operative principles: voluntary and open membership, member participation, autonomy and independence, education and information, and connection to other related groups Their forms of democracy vary What is distinct about them is that their inputs, their outputs and their distribution are largely free People contribute voluntarily There is open access to the outputs on the condition that any use made of them is also free It is at heart a gift economy, based on core principles of co-operation – reciprocity and mutual respect.’ So, does putting people at the centre of the equation make a difference? There is some evidence that engaging in co-operative enterprise helps to refresh the wellsprings of social reciprocity There is an increasing recognition in micro-economics that institutional form can have an impact on norms and behaviour around fairness Much of this work takes an empirical, rather than a philosophical, view as to what people think and how they behave in relation to fairness The pioneers of this approach include the great co-operative theorists of our day – Herbert Gintis, Samuel Bowles, Ernest Fehr, Elinor Ostrom and Johnston Birchall They are spearheading a renewal of contemporary research and thinking that is putting human behaviour and social norms of co-operation at the heart of social and economic thinking Fairness emerges as a key factor that encourages us to be co-operative in the expectation that others will be too Perhaps not surprisingly, 75 per cent of people associate co-operative businesses with acting fairly, compared to 18 per cent for shareholder companies Meanwhile, people who are members of co-operatives tend statistically to be more likely than others to feel good about the state of equal opportunities across the country and more likely to feel that there is help for those in need The beauty of this book is that contributors have the opportunity to explore the alternatives we have to a King Midas economy that turns resources and relationships into gold, unable to value what is not financial capital Co-operation is hard, they suggest, while never forgetting that, at least as it seems to me, true capitalism is impossible To deal with contemporary challenges of inequality and climate change, we need cooperation at all levels The values of co-operative self-help and mutual aid are more relevant than ever for those who wish to see shared prosperity and the emergence of a sustainable economy Ed Mayo Secretary General of Co-operatives UK, www.uk.coop Introduction Rob Harrison Background to this book The global banking collapse of 2008 left pretty much every major economic institution across the Western world looking pretty stupid Profit-seeking banks combining enormous bonuses with terrible investment decisions looked stupid Governments, which had been persuaded that light-touch regulation of capital markets was a good idea, didn’t look too clever either And economists, whose ideological commitment to the idea of self-correcting markets blinded them to the approaching collapse, their heads in shame Quite early on after the meltdown, people began to spot that co-operative and mutual institutions had, to a large extent, come out of the crisis looking less idiotic than most.1 And, in the years after the crisis, an increasingly confident co-operative movement began to put out statistics showing a growing cooperative sector that could be set against generally stagnant or declining economies elsewhere By 2011, when the real-world economic impacts of bailing out failed banks really began to bite, the idea of an Occupy movement caught the imagination of millions of people, and popular protests took place simultaneously in more then 1,000 cities around the world The movement was very effective at expressing anger against the major economic institutions and against capitalism as an economic system, but less effective at communicating a coherent alternative strategy An essay prize With some skilled good timing, the United Nations designated 2012 as the International Year of Cooperatives In late 2011, the team at Ethical Consumer – a research and campaigning cooperative – came up with the idea of a 2012-related essay prize If people were asked to answer the provocative question ‘is there a co-operative alternative to capitalism?’ then they would be encouraged to write and think about this subject at what might prove to be a particularly apposite time Do co-operatives offer an alternative model of social organization which could address financial instability, global justice and sustainability? Or they simply offer another way of organizing businesses within a predominantly capitalist economy? Has the modern co-operative movement become too polite and perhaps unambitious about what it could seek to achieve? Certainly in previous centuries cooperators were often writing stirring polemic about their vision of a future ‘co-operative commonwealth’ From the Rochdale Pioneers in Victorian England to Canadian socialists in the interwar years of the 20th century, the idea of a future where all businesses were co-operatively run was never far from view Would other people share the view that co-operation might offer some kind of systemic alternative? Would the essay prize generate some great writing or powerful insights? Arranging the chapters This book is mainly made up of the best entries we received Some are erudite and backed up by long Chris lives and works in two fully mutual co-operatives, Gung Ho and Birmingham Bike Foundry respectively Both co-ops are members of Radical Routes, a UK federation of fully mutual cooperatives At the Bike Foundry Chris and his fellow workers are members of the Industrial Workers of the World union, which seeks the abolition of the wage system and the reorganization of society for the benefit of all This is something that he advocates and attempts to work towards with political writing and practical solidarity in struggles between workers and capital Although we are all forced to live out the contradictions of capital, there are still significant benefits in collaborative and co-operative practice for the individual Chris produces fiction under the collective identity Yao Ming and makes music in several bands For him knowledge, learning and the development of a humane and democratic society are an unfinished project by the whole of humanity Index Africa 87, 132, 164, 177, 229, 230, 234 agricultural co-ops 15, 145, 171, 174, 205 Albert, Michael 91 alternative finance 180, 181, 183-191, 236 alternative trade 171, 176 Amazon 110, 112, 132 American Crystal Sugar 206 Amnesty International 201 Android 107 Apache 107 Apple 110, 133 Argentina 12, 31-3, 126, 165 Arizmendiarreta, Jose 25, 26 Arrhenius, Svante 155 arts Asia 20, 175-6, 230, 234 Atos 206 Axelrod, Robert 73 Banca Etica 180-1, 185-9 Banca Prossima 185 banks 10, 20-3, 28, 36, 44, 46-7, 64, 78, 85, 87, 93, 130, 149, 158, 160, 182, 184-190, 194, 217, 225, 226 Basque 37, 177-8 Belgium 166 Benkler, Yochai, 72, 106 Berners-Lee, Tim 107 Big Society 37, 73, 169, 201, 217 Birchall, Johnston 9, 89 Birmingham Bike Foundry 210, 237 Bitcoin 127 Blair, Margaret 86 Blair, Tony 45 Bologna 27 Botsman, Rachel 131, 134 Bowles, Samuel 9, 74, 91 Brazil 12, 38, 144-5, 165, 229 Brecht, Bertolt 217 Bristol Pound 126-7 Britain 42, 81, 86 (see also UK), 198-9 Brooks Law 115 Brown, Gordon 197 Brundtland Report 140, 145 Bruni, Luigino 184 building societies 28, 44, 55, 93, 154, 200 Buytaert, Dries 118 Buzzbnk 131 Cameron, David 37, 169 Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament 201 Canada 12, 23, 27, 166, 168, 170-1, 173-6, 230, 235 Canonical 133 capital 7, 9, 10, 27, 29, 31-3, 39, 42-44, 48-50, 54, 71-3, 110, 129, 154, 165-172, 189-90 capitalism 6, 7, 9, 11, 13-6, 27, 32, 34-7, 40, 43, 45, 53, 55, 58-60, 62, 64, 71, 74, 76-80, 85-92, 94-101, 105, 119, 121, 123-6, 130, 139-143, 149, 151, 164, 180-186, 194-7, 201, 