Forum Post: Why you don't build cooperatives?
Posted 10 years ago on Oct. 15, 2014, 3:11 p.m. EST by gonzo1
(66)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
If you guys claim that you are communists or at least you support communism, then why you don't build cooperatives?
If one million communists put $10 each, you get $10 million to start with. You can start with some cooperatives where you create some jobs, you learn to work together, and then you invest the benefits into expanding and creating more jobs. You can start with basic things like agriculture for example. You will also find generous sponsors, I'm quite sure that rich communist supporters like Michael Moore will support you either with money or with publicity.
Other people can build successful cooperatives, why you couldn't do that too? If one million of your supporters will donate $1 / month, you get $1 million / month. There are plenty of opportunities for you to build and expand cooperatives.
But even before creating cooperatives, you can start working together, doing some things that don't even require any money to start with. Like for example cleaning the streets. Or anything else that brings you together and where you work together, learning to cooperate. Or you can create your own encyclopedia. But there are many other things you can do together.
The fundamental piece of communism is the cooperative. If you refuse to do that, that means that one day you will put someone in power, and that person will become a dictator, and he will enslave and terrorize the people in the name of the communism, like for example in Cuba, Russia or North Korea.
I am not a communist, but if you would do a good project, creating some cooperatives that actually create jobs and build something positive, I would support you.
You must do something because just complaining never solves anything.
What forced collectivization? With money you can buy land or properties or rent real estate and such. Other people started successful cooperatives in capitalist countries, they still exist, they work for profit. You don't need any collectivization.
You can make cooperatives that produce profits, just like many other people already did.
http://www.thenews.coop/49090/news/general/view-top-300-co-operatives-around-world/
I would love to start a cooperative.Not with undercover corporate and/or .gov agents,though.These things take time.People don;t like change.Especially the 1% who can't be expected to sit idly by while people abandon debt and wage slavery.When the 1% begins to squeeze harder for moar money whilst discarding even moar workers,organizing will get easier.Capitalism has little or no use for most of us.They don;t want our labor,and customers without money don't interest them either.They're outta here.The mess left behind is our problem.Even so,they will try to stop people organizing cooperatives.We are supposed to become like a 3rd world country and live in their system while getting zero benefit of it.A good deal,from their perspective.I think people won't buy it for much longer.I could be wrong...
I agree that the oligarchs won't like to see too much cooperatives, still there are already cooperatives that work very well in capitalist countries, that proves that cooperatives can be created and expanded. I suspect there are more undercover corporate and govt agents inside Occupy Wall Street right now than what it would be inside cooperatives. That's exactly what those undercover agents want you do to: just complain and do nothing practical. Let's at least clean the streets together, let's show the world that we can actually do something, not just complain. There are still some human rights and justice in the US and in the West, much more than in many other countries, let's take advantage of it now, while we still can, before it is too late. The cooperatives that exist in the capitalist countries are much better and prosperous than those that exist in communist countries, where such cooperatives are in fact government enterprises where the people work like slaves. There are still opportunities that we should take advantage of.
There is a great deal of merit in your statements.For one thing.people randomly organizing self help cooperatives is a good thing.and a logical first step to organizing for profit worker owned enterprises.This is already taking place with both nonprofit and for profit organization.Something I don't see happening is an effort to train organizers for the purpose of a coordinated strategy.We need to have both,IMO.As for plants within #OWS,in NYC there are no trusted people on the inside because the people have all known each other for many years.Among younger people,the lack of experience shows them up right away.Posing and passing for something you're not is a skill that takes time to develop.My efforts at organizing mostly fail because organizers must work in pairs.There is a psychological bias that causes people to be unable to trust lone individuals who approach them who are strangers.I have thus far failed to find another person who is interested in community organizing in my area-even when I tried to find someone who would partner with me to organize opposition to the NY Safe Act.Many people around here complain bitterly about the NY Safe Act,but apparently they think voting for the Right Wing of UnipartyUSA will fix the problem and they refused to consider my arguments that UnipartyUSA is responsible for the infringement on their 2nd Amendment rights here in NY State.I plan on going to the Left Forum 2014 to ask my betters what their organizing strategy is.That,at least I can do by myself.Thank you for your ideas.You are right-time for some serious Bootstrapping before it becomes even more difficult to find funds.
