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Economic Democracy is a philosophy that suggests a transfer of socio-economic decision-making from a small minority of corporate shareholders to the much larger majority of public stakeholders. Assuming that "full political rights cannot be won without full economic rights",^[1] workers manage production democratically to distribute the surplus generated by labor more equitably, thus restoring legal and political control to the majority. With some variance of approach, all models of Economic Democracy tend to support democratic regionalization as the most viable alternative to the central-planning tendencies of state and corporate imperialism.^[2] Suggested catalysts include monetary reform, democratic coorperatives, and regionalization of currency and food production. Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... A shareholder or stockholder is an individual or company (including a corporation), that legally owns one or more shares of stock in a joint stock company. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Surplus means the quantity left over, after conducting an activity; the quantity which has not been used up, and can refer to: budget surplus, the opposite of a budget deficit economic surplus Surplus product or surplus value in Marxian economics physical surplus in the economic theory of Piero Sraffa Operating... Cecil Rhodes: Cape-Cairo railway project. ...

Defining the Problem

According to most proponents of Economic Democracy, the most basic economic problem is that modern society does not earn enough income to purchase its output production. While balanced mixed economies have existed briefly throughout history, most analysts agree that command economies tend to dominate, listing contemporary expressions of capitalism as an extreme example, not an exception to the rule.^[3] As common resources are monopolized by imperial centers of wealth and power, conditions of scarcity are imposed artificially upon the greater majority, resulting in large-scale socio-economic imbalance.^[4] While there is no single definition for "Economic Democracy", all suggested and real-world models tend to share a core set of fundamental assumptions. A mixed economy is an economy that has a mix of economic systems. ... This article refers to an economy controlled by the state. ... For other uses, see Capitalism (disambiguation). ...

Mixed Economies

Economic Democracy assumes that "no pure market economy exists". Rather, nearly all economies in the world today are "mixed economies which combine varying degrees of market and command economy traits".^[5] In his book, False Dawn, John Gray states: "In any long and broad historical perspective, the free market is a rare and short-lived aberration", suggesting that command economies tend to emerge as the historical norm, rather than the exception. While supply and demand are generally accepted as market functions for establishing price, proponents of Economic Democracy also tend to agree that the present financial price system is not self-liquidating,^[6] generally concluding that Adam Smith's "invisible hand" is not reliable to guide those forces on a large scale.^[7] "Behind the abstraction known as 'the market' lurks a set of institutions designed to maximize the wealth and power of the most privileged group of people in the world, the creditor-rentier class of the first world and their junior partners in the third".^[8] A mixed economy is an economy that has a mix of economic systems. ... The supply and demand model describes how prices vary as a result of a balance between product availability at each price (supply) and the desires of those with purchasing power at each price (demand). ... In economics and business, the price is the assigned numerical monetary value of a good, service or asset. ... For other persons named Adam Smith, see Adam Smith (disambiguation). ... For other use of Invisible Hand, please see Invisible hand (disambiguation) The invisible hand is a metaphor coined by the economist Adam Smith to illustrate how those who seek wealth by following their individual self-interest, stimulate the economy as a secondary effect and thus assist society as a whole. ...

In his 1879 book Progress and Poverty, Henry George argued that a majority of wealth created in a "free market" economy is appropriated by land owners and monopolists through economic rents, and that concentration of such unearned wealth is the root cause of poverty. George considered it an injustice for private profit to be earned from restricting access to natural resources while productive activity was burdened with heavy taxes, claiming that such a system was equivalent to slavery.^[9] A free market is an idealized market, where all economic decisions and actions by individuals regarding transfer of money, goods, and services are voluntary, and are therefore devoid of coercion and theft (some definitions of coercion are inclusive of theft). Colloquially and loosely, a free market economy is an economy... This article is about the economics of markets dominated by a single seller. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... A boy from an East Cipinang trash dump slum in Jakarta, Indonesia shows what he found. ... Slave redirects here. ...

Enclosure of the Commons

In The Servile State (1912), Hilaire Belloc referred to the Enclosures Movement when he said, "England was already captured by a wealthy oligarchy before the series of great industrial discoveries began". If you sought the accumulated wealth preliminary to launching new industry, "you had to turn to the class which had already monopolized the bulk of the means of production in England. The rich men alone could furnish you with those supplies".^[10] In his book, Economic Democracy: The Political Struggle for the 21st Century, J.W. Smith examines the economic basis for the history of Imperial Civilization. Just as cities in the Middle Ages monopolized the means of production by conquering and controlling the sources of raw materials and countryside markets, Smith claims that contemporary centers of capital now control our present world through private monopoly of public resources sometimes known as "the commons". Through inequalities of trade, developing countries are overcharged for import of manufactured goods and underpaid for raw material exports, as wealth is siphoned from the periphery of empire and hoarded at the imperial-centers-of-capital: Photograph of Belloc Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc (27 July 1870 – 16 July 1953) was one of the most prolific writers in England during the early twentieth century. ... For other uses, see Enclosure (disambiguation). ... Forms of government Part of the Politics series Politics Portal This box:      Oligarchy (Greek , Oligarkhía) is a form of government where political power effectively rests with a small, elite segment of society (whether distinguished by wealth, family or military powers). ... J. W. Smith is an independent economist. ... The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times, beginning with the Renaissance. ... Means of production (abbreviated MoP; German: Produktionsmittel), also called means of labour are the materials, tools and other instruments used by workers to make products. ... Look up material in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... In England and Wales, a common is a piece of land over which other people -- often neighbouring landowners -- could exercise one of a number of traditional rights, such as allowing their cattle to graze upon it. ...