203-5, 211-214, 216-8, 224, 226 charities 13, 69-70, 127, 160 child poverty 59 China 39, 80, 108 Chrome 13, 107 Churchill, Winston 198 Citigroup 159 civil markets 184, 186 civil society 14, 36, 69-70, 148, 196 class 20, 27, 32, 35, 85, 87, 96, 199, 203, 211 climate change 9, 14, 22, 38, 65, 86, 115, 120, 124, 155-6, 226 Club of Rome 155 collaborative consumption 134 Colombia 165 commons 97-8 Community Gateway 46 Community Housing Mutual 46 Competition Commission (UK) 60, 62 Conservative Party (UK) 73, 198, 217, 218 consumer co-ops 15, 20, 24, 26, 34, 64, 131, 135, 150, 165, 204, 208 consumerism 39, 45, 208, 213 co-operation 6, 9, 21, 29, 30, 45, 76-8, 83-4, 88 Co-operative Bank 205 Co-operative Commission (UK) 45 Co-operative Councils (UK) 67 Co-operative Group (UK) 46, 118, 128, 134, 150, 205, 207-8, 210, 217, 221, 230, 232 co-operative movement 10-11, 13, 17, 20, 26, 45, 88, 94, 98, 126, 130, 132-3, 135, 142, 148-9, 151, 200-1, 219, 232, 234 Co-operative Party 199-201, 232 Co-operative Principles 7-8, 42, 70, 134, 203-4, 207-8, 213-4, 226 Co-operatives UK 9, 46, 105, 200, 201, 204-5, 207-8, 228-9 co-operativism 71, 87-9, 99-100, 232 Co-op Pound 126-9, 133 Co-op Suisse corporations 13, 85-6, 89, 96, 106, 128-9, 132-3, 142-3, 146, 149, 172, 174, 202, 206, 211, 217, 221 Côté, Denyse 172 Creative Commons 30, 106 credit unions 21, 23, 25, 34, 64, 93, 149, 164 Cunnett, Jessie 67 currencies, local 98, 126-7 Dahl, Robert 139, 141-3, 146-7 Davies, William 97 Dawkins, Richard 73, 78 democracy 8, 20, 25-6, 36, 39, 62, 80-1, 85-7, 89, 91-4, 112, 124, 136, 139-143, 146-9, 151, 196 Denmark 24, 235 Derrick, Paul 90 Desroches, Henri 166 De Tocqueville 142 Devine, Pat 96 Diaspora 111 Dickens, Charles 124 Dragons’ Den 106, 107 Drupal 13, 107, 118 Dunbar, Robin 24-5 Dyer-Witheford, Nick 98 Earth Summit 140 eBay 110, 127, 132 economic democracy 36, 85, 139-143, 148-9, 151 education 8, 17, 24, 26-7, 29, 43, 66, 88, 98-9, 114, 145, 178, 186, 198-9, 201, 20, 224 Egypt 87 Ellerman, David 91 Elson, Diane 97 Emilia Romagna 23, 165, 167 Engels, Friedrich 34 England 22, 40 entropy 125 environment 14, 15 equality 35, 83, 139, 141-3, 147-8, 151-2, 156-7, 161 Equal Exchange Ltd 150-151 Essential Trading Ltd 150-1, 234 Ethical Consumer 11, 12, 14, 15, 133, 208, 220, 228 ethical values 88, 147, 161 Europe 22, 34, 59, 62, 93, 123, 169 European Union 144, 166, 170 evolutionary biology 21 externalities 14, 59, 61, 63, 65, 72, 95, 188 Facebook 13, 48, 107, 109-112, 117 fair trade 7, 14, 21, 81, 164, 171, 223, 225, 226, 229, 232 FAO 177 Fehr, Ernest financial crisis 10, 14-5, 78, 86, 124, 156, 197 finanzcapitalismo 182-3 Finland Firefox 13, 107 firms 15, 23, 33, 85-6, 88-9, 91-3, 95, 97, 99, 143, 146, 154, 158, 164 Flickr 106 Foire, Pascal 36 Fonderie de l’Aisne 36 Fonterra Fordism 21 Fourier, Danielle 172 Fourier, Joseph, 34, 155 France 36, 166, 180-192 Frère, Bruno 185 Friends of the Earth 201 future generations 54, 158, 161 G8 144 G20 108 Gallino, Luciano 182 Gandhi, Mohandas 25 gender 169, 172-3, 177, 199, 235 Germany 22-4, 38, 80 Gibson-Graham, JK 97 Giddens, Anthony 169 Gide, Charles 166 Gintis, Herbert 9, 74, 91 Git 119-20 Global Footprint Network 155 Goodreault, Nadine 173 Google 8, 13 107, 110, 133 governance 53, 64, 68-70, 76, 85-6, 90-2, 94, 140, 159, 203, 230 GPL 118 Graham-Bell, Alexander 111 Greece 31 Green, Pauline 35 Green Economics Institute 161, 235 Greenpeace 14, 201 Hacker, Jakob 94 Hahnel, Robin 91 happiness 16, 97, 155 Harvard 112 Harvey, David 98 Hayek, Freidrich 60, 77, 92 healthcare 26, 98, 149, 161, 230 hedge funds 160, 189, 203 Hedges, Chris 35 Hertz, Noreena 105, 202 Hind, Dan 99-100 Hirschmann, Albert 90 Hirst, Paul 90, 143 Hobbes, Thomas 72 Holland 23 housing 35, 46, 60, 85, 164, 201, 219, 230, 232 HTML 107 Hulu 107 Hutton, Will 86 Hutton Report 157 India 108, 135 Indignados, Los 54 inequality 9, 35, 46, 59, 78, 128, 156-8, 165, 178, 230 Infinity 150 International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) 