Thanks for the nice words. The question is how can we find more people like us that actually want to do something. I would like to help you with NY issues but I live very far from NY - in fact, I live in Europe. First of all, I noticed that there is no real communication between activists. There are extremely few forums for activists and this is one of them (or maybe the only one). I noticed that none of the charities that claim they want to save the world have forums, so I started such a forum: http://gamf.freeforums.org - not because I like to manage a forum, but because I had to do it. In order to start cooperatives we should start with very basic things, like agriculture. We can even make a Kickstarter campaign for starting a small cooperative farm, even with one hectare - that won't cost much. Sadly, a real, functional communism was never tried. Until now, the people only put criminals in power who call themselves communists. Communism has to be build by the people, it must be build from the grassroots. Someone should start a small cooperative one day and try to expand it with the aim to create a functional society. If we can't start a cooperative now, at least we can talk about how to do it, at least we can build ideas and plans. In time, we will eventually find more people who want to join and one day we'll start it. I am ready to communicate here or anywhere else, the most important thing is to find others like us. There are many other like us in this world but they can't find us because we have a lot to learn about how to reach each others. No ideology will save us, only our actions might save us. We need to take the best from both worlds - (communism) cooperatives should replace big corporations and in the same time (capitalism) to have a free market, competitive prices, insurances and lots of other safety nets.
Yes.We need a place where people who want to do this can create listings-under Resources and under Labor.I am just an artist,but I have land,tools,a tractor,animals.I would really like to get something started.There are lots of people who have expertise who are unemployed.I am going to go to the Left Forum in NYC in the Spring and tell them all of this.The college professors who have the STUDENTS will be there.They have got to listen to me because we are running out of time.This spring is Make or Break.
Those who want communism should at least create a place where the unemployed can donate their time in order to generate resources (and money). Those resources can be used to expand the cooperative and to create paid jobs. Please keep me updated with your progress. By the way, you might want to check Open Source Ecology - they have some interesting ideas.
I was not able to Protest with the Communists at the "World Business Forum" earlier this month due to "liquidity crisis" in the household budget.I am going to the Left Forum in the Spring no matter what I have to do to get there.I will report back on what transpired there.Many of the people on this forum are not able to travel to NYC to attend events there and they rely on me somewhat for eyewitness accounts of what is going on there.So any relevant developments will be described here to the best of my ability.No Economy can be healthy unless people Work & Save.With over 90 million Americans NOT doings these,any and all Remedies must be considered.This is not confined to the US-Situation Critical.
IS this a choice blindness test? You know who the commies are? Wallstreet...they partner with the largest Communist regime in the world and make everything there in the wonderful country of child labor and the nonstop workday ( google Chinese working inside of dangerous machines) ...they run their companies that way...they love a collective that works to feed those that don't ...you know the pigs at the top of the trough taking their fill while working dumbfucks like us build them. And fill them.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1363114/90-hour-week-just-72-Ford-China-parts-supplier-accused-virtual-slave-labor.html
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TMIK_fGCSIM
WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot? Communists? Forced collectivization? Must do something? How? The Co-operatives are coming on line right now.Didn't hear about it? Somebody must have decided not to report on it.A few people here and there can't really change the way enterprise is organized in the US across the board.People will have to form voluntary associations.Newsflash:Americans have no control over what .gov does.I suggest you attend the Left Forum in the Spring if you feel the need to discover how organized or disorganized Leftist Radicals are.They have a website.The Left Forum for 2015 has not been scheduled yet.Check out Democracy at Work and Economic Update for October,2013 by Richard Wolff on Youtube.Thanks for stopping by-please note that there are about 10 communists in NYC and they are in their 90's now.
lol - are you slapping a distractavist?
They probably are trying to run something up the Flagpole.I hate when people insult the Ancient Commies of NYC.They have the best repertoire of cuss words EVER and they are helping Occupy so I hope they live to 125 years old.
SOSDD - they keep recycling this crap over and over and over - too bad it does nothing to help the environment - Hey?
K - nuff said on a stupid distractivism post.