"Over eight-hundred years ago the powerful of the city-states of Europe learned to control the resources and markets of the countryside by raiding and destroying others’ primitive industrial capital, thus openly monopolizing that capital and establishing and maintaining extreme inequality of pay. This low pay siphoned the wealth of the countryside to the imperial-centers-of-capital. The powerful had learned to plunder-by-trade and have been refining those skills ever since".

Like other financial empires in history, Smith claims the contemporary model forms alliances necessary to develop and control wealth, as peripheral nations remain impoverished providers of cheap resources for the imperial-centers-of-capital.^[11] Belloc estimated that, during the "Enclosures" transition from Feudalism to Capitalism, "perhaps half of the whole population was proletarian", while roughly the other "half" owned and controlled the means of production. Now, under modern Capitalism, J.W. Smith claims less than 500 people possess more wealth than half of the earth’s population, as the wealth of 1/2 of 1-percent of the United States population roughly equal that of the lower 90-percent. The proletariat (from Latin proles, offspring) is a term used to identify a lower social class; a member of such a class is proletarian. ...

Monopoly Power versus Purchasing Power

The discipline of economics is largely a study of scarcity management. "Absent scarcity and alternative uses of available resources, there is no economic problem".^[12] Thus, many theories of Economic Democracy hold that conditions of scarcity are artificially maintained by financial structures that confine abundance to a privileged minority of corporate shareholders. In this view, socio-economic imbalance stems not from a failure to manage limited resources in a world of scarcity, but from mismanagement of virtually unlimited abundance and prosperity.^[4] In his book Labor and Other Capital (1849), American businessman, Edward Kellogg (1790-1858), said that: ‹ The template below is being considered for deletion. ... In economics, scarcity is defined as a condition of limited resources, where society does not have sufficient resources to produce enough to fulfill subjective wants. ... The basic economic problem is a term used in economic theory. ... Domestic credit to private sector in 2005 Corporate finance is an area of finance dealing with the financial decisions corporations make and the tools and analysis used to make these decisions. ... Abundance economics deals with situations where there are more than enough resources for everyone (ie: an abundance). ... Look up Resource in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

"Money power is not only the most governing and influential, but it is also the most unjust and deceitful of all earthly powers. It entails upon millions excessive toil, poverty and want, while it keeps them ignorant of the cause of their sufferings; for, with their tacit consent, it silently transfers a large share of their earnings into the hands of others, who have never lifted a finger to perform any productive labor."^[13]

While he considered these functions a "public wrong", Kellogg also asserted it was the responsibility of the public to find and implement a remedy. The "money power" Kellogg referred to is sometimes considered monopoly power, viewed by some as the most influential factor in artificial scarcity. In this regard, Henry George further suggested: Artificial scarcity is an economic term describing the scarcity of items even though the technology and production capacity exists to create an abundance. ...

"There is in reality no conflict between labor and capital; the true conflict is between labor and monopoly... Abolish the monopoly that forbids men to employ themselves and capital could not possibly oppress labor... [R]emove the cause of that injustice which deprives the laborer of the capital his toil creates and the sharp distinction between capitalist and laborer would, in fact, cease to exist".^[14]

While some consider land to be the primary source of wealth, others propose the labor theory of value (first introduced by John Locke, developed by Adam Smith and later Karl Marx), arguing that labor is the fundamental source of value. In these terms, "money is first, and foremost, a contract against another person’s labor. Except for wealth produced by nature, value is properly a measure of the time and quality of all productive labor spent producing a product or service. If the difference between the payment received for productive labor and the price paid by the consumer for a product or service is greater than fair value for expediting that trade, either the producer was underpaid, the final consumer was overcharged, or both. When intermediaries underpay producers or overcharge consumers, they are siphoning away the production of the labors of one or the other, or both."^[15] The labor theory of value (LTV) is a theory in classical economics concerning the value of an exchangeable good or service. ... For other persons named John Locke, see John Locke (disambiguation). ... For other persons named Adam Smith, see Adam Smith (disambiguation). ... Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818 – March 14, 1883) was a 19th century philosopher, political economist, and revolutionary. ...

Under such conditions, analysts generally agree that society does not currently earn enough to buy what the economy produces. The difference between earnings and prices is typically appropriated by industrial and banking centers of capital through monopoly control of finance and other market resources. Such exclusive entitlement tends to artificially impose conditions of economic scarcity upon the majority of the population.^[4] While the accelerating advance of technology, developed and maintained by labor, tends to generate a virtually unlimited abundance, this process also drives wages down as workers are replaced by machines, ironically minimizing the purchasing power of workers in the market. ^[16] In June 2006, investment bank, Goldman Sachs, reported: "The most important contribution to the higher profit margins over the past five years has been a decline in Labor's share of national income." Capital has a number of related meanings in economics, finance and accounting. ...

Imperialism

Generally considered the forceful extension of a nation's authority by territorial gain or by the establishment of economic and/or political dominance over other nations, some view imperialism as an advanced stage of capitalism. The merging of banks and industrial cartels give rise to finance capital, which is then exported (rather than goods) in pursuit of greater profits than the home market can offer. Political and financial power is divided amongst international monopolist firms and European states, colonizing large parts of the world in support of their businesses.^[17] Types of administrative and/or political territories include: A legally administered territory, which is a non-sovereign geographic area that has come under the authority of another government. ... Economics (deriving from the Greek words οίκω [okos], house, and νέμω [nemo], rules hence household management) is the social science that studies the allocation of scarce resources to satisfy unlimited wants. ... Politics is the process by which decisions are made within groups. ...

