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MANY socialists are members of co-operatives from choosing to shop in their local Co-op supermarket or banking with the Nationwide Building Society, to playing a more active part in housing or other co-operatives.

For many, whatever their view of the quality of the goods and services, their membership provides the satisfaction of engaging with a body that is not solely concerned with making a profit for its shareholders.

But what role can co-operatives play beyond this, for example helping to secure a better, socialist, future?

Karl Marx attached great significance to the role that combined, social labour plays in the development of capitalisms productive forces, helping, he argued, to create the conditions and lay the foundations for the new, communist mode of production.

How could or should workers freed from capitalist relations of production continue to work in association with one another in the new sets of relations?

Unfortunately, many would-be followers of Marx have allowed his critique of utopian socialism in the Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) to lead them to ignore or undervalue his subsequent remarks about producers and consumers co-operatives.

For instance, in Volume I of Capital, Marx refers to Robert Owens co-operative factories and stores as isolated elements of transformation they demonstrated how significant elements of capitalist production and exchange could be remodelled.

They were isolated in that they were separate from the working-class movement which alone could and would lead the struggle to overcome the capitalist mode of production.

This last point was something, Marx believed, that Owen but not his followers had come to understand.

Thats why, in an earlier footnote, he referred to co-operatives being used as a cloak for reactionary humbug, presumably by capitalisms apologists.

In Volume III, Marx points out that just as capitalist owners in their joint stock companies no longer directly supervise production themselves, hiring managers instead, so co-operative factories furnish proof that the capitalist has become no less redundant as a functionary in production as he himself, looking down from his high perch, finds the big landowner redundant.

Marx goes on to argue that in a co-operative factory the antagonistic nature of the labour of supervision disappears, because the manager is paid by the labourers instead of representing capital counterposed to themThe capitalist disappears, as superfluous from the production process.

Both co-operatives and joint stock companies expose the reality that the capitalists wealth does not accrue from any input to the production process, but from profit and interest derived from surplus value created by the workers.

Whereas co-operatives demonstrate that enterprises can thrive without any necessity for private ownership, they also must function within a capitalist market economy.

Subject to that economys rules and pressures, their own collectivist outlook may go no further than the enterprise and its local community, while other enterprises are unavoidably regarded and treated as competitors.

The Mondragon Co-operative Corporation (MCC) in the Spanish Basque country exhibits the contradictions of co-operatives in a capitalist society on an extensive scale.

Established in 1956, it comprises 250 enterprises employing 74,000 workers (around half of them members) in the manufacturing, retail, financial and technology sectors together with 125 production subsidiaries in China, India, the US, Mexico and Brazil. The MCC has weathered recessions more successfully than many of its capitalist competitors.

Yet Mondragon has its negative features. While the co-operative members are protected, the same does not apply to the 35,000 or so non-member contract workers and employees many of them temporary in MCC subsidiaries.

Levels of member participation in key decision-making are low; there is a significant degree of misunderstanding, even antagonism, between workers and management (despite far lower income differentials than in a typical capitalist enterprise) and between members and non-members.

The extent of solidarity with workers outside the locality is lower than in neighbouring towns, as is involvement in left-wing political activity (Mondragon was until recently a bastion of support for the right-wing Basque National Party).

Out of the internal conflicts of recent years, which have included strikes and occupations against co-operative managers, initiatives have arisen to build trade unions within the corporation.

Efforts to reconcile co-operatism and trade unionism have produced interesting developments elsewhere, including Latin America and France, where unions have rescued threatened enterprises, turning them into co-operatives governed by a unionised workforce.

The United Steelworkers in the US and Canada have been working with Mondragon to develop a unionised co-operative model for workers buyouts of failing companies.

However, the history of co-operatives, in general, indicates that shorn of any political or ideological orientation, they are unlikely to play any significant role in the struggle to overthrow capitalist state power so that a better, co-operative mode of production can be built.

Under capitalism, co-operatives must compete and survive in a market economy dominated by monopolies. The contradiction between social ownership and competition cannot be resolved within a capitalist system.

Even within a socialist planned economy (in a number of the former socialist countries and in Cuba today, co-operative enterprises exist and function within and alongside state-owned enterprises) there are contradictions to be overcome.

