This is going to be a seriously zany blog entry, so beware :) I've been learning lots of interesting stuff recently that all links together around a single theme: mitigating the impact and influence of the logic of capitalism on our lives. It's there whether you're trying to reform a previously capitalist country into a form of participatory socialism (Venezuela); whether you're trying to find ways to "drop out" and live a more fulfilling and ecologically benign life in a highly developed capitalist country (co-ops in the UK); or whether you're proposing radical changes to the welfare state to completely remove the link between market rewards, subsistence and the ability to contribute (basic income). But, tut tut, the theme breaches what the legendary Harvard economics professor J.K. Galbraith calls an 'innocent fraud', that contemporary developed economies are benign markets that reflect the best interests of citizens... read on and please leave a comment if you think I'm an idiot :) For those without the time, here's a quick guide to greening your life.

Co-operatives in the UK

This wee polemic starts with a workshop on co-operatives that I attended at Shared Planet 2005, a great student activism conference. The workshop was facilitated by some people from Radical Routes, a network of radical house/workers'/social co-ops dedicated to working for positive social change.

The bulk of the workshop covered how to set-up a housing co-op. The basic idea is that a bunch of people set-up a co-op then occupy a house without any individual actually having any ownership of it. This is different to communal ownership, where everybody would chip in an equal share of the cost and own that part of the house.

So, the members of the co-op first establish a business, with each of the members being a director. The business then applies for the mortgage on the house, which can be up to 100% (in fact it makes more sense for it to be 100%, as I'll explain later). The members of the co-op move in and start paying rent to their business, which then goes towards paying off the mortgage. The level of rent is set by the members of the co-op, usually by consensus and according to each members' ability to pay. So for example one lady from a co-op said that their house has two rent levels, and unemployed members or those on very low wages pay the lower level. The rent will inevitably be lower than for private tenants though, since nobody is trying to make a profit from owning the property, so you're not funding your landlord's next holiday to the Bahamas!

Then - and this is the clever bit - if anybody moves out, they simply leave the house as though they were an ordinary private tenant, a new member moves in and starts paying rent. Because it is the business that owns the house, and no member has put any more money in than their rent, they have no ownership rights. It makes for a very clean, simple living arrangement. If the mortgage is paid off then the co-op can decide what to do with their money. Often they re-mortgage the house and use the money to bootstrap new co-ops, fund local social and environmental projects or improve their own house if it's in need of repair.

So a housing co-op is a group of people who have control over their own housing, but who don't actually own it. It's a bit like having a landlord who you have total control over! You could then live communally or in separate flatlets, it's really up to the members. The really great thing about them is that they give people on low incomes, who wouldn't usually be able to afford a mortgage on a house, the ability to take control of their lives. Rather than being left to stand alone, with all kinds of personal/family risks involved with sudden losses of income, you can enjoy a certain level of social solidarity and security.

Workers co-ops and social co-ops work on a similar basis, only they have (obviously) a different focus. But if you'd ever wanted to start up a business without requiring power-conferring hierarchies that could lead to you losing control of your vision, co-ops are a neat way to go. They're also great for social centres, which can be bootstrapped with a relatively small amount of money. You just need to have a strong business plan.

Venezuela, Chavez and participatory socialism

Which brings me to a recent dispatch from Venezuela by another legend of the left (though this one is a bit more extreme than Galbraith): Michael Albert of Parecon fame. For those who have no idea what's really going on there his article is an interesting introduction, though I'm very wary of his angle on it given that he only spent a week there and talked mainly to officials. Another good, but possibly equally biased, report is John Pilger's recent New Statesman column.

For another perspective that isn't produced by the American corporate media see this Amnesty International report, though for true perspective one might like to compare it to their annual report on the USA.

Anyhow, whatever the reality in Venezuela the themes covered in Albert's article are really fascinating. Albert would like to see all nations overthrow capitalism and replace it with a humanistic vision, whereby people produce according to their ability and receive according to their need. In Venezuela they are (apparently) reforming the country from the ground up, using top-down measures to empower and encourage ordinary people to take control of their education, their workplaces, their communities, their lives. Workers co-ops are actively encouraged, which is cool.

By the usual measure of economic growth that we (ill-advisedly) adhere to in the "developed" world the economy is recovering from a thirty year decline under the neo-liberals after several massive downturns largely caused by oil strikes under the control of the rich. Figures from Unicef indicate progressive social policies as well.

Whereas in the UK activists are forced to "drop out" of the mainstream by setting up co-ops, Venezuelans seem to have full government support. But still the government is encouraging markets of a kind and they're obviously maintaining trade relations both nationally and internationally. Albert complains that these policies might embed capitalist competitive tendencies in the economy and social institutions, but it certainly seems more promising and sensible than an all-out overnight revolution.

Workers co-ops seem to be quite a big thing in South America. In The Take, a film directed by Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein about Argentina, workers have been seizing their factories, left derelict by capitalists, and turning them around. Networks of workers' co-ops are springing up across the continent giving ordinary people control. No violent attacks on bourgeois institutions, no Bolshevik uprising, just democratic change bubbling up from the grassroots to halt the encroachment of capitalism into their lives.

It will be interesting to see how Venezuela develops, especially with the tension between the cult of Chavez and genuine participatory democracy. Oh, and will the USA be able to leave them alone or will political pressure grow great enough to force punitive sanctions on the people of Venezuela, as has happened with Cuba? Also, will the participatory scheme work or will they slide into the form of authoritarianism with widespread human rights abuses witnessed in Cuba?

Basic income in the UK

Which brings me to my penultimate topic, basic income. It's the subject of one of my MA essays at the moment, and you can get quickly up to date with this (slightly piss-poor) Wikipedia article, or better this great collection of short essays published by the New Democracy Forum.

One of the core themes of my essay is that, with a basic income given to every citizen set at a subsistence level, the link between the ability to fully contribute in society and the capitalist economy would be fully broken. Competitive capitalist tendencies would still dictate how the economy works, but people would be able to "drop out" and do more community-oriented work without the insecurity of conditional welfare systems, low incomes and the terribly time-consuming gsocial rants & awards industry. What would essentially be a very small tweak to the so-called social democracies of Western Europe, and a slightly larger shift in nations like the UK and (more so still) the USA, would have really interesting consequences. Milton Friedman may have advocated a form of basic income (negative income tax), but it would be amazingly progressive.

Galbraith and innocent fraud

Which all brings me to my concluding topic, a simply essential little book The economics of innocent fraud by J.K. Galbraith. It's a tiny polemic against our tendency to accept and embed fraudulent beliefs in the foundations of our belief systems, and in this case the frauds inherent in modern economics. In 56 brief pages he paints a picture of contemporary capitalist economies being dominated by the corporate bureaucracy, controlled by management and serving the interests of profit, manipulating our tastes and tendencies, encroaching into the public sphere at a terrifying rate. He begins, though, by noting how people barely speak of "capitalism" anymore, and favour the benign but ultimately meaningless term "market". Once a dirty word, now a dusty word hidden on the top shelf with "socialism" as though neither exist in reality (which both do).

An adamant cheerleader of so-called "market economics" would probably find much to laugh at in this blog entry. But I would contend that, once we peer beyond the frauds inherent in economic theory and reflect upon the purpose of economics, we find compelling reasons to study the co-ops in the UK, the experience of socialists in Venezuela and reformist green policies like basic income in general. The more we can mitigate the impact and influence of capitalism without requiring a wholesale revolution, wherever we can make changes compatible with capitalism but fundamentally opposed to the logic of capitalism, the closer we can get to a sustainable future.