On a global scale, wealthy developed nations tend to impede or prohibit the economic and technological advancement of weaker developing countries through the military force, martial law, and inequitable practices of trade that typically characterize colonialism. Rhetorically termed by some as a "tragedy of the commons", "survival of the fittest", or "might makes right", proponents of Economic Democracy generally attribute such economic crises to the imbalances imposed by corporate imperialism.^[18] It has been suggested that Benign colonialism be merged into this article or section. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

According to many analysts, the United States has maintained some measure of stability by economically dominating of the rest of the world as a means of filling the gap between production consumption. Beginning with massive loans to European combatants during World War I, and continuing through the lend-lease program of World War II, U.S. domination of trade reached its peak through economic recovery measures following those wars. Though forming the basis for U.S. prosperity during the 1950s and 1960s, U.S trade domination was exhausted by the mid-1970s, when the United States implemented a policy known as dollar hegemony, intended to stablize the economy.^[19] This article is in need of improvement. ...

With a consistently negative trade balance over the decades since, some suggest the United States has compensated for the gap between purchasing power and prices with a wide variety of debt in all sectors of the economy. In this process, many analysts claim that dollar hegemony has flooded the world with U.S. currency, loans, or debt instruments to support U.S. fiscal and trade deficits, pay for extraordinary levels of U.S. resource utilization, induce foreign governments to purchase U.S. armaments, ensure the allegiance of foreign governing elites, and maintain foreign economies in subservience through World Trade Organization and International Monetary Fund trade and lending policies.^[20]

At the domestic level, inequities maintained by corporate imperialism tend to result in the large-scale debt, unemployment, and poverty characteristics of economic recession and depression. According to Jack Rasmus, author of The War At Home and The Trillion Dollar Income Shift, income inequality in contemporary America is an increasing relative share of income for corporations and the wealthiest 1-percent of households while shares of that income stagnate and decline for 80-percent of the United States workforce. After rising steadily for three decades after World War II, the standard of living for most American workers has sharply declined between the mid-1970s to the present. Rasmus likens the widening income gap in contemporary American society to the decade leading up to the Great Depression, estimating "well over $1-trillion in income is transferred annually from the roughly 90-million working class families in America to corporations and the wealthiest non-working class households. While a hundred new billionaires were created since 2001, real weekly earnings for 100 million workers are less in 2007 than in 1980 when Ronald Reagan took office". In macroeconomics, the definition of recession is a decline in any countrys Gross Domestic Product (GDP), or negative real economic growth, for two or more successive quarters of a year. ... WORLD OF WARCRAFT IS THE BEST GAME EVER INVENTED AND PLAY IT. IF YOU DONT PLAY WORLD OF WARCRAFT, YOU ARE A nOOb. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... For other uses, see The Great Depression (disambiguation). ... The term real wages refers to wages that have been adjusted for inflation. ... Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was the 40th President of the United States (1981 – 1989) and the 33rd Governor of California (1967 – 1975). ...

According to Rasmus and other analysts, this "quarter century pay freeze", imposed by rapidly increasing control of wealth by the very rich, has resulted in innumerable negative externalities:^[21]

"For the first time since the U.S. government began to collect the data in 1947, wages and salaries no longer constitute more than half of total national income. In contrast, corporate profits are at their highest levels since World War II, having risen double digits every quarter in the last three and a half years alone and 21.3% in the most recent year, 2005, according to Dow-Jones 'Market Watch'. Corporate profit margins are higher than they have been in more than half a century, according to Merrill Lynch economist, David Rosenberg. After tax profits are now equal to 8.5% of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product -- that's more than a trillion dollars -- and the highest since the end of World War II in 1945."^[21]

1% of all U.S. households now receive between 19%-21.5% of the annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the United States, up from 8% in 1980. This same 1% also hold more than 35% of all assets and wealth of the nation — about $17 trillion. They own 51% of all stocks and 70% of all bonds, own homes worth $3 million and have a net worth of $6 million. According to a 2006 report by the Boston Consulting Group, the number of millionaires in the U.S. rose from 6 to 7.5 million since 2000, and one hundred new billionaires were created since 2001.^[21]

In contrast, the bottom 50% of all U.S. households, nearly 60 million families, own only 2.5% of the nation's total assets and wealth. Real wages of 100 million workers are less today than they were in 1980. According to the U.S. Commerce Department, college educated workers’ real wages have stagnated, growing less than a half of one percent a year from 1979 through 2005 and actually declining in 2004-05. Median households ($31,000 to $41,000 per year) have experienced a 5.9% income decline over the past five years. Below the median, thirty-seven million households now live below the U.S. government’s official poverty level, and sixteen million of them earn less than $9,800 for a family of four.^[21]

Recommended Alternatives

Assuming that the most basic requirement for societal prosperity is a healthy, educated, and enterprising population,^[22] Economic Democracy proposes a number of methods to address the growing gap between societal purchasing power and productive output, including monetary reform, democratic cooperatives, and regionalization of currency and food production. Moreover, all suggested and real-world approaches tend to stem from an alternative perspective on the overall problem. For instance, rather than viewing this gap as a societal shortfall, many analysts suggest it should be considered a social dividend, providing social credit as a public utility rather than debt to the financial centers of capital. Once invested back into human productive potential, this surplus of societal output could actually increase Gross Domestic Product rather than throttling it, resulting in a more efficient economy, overall.^[4] Purchasing Power- the amount of value of a good/services compared to the amount paid. ...