Contradictions between collective planning at national, regional and local levels on the one hand and co-operative autonomy on the other; between the goal of full employment and the freedom of co-operatives to retrench, lay off workers or go into voluntary liquidation; and between the collectivist outlook of a politicised working class and more localised interests, preferences and objectives.

Notwithstanding their limitations, Marx saw in workers co-operatives glimpses of the future mode of production within the old form the first sprouts of the new in which co-operative labour could continue and flourish without capitalist ownership. In Capital Volume III he wrote:

[A]lthough they naturally reproduce, and must reproduce, everywhere in their actual organisation all the shortcomings of the prevailing system, [they] show how a new mode of production naturally grows out of an old one, when the development of the material forces of production and of the corresponding forms of social production have reached a particular stage.

Later, in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (1880) Friedrich Engels paid fulsome tribute to many of Owens ideas and activities, stating that Owen had given practical proof that the merchant and the manufacturer are socially quite unnecessary, their internal economy suggesting a first step towards a much more radical revolution of society.

Lenin, too, grasped the potential value of co-operatives in the transition to socialism once state power had been achieved. They would no longer be the stuff of ridiculously fantastic dreams of those who saw them as an alternative to the revolutionary class struggle for political power.

Near the end of his life, in 1923, Lenin believed that state power, state control of all large-scale means of production and state supervision of private enterprise, would be all that is needed to build a complete socialist society out of co-operatives alone.

So: what role if any can co-operatives play in helping to secure a transition to socialism? Co-operatives may (or may not) embody some socialist principles but however widely they might spread they will never be even islands of socialism within a capitalist society: thats a utopian dream.

The collapse of the Co-operative Bank (not in itself a co-operative, but owned by the Co-operative Group) and its conversion to a private bank in 2013 shows how vulnerable they may be when mismanaged.

Co-operatives are not an alternative to class struggle. But they could play a greater role in demonstrating how socialism could be, though on a small scale, and how they can survive and thrive, albeit with compromises in a capitalist society.

And once we are rid of that system and its stranglehold, they could come into their own as a key element of a new, socialist, future.

The Marx Memorial Librarys (MML) rich programme of on site and online events continues on Thursday April 27 at 7pm with the launch of Radhika Desais book Capitalism, Coronavirus and War.

Next Monday May 1 is International Workers Day with a rally starting at midday on Clerkenwell Green, the site of the MML if you arrive earlier you can enjoy tea and cakes and a guided tour of Marx House. Details are on http://www.marx-memorial-library.org.uk where you can also find links to earlier Full Marx columns.

This answer, number 95, gratefully acknowledges permission to include material from Rob Griffithss Marx's Das Kapital and Capitalism Today (pp 72-78) which can be obtained from Manifesto Press at http://www.manifestopress.org.uk.

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Can co-operatives play a role in a transition to socialism? - Morning Star Online

In the space of just two years, they went from being a group of activists who could fit on a single bus, to representing the backbone of Portugals new democracy. Not even an inveterate optimist like Mrio Soares the nations former prime minister and president, and the father of modern Portuguese socialism could have imagined how much they would achieve. However, Portugals Socialist Party (PS) celebrates its 50th anniversary at a time of acute adversity, amid constant demonstrations over the Portuguese middle classes deteriorating quality of life. The governing party has a comfortable majority in the countrys parliament, but its mistakes are causing it to come under fire on an almost daily basis. That has included clips around the ear from the president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who had enjoyed a harmonious relationship with the prime minister, Antnio Costa, but now roundly criticizes many of his decisions, such as the measures he has adopted on housing.

In just a year, the Portuguese government has racked up several scandals brought about by failed appointments, and right now is in the eye of the storm over its management of TAP, Portugals flag carrier, following the airlines nationalization. A parliamentary inquiry was launched in February. After seven years in government, [the PS] is showing signs of wear and tear, says Antnio Costa Pinto, a sociologist and historian at the University of Lisbon, in an email. But it is still the party that is at the heart of Portugals democracy, particularly because now, with the growth of Chega, a far-fight populist party, the chief center-right party, the PSD, also has a considerable challenge on its hands.

