By Loez, Lougar Raynmarth, Co-operative Economy
Our goal is not just to give women a job, we want to empower women, so that they may go out, be active. If women stay at home with nothing, their minds collapse. But if they go out, do something creative, meet people, their morale improves.
By Ruby Irene Pratka, Shareable
The Solidarity Research Center based in Los Angeles, California, was established in 2014 by a group of researchers and academics with roots in organized labor. Now they are working on projects across the country, linking the ethos of the labor movement and the dynamics of the cooperative economy to build and promote cooperatives across a wide range of sectors.
By SoFA Coop Circle, Staff, Grassroots Economic Organizing
Sociocracy and cooperativism stem from the premise that humans thrive as social animals. Quite possibly, cooperation acts as our most characteristic trait as living beings. We need each other. No human effort, made by a lone individual, succeeds.
By Oliver Sylvester-Bradley, Open Coop
Today the term ‘thread’ has taken on another meaning and even the Oxford English Dictionary includes a second definition, after sewing and weaving, citing a thread as “a group of linked messages posted on an Internet forum that share a common subject or theme” and it is here, in this new digital domain, that a renewed essence of cooperation is emerging.
By Robert Raymond, Shareable
But in the shadow of the looming refinery, and within the spaces between boarded up storefronts and abandoned lots, something is stirring in Richmond. Residents, organizers, and activists have come together to create an incubation hub for community revitalization and resilience.
By Nathan Schneider, P2P Foundation
There are two stories commonly told about robots these days. One is that, in the not-too-distant future, some enormous percentage of jobs currently being done by people will be taken over by computers, and the workers will be left twiddling their thumbs. The other is that, like past periods of technological change, job markets will simply evolve, and new, better things will arise for us to do. The truth is neither – and everything in between.
By Aasa Marshall, co-operatives first
A CUMA is an agricultural equipment co-op that provides farmers the use of large, expensive machinery, and decreases the cost to access up-to-date equipment. As an organization, a CUMA is group of farmers involved in the same sector (grain farming, dairy, etc.), who pool equity based on the type of equipment they need.
By Kali Akuno, Michael Palmieri, Paul Sliker, Dante Dallavalle
In Jackson Rising, Akuno helps chronicle the history, present and future of one of the most dynamic yet under-documented experiments in radical social transformation taking place in the United States.
By Oliver Sylvester-Bradley, Open Coop
Co-op coins are not a new concept but the days of trading locally minted coins for a pint of milk or a loaf of bread are long gone. Instead, the rising interest in digital currencies and rapid increase in the number of Initial Coin Offerings looks set to make 2018 “the year of the crypto currency”.
By Ted Trainer, Resilience.org
This is a remarkable and inspiring movement in Spain, now involving hundreds of people in what I regard as an example of The Simpler Way transition strategy … which is primarily about going underneath the conventional economy to build our own new collective economy to meet community needs, turning our backs on and deliberately undermining and eventually replacing both the capitalist system and control by the state.