Assuming that "democracy is not just a political value, but one with profound economic implications", David Schweickart suggests "the problem is not to choose between plan and market, but to integrate these institutions into a democratic framework".^[23] Likewise, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. suggested, "Communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social, and the Kingdom of Brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of Communism nor the antithesis of Capitalism but in a higher synthesis. It is found in a higher synthesis that combines the truths of both".^[24] According to Richard C. Cook, "the top priority of the reform program would be to use public credit to rebuild the producing economy which has been wrecked by the phony ideology of 'market' economics and the inept and self-serving manipulation of the money supply by the Federal Reserve and the banks."^[25] David Schweickart is an American mathematician and philosopher. ... This article refers to an economy controlled by the state. ... A market economy (also called a free market economy or a free enterprise economy) is an economic system in which the production and distribution of goods and services take place through the mechanism of free markets guided by a free price system. ... “MLK” redirects here. ... Communism is an ideology that seeks to establish a classless, stateless social organization based on common ownership of the means of production. ... For other uses, see Capitalism (disambiguation). ...

Hungarian historian Karl Polanyi suggested that the drive of market economies should be subordinate to larger societal needs. He stated that human-beings, the source of labor, do not reproduce for the sole purpose of providing the market with workers. In The Great Transformation Polanyi said that, while modern states and market economies tend to grow under capitalism, both are mutually interdependent for functional development. In order for market economies to be truly prosperous, he claimed social constructs must play an essential role. With the term "fictitious commodities", Polanyi claimed that land, labor, and money are all commodified under capitalism, even though the inherent purpose of these items was never intended "for sale". He said natural resources are "God-given", money is a bookkeeping entry validated by law, and labor is a human prerogative, not a personal obligation to market economies, emphasizing the importance of people over capital. Karl Paul Polanyi (October 21, 1886 - Pickering, Ontario April 23, 1964) was a Hungarian intellectual known for his opposition to traditional economic thought and his influential book The Great Transformation. ... The Great Transformation is a phrase used to describe the sum total of a collection of changes, possibly connected in their origin, that occurred in Europe from about 1700 to about 1900. ... A LAND attack is a DoS (Denial of Service) attack that consists of sending a special poison spoofed packet to a computer, causing it to lock up. ... For other uses, see Money (disambiguation). ... The word commodity has a different meaning in business than in Marxian political economy. ... For other uses, see Law (disambiguation). ...

Traditionally associated with land, water, and air, many analysts now expand "the commons" to include "a public infrastructure consisting of health, education, water, transportation, and waste disposal services that are provided without charge to all persons". ^{[7] [26] [27]} Economic Democracy installs regional and democratic management of the commons in the interest of large-scale withdrawal from corporate imperialism and relief from the societal externalities imposed by the dominance of such structures. To this aim, Economic Democracy targets factors that most significantly influence the basic function of business: In economics, an externality is a cost or benefit resulting from an economic transaction that is borne or received by parties not directly involved in the transaction. ...

• Workplace Management: Productive enterprises are managed democratically by workers. Matters of workplace organization, worker discipline, production techniques, and distribution of proceeds are decided democratically -- one person, one vote. While worker councils and general managers are empowered to make specialized company decisions, these officials are democratically elected by workers.^[28]

• Market Function: Daily economic functions, particularly in terms of price establishment, are determined by the market forces of supply and demand. Profit is maximized democratically through productive innovation.^[29]

• Technology: The advancement of automation and technology is generally accepted as a societal good, created and maintained by society as a whole. As such, the benefits of such advancement are equitably distributed to promote continued innovation, more efficient market competition, and increased productivity.^[16]

• Income Distribution: Workers are voting members, entitled to percentage shares of net revenue. Therefore, labor is not commodified in the process of maximizing profit. The function of profit becomes more broadly beneficial, as labor is no longer a cost of doing business.^[23]

• Finance: Regional management of financial resources prevent the artificial scarcity imposed by centrally planned monopolies.^[7]

• Law: Rejecting the fractional reserve system of monetarism and financial credit, legislation politically and financially empowers labor, regardless of individual employment status. Suggested legal measures include abolishment of the Federal Reserve Bank,^[30] repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act,^[31] and implementation of Basic Income Guarantee.

While some models of Economic Democracy address all of these issues, most tend to focus on finance, income distribution, and law, relying on existing functions of political democracy to install the legislation needed for economic improvement. A worker cooperative is a cooperative owned and operated by its worker-owners. There are no outside, or consumer owners, in a workers cooperative - only the workers own shares of the business. ... Look up Market in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... By the mid 20th century humans had achieved a mastery of technology sufficient to leave the surface of the Earth for the first time and explore space. ... A good or commodity in economics is any object or service that increases utility, directly or indirectly, not be confused with good in a moral or ethical sense (see Utilitarianism and consequentialist ethical theory). ... Differences in national income equality around the world as measured by the national Gini coefficient. ... Finance studies and addresses the ways in which individuals, businesses, and organizations raise, allocate, and use monetary resources over time, taking into account the risks entailed in their projects. ... For other uses, see Law (disambiguation). ... The Fed redirects here. ... The Labor-Management Relations Act, commonly known as the Taft-Hartley Act, is a United States federal law that greatly restricts the activities and power of labor unions. ... A guaranteed minimum income is a proposed system of income redistribution that would give each citizen a certain sum of money independent of whether they work or not. ...