So much has changed since the PS was founded in 1973, at a home in the small Rhineland town of Bad Mnstereifel. Germanys Friedrich Ebert Foundation played a key role in the partys creation, carried out in complete secrecy to avoid reprisals from Portugals dictatorship, which had banned political parties in 1933 and, 40 years later, maintained that prohibition. The Germans paid the travel costs of the small group of Portuguese activists, who met to decide whether to turn the Portuguese Socialist Action, a movement founded by Soares in Geneva in 1964, into a political party. Those who had come from Lisbon opposed the move including Soares wife, Maria Barroso, who voted against her husband. Soares, who had gone into self-imposed exile in Paris after receiving death threats for publicly opposing Portugals colonial wars, was almost alone in insisting that the dictatorship of Marcelo Caetano, who had succeeded Antnio de Oliveira Salazar in 1968, would fall imminently. Soares side of the vote won out, and he was named the PS first secretary-general.

Until a socialist party appeared, the dictatorship would say between us and the communists, theres nothing, and the communists would say between us and the fascists, theres nothing, explains Jos Manuel dos Santos, a former advisor to Soares who coordinated the events marking the partys 50th birthday. Thats a terrible state of affairs, because it strengthened the dictatorship. After the Second World War, the West as a whole closed its eyes to the two dictatorships in the Iberian Peninsula, because the major source of fear during the Cold War was communism. Soares saw that the only way to break that vicious cycle was to create a new organization, which started out as the Socialist Action and then became the Socialist Party.

What Soares couldnt predict was the exact moment of the regimes downfall. On the day of the Carnation Revolution, he was in Bonn to meet Willy Brandt, the German social-democrat who was a major source of support to Soares and Spains Felipe Gonzlez, another Iberian socialist leader who emerged to capitalize on regime change at the ballot box. After returning to Paris, Soares then boarded the train that became known as the Comboio da Liberdade (Freedom Train) and, on 28 April 1974, he arrived back in Lisbon. We called for immediate elections and proposed Mrio as our member of parliament. We only expected to get one, recalls Antnio Campos, one of the Socialist Partys founders, in the television documentary 50 years of the PS: German roots, which was aired by Portugals state broadcaster RTP. Constituent elections were held two years later, and the PS was the most-voted party, winning 116 seats one more than its total number of founding members in 1973.

The world, the country and the party have changed radically over the past 50 years. Despite their divisions, such as the conflict witnessed between Jorge Sampaio and Antnio Guterres, Portugals socialists have resisted the crisis of social democracy better than other European counterparts, and the partys governments have spent a combined total of 25 years in power half of the countrys period of democracy. The Portuguese Socialist Party has always had a Communist Party to its left with greater electoral clout than most European democracies and, since the start of the 21st century, it has also had the radical-left Bloco de Esquerda, the Portuguese equivalent to Spains Podemos, Costa Pinto observes. Despite being at the center of the biggest case of corruption in Portugals democracy, with the accusations against the former prime minister, Jos Scrates, the party has still done well electorally.

In the wake of the Scrates scandal, the Socialist Party moved into opposition, before returning to power against all expectations. In 2015, PS leader Costa agreed a deal with the partys rivals on the left to table a motion of no confidence that removed the conservative prime minister, Pedro Passos Coelho, who had been elected by only a slim margin. And in 2022, again defying the odds, Costa achieved a historic absolute majority that gave his party greater executive power than any other within the European social-democratic family right now. Of the seven governments in which the left is represented, only two have an absolute majority: Malta and Portugals. In the five other countries Germany, Denmark, Slovenia, Romania and Spain they are part of coalition administrations. Europes political map is dominated by the center-right, with populism and extremism making increasing inroads.

In Portugal, the Socialist Party presents itself as the chief barrier against the extremism of Andr Ventura, the leader of Chega. And that, in the opinion of analysts, was one of the chief factors behind the PS landslide election win last year. Its a mission that Costa pointed to when he spoke at Wednesdays 50th-anniversary event in Lisbon. The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, was in attendance, as was former Spanish prime minister Gonzlez, who was alongside Soares for the moment when Spain and Portugal joined the European Economic Community. Today, there may be a different war, different battle lines drawn, but well always be faced with a war, Costa said, in a speech in which he touted the legacy of socialist policies in Portugal (such as the national health service, state education and welfare assistance). Today there is no dictatorship, but there is a growth in populism that we must fight.

