From Corporations to Cooperatives

posted by Admin on Mon, 16/09/2013 - 20:48
2 - Social Awareness

For a sustainable, liveable and egalitarian world society, business will greatly have to transform from greedy, profit-obsessed, centralized, destructive Corporations to user, worker and environment friendly, sustainable Cooperatives in wide networks. The advantages for society are numerous, while the few disadvantages can essentially be reduced to the fact that some small elitarian groups can no more make as scandalous amounts of profit and money as they used to. May it be clear that this argument is quite irrelevant and may be considered "Collateral Damage", a concept that was actually invented by this same small elite and that they themselves have conveniently held as valuable in recent world history.

Of course, this kind of change should have already been proposed and developed by politicians, but, fortunately, it can also be done from within society itself. And it can be done by taking something that everybody disposes of: own initiative, either individually or collectively. 

The concept is actually very simple. ANY existing company, whether big or small, can be replaced, or at least strongly competed with, by another company that could be completely identical, but based on a socially responsable and environment friendly cooperative structure, instead of the, shortly obsolent, society and nature destructing, profit-obsessed model, as we have inherited from darker ages.

Here, a quote from Buckmister Fuller is completely well placed:

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. 
To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” -- Buckminster Fuller 

So while we should put and maintain pressure on our politicians and authorities to Bring Down Bank Secrecy (AND offshore banking/tax havens/treasure islands) as well as to increase VAT on publicity on TV and MSM to 100% (mainly corporations) to achieve a change towards a more transparent and egalitarian model top-down. We can all engage in achieving this change bottom-up, embracing and enforcing Cooperativism as the model to substitute Corporativism (Productionism).

Note that ALL existing, profit-obsessed business on the planet, at any scale whatosever, is subject to this quote, wherein the Cooperative as new model, will make profit-obsession as existing model completely obsolete, in the same way that coal became obsolete by oil, as will oil turn obsolete due to alternative energies and plastics. 

 

Unique Selling Point

One of the graciously ironic advantages of the Cooperative is a characteristic, that is considered almost crucial by classical marketing, invented and developed for the sake of profit within this Productionist society. This characteristic is: the Unique Selling Point (USP), in other words: those properties of a product, service or brand, that make it unique and stand out regarding other comparable products, services and brands.

The irony lays in the fact that product, services or brands of a cooperative always, will have one very strong USP that can NEVER be matched by the classical profit oriented business. Namely the fact that production in a Cooperative happen by and for the people and society, with all returns flowing back, instead of just into the pockets of a few greedy owners, investors or shareholders and from there to Treasure Islands. And this, dear reader, is a USP that could completely knock over all profit oriented companies within 50 years.

 

Erode way to obsolescence

It may take somewhat more than just those theoretical 50 years, since the aforementioned owners and shareholders will exploit all still existing ways, with their aggressive lobbies and sad corruption, to avoid this shift as long as possible. But their capacity will relentlessly drop as social pressure and initiatives will continue to increase, due to the extreme situation their insaciable greed and unlimited profit-obsession have led global society and our planet. Thus we will see that Cooperatives will emerge in each sector and on every scale, that thanks to their exclusive USP will have a profound "Competetive Advantage" regarding old style business. 
Again, an ironic fact is, that in this sense the Cooperatives dispose of a monopoly, without even having had to acquire any "rights" by paying larges sums of money, as Corporations like to play it, but that it just is an inherent part of this model in a natural way. So it looks like a few of the shrewd marketing tricks, that have only been invented to dominate and control "the market" as muchs as possible for the sake of Productionism, now could be working against them. Or well, more in favor of Cooperatives. Maybe this could happen with more of their tricks. With the current collective, social, Global mindset it is probable that old style business (driven by profit and greed) could slowly (or rapidly) erode away, like the existing model from the citation.

 

Already on the horizon

The first clear examples are already appearing on the horizon, like the initiative in Belgium and Holland to set up new banks as Cooperatives, or a new social web, that actually is socially comitted under a structure they describe as "For Community Profit Initiative", as clearly opposed to the well-known internet phenomenon, that only exists for and by the grace of publicity, espionage and shareholders.

 

If you know about more of these kind of initiatives, please contact :)

 

An answer on EvolveSociety.org

Well we cannot do without politics and business just yet, nor even make the jump from the current state of "art". But we can make the first steps, as discussed on other threads: Eradicate Large Scale Corruption (98%) by Bringing Down Tax Havens and shift from Corporations to Cooperatives for real global democracy. 

When that "stage" is completed, then we might have reached enough collective maturity and consciousness to  actualy also do without money. That would be when there is no more politics (intended as manipulation of the masses) nor business (intended as considering the planet just a disposable source of cheap resources and global society as "the market" with huge profits for a few and very little for the rest).

And well... I don't really consider religions (in the sense of someone up there - male? created to the image of men? - who "invented" us only to judge over us our whole live and finally decide whether to put us among the clouds or in an oven - there is really no sense or purpose in this, unless for his/her own fun...). 

If the above scenario would really be played out, then religions would just continue to erode away in the process, as they have been doing since the enlightment. 

It does not mean that spirituality would disappear, but definitely in another form, I'd say something more harmonious, more connected with nature and cosmos, less imposed, but still more collective. More the "we are one kind" of a thing, even if in a variety of forms. Al parts of the same hologram, reflected both in the whole as in the individual. Maybe most comparable with a school of fish or a flock of birds, where all indiviuals make the same turn together as in one collective decision, no authority there, neither first one and then the next. This phenomenon is still not understood. But it could point in that direction, a collective thought/mind of some kind.