Monetary Reform

Some proponents speculate that economic crisis might be necessary to drive a movement toward large-scale Economic Democracy. For instance, Peter Barnes suggests, "It may take a calamity of some sort—another war, a depression, or an ecological disaster—to trigger the next anti-corporate ascendancy, but sooner or later it will come. Our job is to be ready when it comes.".^[26] Likewise, J.W. Smith speculates, "Because of the social-control-paradigms created by think-tanks supported by the power-structure and perpetuated through the university system and the media, only under extreme crisis can change be imposed upon them".^[7] In economics, crisis is an old term in business cycle theory, referring to the sharp transition to a recession. ...

More proactively, Richard C. Cook claims, "Most economic reform programs address symptoms, not causes. Other observers would destroy society -- or, more accurately, watch it destroy itself -- before building something new. Another line of reasoning says we can only look forward to decades of a lower standard of living before we work our way out of the present crisis. Monetary reform accepts none of these scenarios. It embraces the enormous productivity of modern industrial methods with approval and hope. But it identifies factors in the nature of industrial production at the level of the corporation as creating a chronic state of instability".^[4] Monetary Reform is accounting reform that reaches more deeply into banking central bank, money supply and monetary policy. ...

Basic Income Guarantee

In this view, many proponents advocate Basic Income Guarantee ("B.I.G."), previously proposed in the United States by economists, politicians and reformers, including Milton Friedman, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and John Kenneth Galbraith. Friedman originally proposed a negative income tax to support this system, but then opposed the bill because its revised implementation would have merely supplemented existing tax-structures rather than replacing them.^[32] In 2006, the basic income guarantee was again proposed on the national level by State Representative Bob Filner (D-CA) as H.R. 5257, supported by author Matthew Rothschild ^[33]. Milton Friedman (July 31, 1912 – November 16, 2006) was an American Nobel Laureate economist and public intellectual. ... John Kenneth Galbraith John Kenneth Galbraith (October 15, 1908–April 29, 2006) was an influential Canadian-American economist. ... In economics, a negative income tax (abbreviated NIT) is a method of tax reform that has been discussed among economists but never fully implemented. ... Robert Filner (born September 4, American politician, has been a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives since 1993, representing the 51st District of California. ...

According to the U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network:

"The basic income guarantee (BIG) is a government insured guarantee that no citizen's income will fall below some minimal level for any reason. All citizens would receive a BIG without means test or work requirement. BIG is an efficient and effective solution to poverty that preserves individual autonomy and work incentives while simplifying government social policy. Some researchers estimate that a small BIG, sufficient to cut the poverty rate in half could be financed without an increase in taxes by redirecting funds from spending programs and tax deductions aimed at maintaining incomes."^[34]

Likewise, Richard C. Cook suggests existing surplus in United States Gross Domestic Product (GDP) could support such a system, as GDP of $12.98-trillion minus $9.21-trillion in purchasing power ("wages") equals a difference of $3.77-trillion. Divided equally amongst United States citizens, Cook estimates a "National Dividend" of approximately $12,600 could be provided annually to every U.S. citizen. A primary function of monetary reform is to "provide sufficient individual income" -- not merely "create jobs" -- for American workers displaced by technological advancement, outsourcing, and other economic influences beyond their control. Funding of the National Dividend would be drawn from a national credit account, which would include all factors that generate production costs and create new capital assets. The national credit account could also be used for price subsidies to discourage manufacturers from cutting costs by shipping jobs overseas. Nominal GDP per person (capita) in 2006. ...

Rather than Federal Reserve Notes, circulated only through debt payable to a bank with interest, the National Dividend would be "real money", based on the productive capacity of the economy expressed as GDP. Cook says, "it's important to realize that Social Credit is not a socialist system. Rather it is 'democratic capitalism,' in contrast to the 'finance capitalism' that has become so damaging".^[35] Rooted in the ideals of Social Credit, proposed by C.H. Douglas in the 1920s, Cook explains: Various Federal Reserve Notes - note that they are missing serial number imprints A Federal Reserve Note (FRNs or ferns) is a type of banknote issued by the Federal Reserve System and is the main type of paper currency in the United States. ... Social Credit (often called Socred for short) is an economic ideology and a social movement which started in the early 1920s. ... Socialism refers to a broad array of doctrines or political movements that envisage a socio-economic system in which property and the distribution of wealth are subjfuck grapesect to control by the community[1] for the purposes of increasing social and economic equality and cooperation. ... Major C. H. (Clifford Hugh) Douglas MIMechE, MIEE, (January 20, 1879-September 29, 1952) son of Hugh Douglas and Louisa Horfdern, was a Scottish engineer and pioneer of the Social credit concept. ...