The celebrations, however, have also fanned the flames of internal discontent. Former socialist chiefs have in recent days criticized Costas leadership, accusing him of moving away from the founders values of solidarity and freedom. Perhaps the headline that best sums up the complex times the PS finds itself in was written by Ana S Lopes of the Portuguese newspaper Pblico: 50th-birthday blues.

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50 years of the Portuguese Socialist Party: from underground activists to stalwarts of European social democracy - EL PAS USA

The 2023 Oregon Active Transportation Summit, hosted by Portland transportation advocacy non-profit The Street Trust, is officially a go. People from all across Oregons transportation industry from advocates to transit agency officials have convened in the Lloyd Center for three days of panel discussions and networking events about all things related to getting around.

The event officially kicked off yesterday with a multimodal scavenger hunt and opening reception. This morning, the Summit got down to business with its first plenaries and panels. First, the Street Trusts Executive Director Sarah Iannarone introduced the Summits theme Move Into Action and welcomed a surprise guest, U.S. Representative Earl Blumenauer, to the stage.

Blumenauer said hed prepared a written speech for the morning but decided to wing it instead and speak from the heart. He praised The Street Trust for hosting an event like this one and emphasized the importance of transportation reform in Oregon and across the country.

Youre on a holy mission here. Really, youre going to help our communities save us from ourselves, Blumenauer said. This is literally a matter of life and death.

Blumenauer covered a range of topics in his introduction speech, from getting rid of minimum car parking mandates to making active transportation options more affordable for everyone. Though he said he is not in favor of declaring war on the automobile, he was very direct about the problems our society faces as a result of car-centric planning.

We have to recognize that how the automobile is so intrinsic with how people think and how they live. And we have to find ways to unwind that in a thoughtful fashion, Blumenauer said. Theres a lot of talk these days about socialism. Lets end socialism for the car.

This mornings panel discussions were focused on public transit. First, we heard from a panel of transit agency leaders from around the state: Sam Desue, Jr., who leads TriMet, Jameson T. Auten from the Lane Transit District in the Eugene-Springfield area and Andrea Breault from Cascades East Transit in central Oregon.Then, several advocates provided a community response to this conversation, offering different perspectives on the issues the transit agency leaders discussed. (Look out for a full recap of these panel discussions soon.)

In between these panel discussions, I talked to several attendees to find out what they were looking forward to in the days ahead.

Jack Blashchishen, the Safe Routes to School (SRTS) coordinator for the Springfield School District (and one-time BikePortland contributor!) said he was eager to meet statewide colleagues from the SRTS program. School transportation has become a key issue for many advocates recently, and there is quite a large SRTS showing here at the Summit.

Im just looking forward to seeing everyone whos part of the statewide transportation community, Blashchishen said.

Rob Zako and Claire Roth, both from southern Willamette Valley transportation advocacy group Better Eugene-Springfield Transportation (BEST), said they see the Summit as an opportunity to cultivate relationships with people from across the state so they can work together to influence transportation legislation in the future.

My personal mission is to break down siloes as much as possible and encourage people talk to each other across disciplines, Roth said. The pandemic hit advocacy like a ton of bricks, and it took a toll on transportation. This is the spring of transportation, were blooming again.

Mary Lee Turner, a disability and pedestrian advocate (and current member of the Portland Pedestrian Advisory Committee) told me she wants to make sure theres a presence of people with disabilities who rely on walking to get around at events like these.

People with disabilities are everywhere, and if we arent, thats because we cant get there, Turner said.

Stay tuned for more BikePortland dispatches from the Summit in the days ahead.

Taylor has been BikePortlands staff writer since November 2021. She has also written for Street Roots and Eugene Weekly. Contact her at taylorgriggswriter@gmail.com

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Advocates mingle at the Lloyd Center for the Oregon Active Transportation Summit - BikePortland

FARGO They sure miss the 1950s in the North Dakota Legislature, that's for sure. That halcyon decade sticks in the minds of some as the idyllic days to which they'd like to return, if discussion about a child-care bill in the House of Representatives this week was any indicator.

