Since the financial crisis of 2008 and the global popular protests of 2011, more people have begun to wonder and speculate: what’s next for civilization? The economic, social, and political status quo seems unsustainable, but what can emerge to take its place? In this book, a historian examines the past and present to argue that the seeds of a more humane society are already being planted, on … local and international scales. Whether they will bear fruit depends, ultimately, on grassroots initiative.
Focusing on the new worker cooperative movement in the West, this study not only contains the first systematic discussion of the solidarity economy in the light of Marxist theory; it also introduces a major revision of Marxism that both updates it for the twenty-first century and illuminates our historical moment. It includes an analysis of the history of cooperatives in the U.S., showing where they went wrong and how we can correct their past mistakes. It has a case-study of the successful new worker-owned business New Era Windows in Chicago, which has been celebrated internationally for its defiance of conventional paradigms. And it shows a way out of the age-old conflict between Marxism and anarchism, arguing that both are more relevant now than they have ever been. Which is to say: a gradualist “revolution” is, for the first time, within the realm of possibility.
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A fascinating look at the history of the American social system and how the emerging worker cooperatives (where businesses are owned and run by their members) could revolutionize the economy, for the better. Wright also informs on the history of the US labor movement, and his take on Marxism and revolution.
So are working cooperatives the answer in moving towards a post-capitalist America? Wright’s argument is definitely convincing, thanks to his accessible style of writing and well-researched examples. This certainly isn’t just a book for academics and it has inspired me to learn more about worker cooperatives and the impact they could have on modern society.
Author Chris Wright earned his PhD in US history and has published many articles in both academic and popular outlets such as New Politics, the Independent, ROAR Magazine, the Washington Post, Truthout etc. He has also published poetry and fiction as well as his three major volumes – FINDING OUR COMPASS, NOTES OF AN UNDERGROUND HUMANIST, and WORKER COOPERATIVES AND REVOLUTION. On his website he shares, ‘My major preoccupation now is concern over the fate of humanity, which is headed into a perfect storm of crises…I can only plead that, for some perverse reason unknown to me, I feel compelled to tell uncomfortable truths, which means flouting orthodoxies on the political right, center, and left. Society is upside-down: hypocrisy, stupidity, snobbery, cruelty, and general absurdity tend to define our world. We might as well be honest.’ His writing is grounded in Marxist humanism, the philosophy that offers the world some hope.
One of the many aspects that makes such an impact in reading this book is Chris Wright’s unapologetic stance in presenting his convictions. Even as the book opens his presentation is clearly stated: ‘The capitalist mode of production does not permit a socially efficient allocation of resources. Resource allocation is determined by the twin structural imperatives of having purchasing power (on the demand side) and of chasing profit (on the supply side). If one has a need but lacks the money to back up that need, as for example the billion children worldwide living in poverty do, one’s need will not be met by the market. Conversely, investors will pursue only those projects that have the potential to make a profit…Broadly speaking, the dynamic between capital and wage-labor, as well as that between millions of atomized units of capital each seeking profit at the expense of every other, makes for a very unstable and crisis-prone economy. Capital’s interests lie in paying the worker as little as possible and in preventing him from exercising control over the process of production, while the worker wants to be paid as much as possible and to exercise greater control over production…From the very beginning of its history, the manifold evils of capitalism have given rise to oppositional movements’…and with that springboard, Wright launches into one of the more convincing and illuminating discussions of the history of the cooperative movement, both globally and in the United States.
Follow the author’s exploration and distillation of Marxism and discover aspects of labor and economy about which we know too little. This is a rich resource of information by which we may rethink our current status. ‘Worker and consumer cooperativism, the social economy, the solidarity economy, local participatory democracy, public banking, regional economic coordination – all this represents the future.’ This is a book that should be required reading for those framing tomorrow.