"The difference between a National Dividend and a basic income guarantee is that the dividend is tied to production and consumption data and may vary from year to year. During years that the dividend falls below a designated threshold, the balance of a basic income guarantee could be provided from tax revenues. But in a highly-automated economy such as that of the U.S., the National Dividend would normally be sufficient".^[16]

In his book, Capitalism 3.0, Peter Barnes likens a "National Dividend" to the game of Monopoly, where all players start with an fair distribution of financial opportunity to succeed, and try to privatize as much as they can as they move around "the commons". Distinguishing the board game of Monopoly from contemporary real-world business, Barnes claims that "the top 5 percent of the population owns more property than the remaining 95 percent", providing the smaller minority with an unfair advantage of approximately "$5-trillion" annually, at the beginning of the game. Contrasting "redistribution" of income (or property) with "predistribution", Barnes argues for "propertizing" (without corporately privatizing) "the commons" to spread ownership universally, without taking wealth from some and giving it to others. His suggested mechanism to this end is the establishment of a "Commons Sector", ensuring payment from the Corporate Sector for "the commons" they utilize, and equitably distributing the proceeds for the benefit of contemporary and future generations of society. Monopoly is the best-selling commercial board game in the world. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ...

One real-world example of such reform is in the U.S. State of Alaska, where each citizen receives an annual share of the state's oil revenues called, "Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend". Barnes suggests this model could extend to other states and nations because "we jointly own many valuable assets". As corporate pollution of common assets increase, the permits for such pollution would become more scarce, driving prices for those permits up. "Less pollution would equal more revenue", and over time, "trillions of dollars could flow into an American Permanent Fund".^[26] The Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend program was created by state legislation in 1980 to share the wealth of the Alaska Permanent Fund with the people of Alaska. ...

However, none of these suggested models conform to the mandates recommended by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.:

Two conditions are indispensable if we are to ensure that the guaranteed income operates as a consistently progressive measure. First, it must be pegged to the median income of society, not the lowest levels of income. To guarantee an income at the floor would simply perpetuate welfare standards and freeze into the society poverty conditions. Second, the guaranteed income must be dynamic; it must automatically increase as the total social income grows. Were it permitted to remain static under growth conditions, the recipients would suffer a relative decline. If periodic reviews disclose that the whole national income has risen, then the guaranteed income would have to be adjusted upward by the same percentage. Without these safeguards a creeping retrogression would occur, nullifying the gains of security and stability.^[36]

Moreover, proponents of Economic Democracy generally believe that any such reform seems unlikely under the dominance of contemporary command economies, necessitating a rise in regional and community cooperatives for large-scale democratic support of this legislation.

Regional Trading Currencies

To neutralize imperial-centers-of-capital, many proponents of Economic Democracy recommend the regionalization of currencies. According to some, "under the Bretton Woods system, the Federal Reserve acted as the world's central bank. This gave America enormous leverage over economic policies of its principal trading partners".^[37] Other analysts add that developing nations are susceptible to exploitation mainly because they have no independent monetary system, using the U.S. dollar instead. This feeds the fractional reserve banking system, operated by the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Japan (imperial-centers-of-capital). Developing nations pay heavily for this service through market interest rates and because banking profits and property ownership emigrate to financial centers elsewhere.^[38] Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ...

According to J.W. Smith, "Currency is only the representation of wealth produced by combining land (resources), labor, and industrial capital". He claims that no country is free when another country has such leverage over its entire economy. But by combining their resources, Smith says developing nations have all three of these foundations of wealth:

By peripheral nations using the currency of an imperial center as its trading currency, the imperial center can actually print money to own industry within those periphery countries. By forming regional trading blocs and printing their own trading currency, the developing world has all four requirements for production, resources, labor, industrial capital, and finance capital. The wealth produced provides the value to back the created and circulating money.

Smith further explains that developed countries need resources from the developing world as much as developing countries need finance capital and technology from the developed world. Aside from superior military power of the imperial centers, the undeveloped world actually has superior bargaining leverage. With their own trading currencies, developing countries can barter their resources to the developed world in trade for the latest industrial technologies. Barter avoids "hard money monopolization" and the unequal trades between weak and strong nations that result. Smith suggests that barter was how Germany resolved many financial difficulties "put in place to strangle her", and that "World Wars I and II settled that trade dispute". He claims that their intentions of exclusive entitlement are clearly exposed when the imperial centers must resort to military force to prevent such barters and maintain monopoly control of others' resources.^[1]

Democratic Cooperatives

According to the International Cooperative Alliance's Statement on the Cooperative Identity, "Cooperatives are democratic organizations controlled by their members, who actively participate in setting their policies and making decisions. Men and women serving as elected representatives are accountable to the membership. In primary cooperatives members have equal voting rights (one member, one vote) and cooperatives at other levels are also organized in a democratic manner."^[39] Cooperatives play an essential role in all models of Economic Democracy, providing for the needs of workers, consumers, and communities. As an alternative to globalized economy, domination by large corporations, and neoliberal economic policies, Economic Democracy emphasizes large-scale economic withdrawal from corporate imperialism to more regionally organized producer and consumer cooperatives, thus restoring socio-economic stability on a broader scale. The International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) is a non-governmental Co-operative Federation (or, more precisely, a co-operative union representing co-operatives and the co-operative movement worldwide). ... For cooperative as used in biochemistry, see cooperative binding. ... The rise of technology has allowed our environment to be characterized as a global one. ... The term neoliberalism is used to describe a political-economic philosophy that had major implications for government policies beginning in the 1970s – and increasingly prominent since 1980 – that de-emphasizes or rejects positive government intervention in the economy, focusing instead on achieving progress and even social justice by... Cecil Rhodes: Cape-Cairo railway project. ...

