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GEO 12: International Year of the Cooperative

The United Nations has declared 2012 to be the "International Year of the Cooperative." This issue of GEO explores the significance of this declaration, ways that it connects with broader cooperative movement strategies, and other dimensions of building a stronger global cooperative/solidarity economy movement.

2012: Year of the Cooperative

Strengthening Cooperative Movements

Cooperative Policy

Global Solidarity Economies

Activites and Resources

 

BLOG POSTS

Video: Graeber and Harvey

The video embedded in the full story below is a session with David Harvey, a prolific author championing Freedom of the City and David Graeber, the Occupy Activist, Anarchist, Anthropologist. The videw is almost an hour and a half and both authors take substantial time to provide context on both the books and their feelings about #occupy. Harvey's book is Rebel Cities and Graeber's is Debt: The First 5000 Years. There is a lot of good thought and support for co-operative action and power.

Go to the full article for the video:

A Report from Co-op Day at the White House

Dave Karoly of the NoBAWC staff was kind enough to share his report on the recent White House Co-op Day. We are sharing the report and a couple of the pictures in the longer body of this blog entry. The National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA) coordinated the event and was, from all accounts quite a successful day.

Dave's report, unedited other than for format for posting, follows.

Global Civic Society and The Civil Economy

This is the title of a worthwhile article over on openDemocracy.net. Written by Robin Murray, a Visiting Research Fellow at the London School of Economics (as opposed to my position as Resident Applied Fool at the Manorhaven School of Hard Knocks?) on the state of the "Global Civil Society" in 2012.

200,000 students on strike across Quebec

The province-wide strike in Quebec has now been going for over 11 weeks

An Intriguing Counterpoint to the "No Bosses" meme

Valve is a Software game development company founded by an alumnus of Microsoft. Self-funded, it has about 300 employees. Its first product came together quickly and paid off handsomely. Most importantly, it has no bosses. It is entirely flat. There have been several write-ups recently about Valve in the mainstream (Capitalist) business press pointing out the "no boss" structure.

Some Exposure for Co-ops

The Post Carbon Institute's Energy Bulletin just posted an article titled "The Hidden Power of Coops" by Michael Shuman.  It is a glowing report with lots of numbers and good words. The segment is a reprint of a piece of the author's book Local Dollars, Local Sense: How to Move Your Money from Wall Street to Main Street and Achieve Real Prosperity

Occupy and the Solidarity Economy perspective

Solidarity Economic perspectives develop from penetrating reflection on our actual experience to find the questions we need to be asking
More blog posts
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GLEANINGS

Complementary (Local) Currency Software

There has been a resurgence of interest in complementary currencies. With the Eurozone's austerity shutting down national economies in Greece, Italy, and Spain, local currencies are emerging as a tool fot communities to keep going and sustain themselves during periods of extreme economic deprivation. There has been coverage, for example, of an alternative currency scheme in Volos, Greece. The corporate media represents the currency as a "barter" system which it is not.

Link: 
Complementary (Local) Currency Software

Quebec Students Ignite the Popular Imagination

Vibrant nightly protests over the past week in downtown Montréal, in solidarity with the Quebec student strike, are sparking global attention. As the Quebec-wide strike continues - it has now been going for over 11 weeks - a new energy is apparent in the city.
Link: 
Quebec Students Ignite the Popular Imagination

May Day 2012: Love in a Hopeless Place?

In eighty other countries, May 1 is officially marked as International Workers Day. Not here in the US. So it’s no small thing that this May 1 in Los Angeles, Oakland, Seattle, Chicago, New York and scores of other places, tens of thousands of Americans picketed businesses, blocked intersections, held teach-ins, sang and took to the streets.
Link: 
May Day 2012: Love in a Hopeless Place?

How gift economies work

The gift economy questions an order that is already established, a trend where people accumulate more and have more difficulty in sharing, in giving, because they want to fit a global model that says that there’s not enough in this world for all of us, that says that the most intelligent people are the ones who are able to exploit others and gather more. That paradigm has been failing people for the longest time. Everyone thinks is the only model, which is not true.
Link: 
The Link to Humanity - Gift Economies

Credit Union Lending Cap Increase Needs Your Support

The National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA) is asking members and all friends of cooperatives to demonstrate their support of S. 2231, which will enable credit unions to support economic growth through increased small business lending. The bill is in the US Senate, and critical action on this bill could come in the next few weeks. It’s important that members of the Senate hear from the cooperative community about the importance of voting in favor of this legislation.

Kickstarter Request: Please Support "Shift Change: Putting Democracy to Work"

USFWC Members and Worker Coop Supporters,

I’m writing to ask you to support the completion of the documentary film about worker cooperatives, “Shift Change: Putting Democracy to Work.&rdquo

How Worker Cooperatives Work

GEO Associate Member, Joe Maraffino recently presented a session "How Worker Cooperatives Work" at the 2012 Upstate (NY) Cooperative Convention (Building Our Economic Future). People are much more familiar with consumer co-ops, credit unions, and the like so Joe introduced worker co-ops. Click Read More for the slide show.

Link: 
Slideshows from the 2012 Upstate Cooperatives Summit
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GEO is a volunteer-run collective and relies on your generosity.  We make our content free but also sell printed back issues in our store - each full of of grassroots documentation from activists and innovators.  

The trailblazing GEO 8: Worker Cooperative Development Models is available in a special printed 36-page magazine format.  Buy it in our online store, or contact GEO for bulk purchases or resale. 

All purchases help fund GEO, a volunteer-run collective project of the Ecological Democracy Institute of North America.

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