6, 32, 34, 35, 147, 208 International Labour Organization International Monetary Fund (IMF) 31, 126, 164 International Year of Co-operatives 11, 12, 34-5 insurance 20, 28, 45, 49, 130, 154, 160, 168, 182, investment 22, 48, 50, 53, 59, 64, 80, 86, 95-6, 106, 112, 129-131, 136, 154, 160, 169-71, 175, 182, 226, 231 iPhone 13, 107, 113 Ireland 167, 170 Israel 206 Italy 23-4, 27, 165-7, 180-92, 236 Jackson, Tim 96 Janlaxmi 135 Japan 24, 108 joint-stock companies 21, 154, 159 John Lewis 209 Joomla 13, 107, 118 Kelly, Marjorie 36 Keynes, John Maynard 60 KfW 22 Kickstarter 111 Klein, Naomi 32 Kropotkin, Pyotr 216-7 Labour Party (UK) 67, 73, 90, 94, 199-200, 203, 232 Laird, Andrew 67 La Nef 180-1, 185-8, 190 Lao Tzu 116 Latin America 38, 164, 176 Latour, Bruno 26 Leadbeater, Charles Leather, Suzi 69 Lehman Brothers 79, 124, 159 Lewes Pound 126 Lewis, Avi 32 Liberty 201 Limits to Growth 155-6, 158 Linux 107, 113-6, 119, 133 Locke, John 91 London School of Economics 154 London Stock Exchange 44, 48 McGonigal, Jane 109 MAG6 180-1, 185-190 Malaysia 175 Mambo 118 Margulis, Lynn 73 market share of co-ops 7, 44, 70 Martin, Paul 171 Marx, Karl 27-8, 34, 36, 91, 96, 124, 125, 129-130, 182 marxism 15, 124 Maude, Francis 67 McGonigal, Jane 109 microcredit 177 micro-economics Microsoft 107 Midas Midcounties Co-operative Energy Middle East 80, 87 Migros Miliband, Ed 73, 94 MIT 118 Mitchell, JTW 20 Mittelstand 22 Mondragon 25-6, 37, 88-9, 99, 177-8 Morocco 176 Morris, William 30 Mozilla 107, 114 MST 145 Mullenweg, Matt 118 multinational corporations 174 Murray, Robin Mutuals Programme 67 National Health Service 46, NatWest 70 Nehru, Jawaharlal 25 neoliberalism 21, 78, 93-5, 101, 104, 141 networks 12, 23-4, 28, 106, 120, 145, 165, 167, 170, 227 New Economics Foundation (NEF) 129, 156, 158, 234 New Internationalist 39, 230 New Zealand/Aotearoa News of the World 46 NGOs 13, 151, 164, 175, 229 Nigeria 177 Ning 111 North Africa 87 North America 20, 22, 27 Novkovic, Sonja 205 Nowak, Martin 37, 74 nuclear energy 22 Oba, Nick 111-2 Occupy Movement 10, 21, 35, 46, 54, 87, 101, 104, 202, 232, 233 open source (software) 8, 13, 30, 105, 107, 109-111, 113-9, 122, 233 organic food 175 Ostrom, Elinor 9, 16, 21, 50-1, 72 Owen, Robert 8, 34, 74 Packer, Daniel 110 Pagel, Mark 38 Pants to Poverty 131 Paraguay 38 Parma ham 23 Parmesan 23 PayPal 127 pension funds 85, 131, 160, 182 Peters, Aaron 96 PHP 13, 107, 110 Pickett, Kate 136, 156-7 Pink, Daniel 108-9 Play 133 Poundland 217 PPI mis-selling 206 Prince, Chuck 158 Polanyi, Karl 95 profit maximization 168 Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph 34 public sector 44, 49, 59, 64-6, 68, 72, 160, 167 Python 13, 107 Québec 27, 167, 171-3 Rabobank 23 Radical Routes 219, 237 Rand, Ayn 37 Rawls, John 94 Raymond, Eric S 113-116, 119, 122 recovered co-op factories 32-3, 38 Red Hat 114 renerwable energy 24 Restakis, John 16-17, 89 Robert Owen 8, 74 Robinson, John 140 Rocard, Michel 166 Rochdale Pioneers 11, 26, 33-4, 47, 81, 104, 149, 201 Rogers, Roo 131, 134 Ruby 13, 107 Ruggieri, Andrés 33 Russia 80, 167 Rwanda 38 Safari 13, 107 Santos, Sousa 191 Sartre, John Paul 123 schools 27, 46, 55, 220-1, 224 Scotland 33 Shakespeare, William 84 shareholders 9, 13, 34, 47, 54, 80, 86, 92, 97, 110, 121, 128, 143, 158-60, 189, 212, 222 Shirkey, Clay 119 Shiva, Vandana 144 Sloan Wilson, David 51 Smith, Adam 72, 108 Social Action Fund (UK) 70 social care 24, 27 social economy 12-14, 21, 141-2, 145-6, 148-51, 164, 166-75, 231, 235 social-investment state 167, 169-70, 173 socialism 21, 71, 73, 86, 90, 92, 197, 216 socialist 11, 29, 90-1, 94, 104, 217 social networks 109, 111, 132, software 8, 13, 30, 105-110, 113-120, 182, 233 solidarity economics 14, 181 South America 80 Soviet Union 124, 194 Spain 12, 24-5, 31, 37, 62, 89, 165, 168, 177-8, 229 Sparkessen 22 Sri Lanka 20 Stalin, Josef 38 Stallman, Richard 113 Stewart, John 73 Suma Wholefoods 24-5, 150 sustainable development 89, 139-42, 