Worker Cooperatives

A worker cooperative is a company that is democratically controlled by its workers. In cases where the company is also owned by employees, there are no outside or consumer owners. Only employees own shares of the business, which represent fractions of the market value of the cooperative. Only one membership share may be issued to each member, and one membership share provides its owner with one vote in company decision-making. While membership is not a requirement of employment, only employees can become members.^[40][41] Equal participation in decision-making becomes the responsibility and privilege of each member, providing a democratic alternative to the centralization of power imposed by corporate imperialism.^[42] A worker cooperative is a cooperative owned and operated by its worker-owners. There are no outside, or consumer owners, in a workers cooperative - only the workers own shares of the business. ...

According to Tim Calvert, a founding member of the worker-owned Portland, Oregon cooperative, City Bikes, "the marks of a worker co-op are an emphasis on cooperative working for collective success, a democratic structure for decision making with each member having an equal vote, a collective determination of how net income or net losses are allocated, an equal contribution to and benefit from the co-op's cash and an equal sharing of the risks and benefits of working at and owning a business".^[43] But since there is no inadequate legislation regarding worker cooperatives in the United States, most worker cooperatives tend to utilize consumer cooperative law for their purposes.^[44] While Calvert believes a genuine worker cooperative should be specially incorporated as owned solely and equally by employees, he also observes that CityBikes is one of the few that strictly adheres to the principles of a properly incorporated worker-owned cooperative. Instead, many worker-cooperatives choose to incorporate as Limited Liability Corporations, because 1) there is less paperwork involved, and 2) protection from personal lawsuit is a paramount concern.^[45]

David Schweickart integrates worker cooperatives into a larger socio-economic model. Assuming a foundation of political democracy and representative government, Schweickart's model borrows functions from Yugoslav socialism, Japanese capitalism and Mondragon cooperativism, to arrive at a worker self-managed market socialism he calls "Economic Democracy". In After Capitalism, Schweickart suggests a model of market socialism that embodies three main principles: 1) Democratic management of each productive enterprise by workers, 2) Free market exchange of goods, raw materials, and instruments of production, 3) Democratic management of capital investment by public banking. In this model, society owns the means of production, managed by workers. Enterprises compete in the free market to sell goods, and profit is democratically shared amongst workers. Taxes on capital are then distributed to public banks, who fund expansion of existing industry and the development of new innovation. The Mondragón Cooperative Corporation (Spanish: Mondragón Corporación Cooperativa - MCC) is a group of manufacturing and retail companies based in the Basque Country and extended over the rest of Spain and abroad. ... Constant capital (c), is a concept created by Karl Marx and used in Marxian political economy. ...

Scheickart suggests that funds for new investment should be generated by taxing capital assets, rather than providing interest for savings or loans. A value tax on capital assets provides incentive for economic use of those resources. The resulting funds are then dispensed according to democratic market planning by workers through cooperative community banks. Economic Democracy establishes regional banking structures, comparable to Mondragon's Caja Laboral Popular, which hold depreciation reserves and sales income, providing local enterprises with working capital and other financial services. Schweickart believes these investment mechanisms provide incentives for job creation that minimize unemployment as a disciplinary subjugation of workers.^[23]

Food Cooperatives

Food cooperatives were originally established to provide fresh, organic produce as a viable alternative to packaged imports. But this process can present a struggle, as communities tend to import the same crops that local farmers cultivate. The ideas of local and slow food production can help local farmers prosper, in addition to providing consumers with fresher products. But the growing ubiquity of organic food products in corporate stores testifies to broadening consumer awareness, and to the dynamics of global marketing. Organic vegetables at a farmers market in Argentina. ... A restaurant placard, Santorini The Slow Food movement was founded by Carlo Petrini in Italy as a resistance movement to combat fast food and claims to preserve the cultural cuisine and the associated food plants and seeds, domestic animals, and farming within an ecoregion. ...

Associated with national and international cooperative communities, Portland Oregon cooperatives manage to survive market competition with corporate franchise. As Lee Lancaster, financial manager for Food Front, states, "cooperatives are potentially one democratic economic model that could help guide business decisions toward meeting human needs while honoring the needs of society and nature". He admits, however, it is difficult to maintain collaboration among cooperatives while also avoiding integration that typically results in centralized authority.

Tim Calvert, a founding member of the worker-owned cooperative City Bikes believes that dollars are the most important vote to make, and others tend to agree. Citing members of People’s Co-op and Alberta Cooperative Grocery, Romona DeNies of The Portland Alliance states, "Co-ops are the antidote to the centralization of power. People forget they have power as consumers to make choices. We can’t be completely disentangled from the corporate world, but we can try to provide a local model of living further from it. No one is getting rich off your money at a co-op. But that’s the economic value of shopping here. In return, you support a viable alternative to the vicious cycle of bottom lines and end profits".^[46]

As World Trade Organization representatives negotiate issues of competition, agricultural subsidies, and economic protectionism among developed nations, the pending fate of the American farmer depends upon the ability of third-world farmers to "compete" with subsidized agricultural giants like Monsanto. Lee Lancaster says, “Underneath our unique aspects, we have the same structure and principles. Welfare of our respective neighborhoods is of vital concern to us. Food co-ops were started to provide local, organic produce. Now with those things more mainstream, the demand is going up, and our share of that market is declining. We have to reevaluate." The World Trade Organization (WTO), (OMC - Spanish: , French: ), is an international organization designed to supervise and liberalize international trade. ... The Monsanto Company (NYSE: MON) is a multinational agricultural biotechnology corporation. ...