Mom staying at home to take care of the kids and cook for Dad. Dad coming home from work and Mom mixing him a drink. Dad watching the evening news and reading the paper while Mom cleaned up supper, washed the dishes and took care of the kids. Dad going upstairs to bed while Mom did laundry and put the kids to bed.

Yeah, those are the days North Dakota legislators want to return.

The fact the 1950s were never as idyllic or halcyon as "Leave It To Beaver" and "I Love Lucy" would have us believe is beside the point. It's the fantasy that counts.

Anyway, that decade was referenced several times during debate over House Bill 1540, which dealt with funding to help ease North Dakota's child-care crisis. Child care, or lack of it, was the No. 1 issue many legislators heard about from constituents before going to Bismarck.

North Dakota, like almost every state, lacks affordable and available child care. It is, as smart legislators on both sides of the aisle point out, a workforce issue. If the state is looking to fill its 30,000 job openings, working parents need affordable child-care options. Period.

Fargo Democrat Karla Rose-Hanson put it best, saying child care needs to be viewed as part of the state's infrastructure. It's that critical.

HB 1540 passed on Friday morning, moving onto the Senate. Republicans, as they are wont to do in North Dakota, killed a similar bill Democrats had introduced earlier in the session and re-worked it to claim it as their own. That's the power of a super-majority.

But it's good news Democrats were able to push forward a bill that would infuse $66 million into child care. It obviously got plenty of Republican votes to pass.

The bad news? Watching the pre-vote comments by conservative Republicans like Dan Ruby, Scott Louser, Jeff Hoverson, Mike Schatz and Donna Henderson as they urged fellow representatives to vote against the bill.

How the sausage gets made in a legislative body is never pretty. Pull away the facade that those making laws are all thoughtful, intelligent people with the best interests of the citizens in mind and, well, the fat and gristle being stuffed into the casing gets nasty.

Take these particular righties.

Please.

Here's a nugget from Ruby, of Minot: "If it's taking your whole check for daycare, then you either need to get a job that pays more or it's better for you to not be giving it all to ... why are you working?"

Is that what they call compassionate conservatism?

From Schatz, from New England: "Many mothers want to raise their children themselves rather than have the government raise them."

Does he know the bill doesn't establish government daycare centers, but instead provides money so families can afford to pay for private daycare?

Also Schatz: "I believe this bill is in the same blueprint as President Biden's agenda and originated with Sen. (Elizabeth) Warren."

What?

From Hoverson, also of Minot: "This idea of the government becoming involved in child care is a well-meaning idea, but that it's also a very leftist, socialist idea. That's how socialism works."

So farming is also a very leftist, socialist idea?

See, the snag with being so dedicated to the "socialism" bit is that you end up being against everything. Because "socialism."

Child care assistance? Socialism.

School lunch assistance? Socialism.

Giving away money to private schools? Sociali-

Oh, wait. Scratch that. Being opposed to socialism is a flexible ideology.

And that's the problem with governing by ideology instead of practicality. North Dakota has a child-care crisis. Democratic legislators recognized that and tried to find ways to help remedy it. Obstinate others would rather insult working women, cry socialism, or both.

If only a Republican could introduce a bill hurtling North Dakota back to the 1950s. They'd find that to be a better solution.

Mike McFeely is a columnist for The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead. He began working for The Forum in the 1980s while he was a student studying journalism at Minnesota State University Moorhead. He's been with The Forum full time since 1990, minus a six-year hiatus when he hosted a local radio talk-show.

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McFeely: In ND legislature, the sausage is particularly gross - INFORUM

I want to start off by saying that I feel very fortunate to attend Oberlin College. I am so grateful for the academic, networking, and lifelong friendship-building opportunities afforded to me during my time on this campus. As a graduating fourth-year, Ive been thinking a lot about these opportunities and how I will deeply cherish them forever.

That is to say, I do not write this piece to bemoan that which I identify as a shortcoming of the Colleges Economics department, but aim to enact change as one of my parting acts as I look toward my fast-approaching graduation.

I recently learned that some departments, such as the Jewish Studies department, arose from student activism. This serves as proof, in my mind, that the College has historically listened to students academic concerns and has consequently enacted change accordingly.