144-6, 148-9, 151 sustainability 11, 12, 15, 17, 54, 71, 139, 141-2, 144, 146, 151, 167, 174, 221, 226, 229, 230 swaraj 25 Sweden Switzerland Taiwan 211-2 tax 46, 64-6, 69, 72, 171, 226, 227, 231 taxation 45, 59, 65, 94, Tesco 44, 206, 217 Thailand 176 Thatcher, Margaret 37, 154, 196, 199, 236 Thompson, William 213 Tibet 120 Torvalds, Linus 114-6, 119 Totnes Pound 126 Toupin, Louise 173 trades unions 14, 88, 91, 100, 148, 164 Transition Towns 52, 54 transnational corporations 128, 132, 143, 146, 148, 174, 221 Trivers, Robert 73 Turner, Adair 159 Turner Graham 155 Twitter 13, 233, 106-7, 110, 112, 117 Ubuntu One 133 Uganda 145 UK 43, 44, 48, 52, 55, 59, 62, 65, 68-71, 141, 145, 149-50, 157 UK Uncut 46, 54, 202 unemployment 31, 59, 62, 164, 178 Unicorn 150 United Nations 6, 11, 34, 39 United Nations Development Programme 144 United States 35, 86, 88, 108, 126, 141, 157, 195, 205 United Steelworkers Union (US) 88 Uruguay 38 Venezuela 38, 165 video gaming 109 Walras, Léon 166 Webkit 107 websites 8, 107, 109, 111, 133, 186, 192 Western Economic Diversification Canada 166, 174 Weckernagel, Mathias 155 Wikipedia 8, 13, 30, 55, 107, 109, 116, 118 Wilkinson, Richard 136, 156-7 Williams, Raymond 68 Wilson, David Sloan 51 windpower 24 Wired 112 women’s groups 14, 164, 173, 177 Wordpress 13, 107, 110, 114, 118 worker co-ops 15, 24-6, 31-3, 38, 88, 98-100, 135, 146, 150-2, 165, 212 World Bank 164 Wright, Eric Olin 36 YouTube 13, 107, 110, 112 YPF 31 Yugoslavia 38 Zamagni, Stefano 184 Žižek, Slavoj 58, 71, 95 Zopa 131 Zurker 110-2 About Ethical Consumer Research Assocation Ethical Consumer is a not-for-profit, multi-stakeholder co-operative, dedicated to the promotion of universal human rights, environmental sustainability and animal welfare It was founded in Manchester, UK in 1988 ECRA produces independent research designed to: encourage sustainable behaviour across the corporate sector through market pressure empower individual consumers to take action on issues of concern to them lead international discussion and research on the potential of ethical purchasing We produce: Ethical Consumer Magazine - the UK’s leading alternative consumer magazine, published times a year This is available as a paper copy delivered to your door or as a digital download Ethical Consumer website – which monitors corporate activity daily and contains over 180 interactive product guides, campaign information and forums Bespoke research - for campaign groups and ethically-minded organisations Clients include Amnesty International, Christian Aid, the Co-operative Bank and International Consumer Research and Testing www.ethicalconsumer.org About New Internationalist We are an independent not-for-profit publishing co-operative We publish a monthly magazine and a range of books covering current affairs, education, world food, fiction, photography and ethical living, as well as customized products, such as calendars and diaries, for the NGO community New Internationalist magazine The Big Story: understanding the key global issues The Facts: accessible infographics Agenda: cutting edge reports Country Profile: essential insights and star ratings Argument: heated debate between experts Mixed Media: the best of global culture www.newint.org Other World Changing titles All available in print and e-book formats newint.org/books ... we need to replace joint-stock companies with co- operatives in the sustainable economies of the future Co- operatives and the wider alternative economy 11 Cheryl Lans Co- operatives and their place... Rebuilding the collective spirit through the experience of co- ops 14 Chris Tomlinson The false alternative of co- operative choice under capitalism Afterword: What one thing needs to change to make co- operatives... counter the divisions and inequalities of the market economy The coop model is a challenge to the hyper-competitive, winner-takes-all model of corporate capitalism Co- operatives show there is another