Further, Lancaster claims the traditional independence and decentralization of U.S. cooperatives have restricted their impact on the food industry through economies of scale, lamenting they should have been better organized: "What if we could work with other co-ops to nurture and establish other cooperatives?" he asks, "In essence, this is an extension of neighborhood organizing. We’re all driven by competition from national chains, but in looking at national issues and realizing there’s a lot to address, what’s needed is a bigger movement, not a big corporation."^[46] The increase in output from Q to Q2 causes a decrease in the average cost of each unit from C to C1. ...

Modern Contributors to Economic Democracy

Henry George Henry George (September 2, 1839 – October 29, 1897) was an American political economist and the most influential proponent of the Single Tax on land. ... Major C. H. (Clifford Hugh) Douglas MIMechE, MIEE, (January 20, 1879-September 29, 1952) son of Hugh Douglas and Louisa Horfdern, was a Scottish engineer and pioneer of the Social credit concept. ... The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr, Ph. ... David Schweickart is an American mathematician and philosopher. ... Robert A. Dahl (b. ... Seymour Melman (born December 30, 1917 in New York City; died December 16, 2004 in Manhattan of an apparent aneurism) was a professor emeritus of Columbia Universitys Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science[1] who wrote extensively for fifty years on economic conversion, the ordered transition from... Prabhat Rainjan Sarkar was born in Bihar, India on a full moon day in May of 1921 to a family belonging to the intellectual caste of Brahmins. ...

See also

• Cooperative
• Worker Cooperative
• List of Worker Cooperatives
• Consumers' cooperative
• Cooperative economics
• Monetary Reform
• Guaranteed minimum income
• Social Credit

For cooperative as used in biochemistry, see cooperative binding. ... A worker cooperative is a cooperative owned and operated by its worker-owners. There are no outside, or consumer owners, in a workers cooperative - only the workers own shares of the business. ... A consumers cooperative is a cooperative business owned by its customers for their mutual benefit. ... Co-operative economics is a field of economics, socialist economics, Co-operative studies, and political economy, which is concerned with co-operatives. ... Guaranteed minimum income is a proposed system of income redistribution that would provide eligible citizens with a certain sum of money (independent of whether they work or not), also known as Basic Income Guarantee (BIG), universal basic income, citizens income scheme, demogrant, or just a basic income (the term... Social Credit (often called Socred for short) is an economic ideology and a social movement which started in the early 1920s. ...

External links

• Assistance in establishing workplace cooperatives: http://theworkingworld.org
• Co-ops: http://www.ica.coop/coop/index.html
• Co-ops: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0706-03.htm
• Slow Food: http://www.slowfood.com/about_us/eng/popup/campaigns_future.lasso
• The Institute for Economic Democracy (IED): http://www.ied.info/
• EconomicDemocracy online: http://www.economicdemocracy.org/
• Network of Bay Area Worker Cooperatives (NoBAWC): http://www.nobawc.org/
• The United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives: http://www.usworker.coop/about/mission
• Articles by Richard C. Cook presenting ideas of Economic Democracy: http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/UserInfo-Richard_C_Cook.html
• Prout: http://www.prout.org/TableofContents.html
• Seymour Melman website: http://www.seymourmelman.com/
• U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network: http://www.usbig.net/

References

• Economic Democracy, C. H. Douglas (1920) new edition: December 1974; Bloomfield Books; ISBN 0-904656-06-3
• Economic Democracy: A Grand Strategy for World Peace and Prosperity, J.W. Smith, Institute for Economic Democracy, July 2006, ISBN-10: 1933567023, ISBN-13: 9781933567020
• After Capitalism, David Schweickart, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., Oct 2002, ISBN-10: 0742513009, ISBN-13: 978-0742513006
• The War At Home: The Corporate Offensive from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush, Jack Rasmus, Kyklos Productions, LLC, 2006, ISBN-13: 978-0-9771062-0-2, ISBN-10: 0-9771062-0-9
• The Great Transformation, Karl Polanyi, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Transformation
• Das Kapital, Karl Marx, Voltmedia GmbH, Oct 2004, ISBN-10: 3937229345, ISBN-13: 978-3937229348
• Co-op: http://www.ica.coop/coop/index.html
• Co-op: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0706-03.htm
• Co-op: The Take directed by Avi Lewis http://www.thetake.org/
• Slow Food: http://www.slowfood.com/about_us/eng/popup/campaigns_future.lasso
• Social Responsibility: http://www.csr-news.net
• Social Responsibility: The Corporation Documentary written by Mark Achbar http://www.thecorporation.com/
• Social Responsibility: "Rethinking Socially Responsible Business" article by John Mackey http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/blogs/jm/archives/2005/09/rethinking_the.html
• Small Businesses: Small Giants by Bo Burlingham http://www.smallgiantsbook.com/reviews.html
• Small Businesses: Good to Great by Jim Collins http://www.goodtogreat.com/
• Jonathan Feldman, “Towards the Post-University: Centers of Higher Learning and Creative Spaces as Economic Development and Social Change Agents,” Economic and Industrial Democracy, Volume 22, Number 1, 2001.

Major C. H. (Clifford Hugh) Douglas MIMechE, MIEE, (January 20, 1879-September 29, 1952) son of Hugh Douglas and Louisa Horfdern, was a Scottish engineer and pioneer of the Social credit concept. ... David Schweickart is an American mathematician and philosopher. ... Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818 – March 14, 1883) was a 19th century philosopher, political economist, and revolutionary. ...

Notes