As an avid watcher of the show Gilmore Girls, one of my few expectations upon my arrival to campus was that I would feel like I could learn anything I ever wanted to learn in these hallowed and historied halls like Rory did in her early college days. However, there was one thing I wanted to learn about here but didnt have the opportunity to: the varied types of world economies.

I came to college hoping to major in Politics and minor in Economics, expecting that this combination of departmental study would afford me context as to the broader economic and political realities that shape our ever-changing world.

After taking Introduction to Economics remotely, in the fall of 2020 I quickly realized that this would not be the case.

While, as someone who enjoys statistics and statistical modeling, I appreciated Intro to Econ, a more apt title for the course would have been Introduction to the U.S. Economy. But thats a semantic qualm.

My primary concern is that there are very few courses offered in the the Economics department that focus on non-U.S. economies, and those that do focus on economies beyond our borders do so in one of two ways: exploring the ways the U.S. economy might interact with other economies through trade or exploring the weak institutional frameworks tha[t]could explain a low growth trajectory, as in the case of ECON 310, Economic Development in Latin America.

I would love to have learned about socialism and anarchism, for example, in the same way as we did capitalism in that first Economics course. I later received an education with regard to socialism and anarchism in the Politics department in the course POLT 252 Capitalism, Socialism, Anarchism: Perspectives on States, Markets, and Justice. In that course, I learned about the varied global economies and read theory pursuant to all three types of economy.

However, as it was a political theory course, we did not engage in statistical modeling of any sort. Id advocate for a course such as this one to be taught in the Economics department so as to engage the graphical element deeply present in Economics research.

I spoke with College second-year and Economics minor Ben Rapkin to hear his perspectives on the department.

Many of the professors are incredibly talented and skilled in their field and in finance and their contributions to academia, Rapkin said. Just because its skewed in a particular lens or with particular focuses that doesnt by any means invalidate much of their research.

According to Rapkin, this particular lens comes from the professors backgrounds as well as the current state of U.S. academia.

Just because our nations organized with a certain amount of governmental intervention doesnt mean that in the set of assumptions that they research under and they look at that their mathematical models arent perfectly valid, Rapkin said. It is just an issue of number one, undergraduates are not at the level to really have those discussions and two, many of them just are not focused on socialist organization and comparing that to capitalism.

Rapkin initially wanted to major in Economics, but ended up minoring in the department after finding that it was not as interdisciplinary as he would have liked.

My big issue with the Econ major its really shared by a lot of undergraduate economics programs and put simply, economics is a really complex hard science, Rapkin said. Its trying to describe how pretty much everything in the world can be better, most efficiently done. But a lot of undergraduate economics is very light on math which is understandable. However, even the upper-level classes dont really include a lot of math, which makes it so that any discussion we have is forced onto some very simplistic models that often dont really describe what happens in the economy.

Rapkin also spoke to the limitations of the departments U.S.-centric curriculum.

For most of the courses it was very much focused really all of them, Ill say was really focused on the U.S., Rapkin said. The Econ department leans to a focus on micro[economics]. And so in those classes, it doesnt so much matter which countries specifically, but when we looked at some of the macro[economics] classes such as intermediate macro or public economics those classes both focused very heavily on U.S. economics and how our economy functions as a whole. They didnt really look at a lot of case studies of other countries with different organizations.

Oberlin College, a school that presents itself as academically progressive, seems to fall behind other Economics programs in its failure to include global economies. Other colleges and universities, though, have modeled this inclusive departmental design.

For example, the University of Chicago, which is often recognized as having one of the top Economics programs in the United States, includes The Economics of Socialism in its department, as well as a course titled Labor Markets: A Global Perspective.

Further, the University of Maine offers a Marxist and Socialist Studies minor, which culls an interdisciplinary catalog of courses in economics, philosophy, art history, and more. Harvard University even offered a course titled The Economics of Socialism in its Economics department in the spring semester of 1940.

Our History department doesnt study just U.S. history and our Politics department doesnt exclusively study U.S. politics or, rather, global politics as they relate to the U.S. So why, in 2023, hasnt the College adapted its Economics department to address economies beyond the U.S.?

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Economics Department Overly U.S.-Centric, Should Offer Courses in ... - The Oberlin Review