FREE   on   the   SEA

ARKON CH-06    Alternatives to Capitalism

At the beginning of the Yule year end celebrations for 2024, the following annual review appeared on All Hands wall screen:

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City-State of Arkon Summary Review 12,024 H.E.

Beginning Balance - $2,527,738
Ending       Balance     5,296,481

(to view in another currency click the symbol)

Beginning Population (16-60)   11,473
Ending       Population (16-60)   13,286

Beginning Population (01-15)        835
Ending       Population (01-15)     1,322

Beginning business registrations 473
Ending    business    registrations 952

Our medical tourism, contract assembly, joint ventures, and other projects have generated so much revenue that we have issued a series of Sovereign City-State construction bonds totaling $1.5 billion. They will be used to partially repay the founders loan and a down payment on our joint venture with the Chinese government to launch a research vessel, Arkon Star.

Prepared by the office of the Council of Elders.

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The Usual Suspects were gathered on the fantail food court even though it was a bit chill for outdoors.

"That is certainly an upbeat summary note," said Logan, "I wonder why our businesses* are growing so well?" "I want to know more about this Arkon Star," said Jack, "What is it going to research?" "A key reason our medical tourism is growing," said Bonnie, "is we are not anywhere near a war zone. Plus, our services are competitively priced and always work. Remember the old marketing saw,  'A happy customer tells three people, an angry customer tells five,' heh." "Other key factors," said Tango, " are we have no government bureaucracy to feed and meddle in our business, we settle disputes by arbitration with no lawyers, and taxes are very low."

"I read an article from Beijing University last summer," said Tango. "It talked about weather and climate cycles and said they really were not chaotic as some people claimed. It was just that we had not studied them in enough detail to know how everything worked together. The article ended with a call for the government to fund research vessels to measure more parameters. Maybe the Arkon Star is part of that." "I think you're right," said Jack. "I remember in geology class we studied ice ages and other long cyclical climate phenomenon but nothing that tied it to annual or decadal changes."

"Another thing that probably helps our businesses," said Logan, "is this was designed as an experiment to demonstrate a steady- state economy can yield good business results as well as good social results." "It sounds like a hybrid Mondragon capitalism," said Bonnie, "the Best of Both Worlds." "I think keeping the CEO/ line worker salary ratio  low is a key thing," said Tango, "That would prevent over spending on CEOs and envy; that happens in the outside world too often." "We're able to do that," said Jack, "because we planned the minimum wage to provide a comfortable living."

*thermal depolymerization of plastic and animal waste products into light crude oil, efficient cannabutter process, a soybean meal grinder that extracts oil and textured vegetable protein, and an efficient soybean oil to biodiesel process.

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Since Arkon One is organized as a minarky, the economy is also non- traditional. Historically, since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, there have been various alternatives proposed to capitalism. Here are some popular ones outlined: 

1. Syndicalism is a proposed type of  economic system, considered a replacement for capitalism. It suggests that workers, industries, and organisations be systematized into confederations or syndicates. It is "...a system of economic organization in which industries are owned and managed by the workers."

Its theory and practice is the advocacy of multiple cooperative productive units composed of specialists and representatives of workers in each field to negotiate and manage the economy.

For adherents, labour unions and labour training are the potential means of both overcoming economic  aristocracy and running society in the interest of informed and skilled majorities, through union democracy. Industry in a syndicalist system would be run through co- operative  confederations and mutual aid. Local syndicates may communicate with other syndicates through the Bourse du Travail (labour exchange), which would cooperatively determine distributions of commodities. - wiki

2. Anarcho- syndicalism (also referred to as revolutionary syndicalism) is a theory of anarchism that views  revolutionary industrial unionism  or syndicalism as a method for workers in capitalist society to gain control of an economy and, with that control, influence broader society. Syndicalists consider their economic theories a strategy for facilitating  worker self- activity and as an alternative co- operative economic system with democratic values and production centered on meeting human needs.

The basic principles of anarcho-syndicalism are solidarity, direct action (action undertaken without the intervention of third parties such as politicians, bureaucrats, and arbitrators) and direct democracy, or workers' self- management. The end goal of syndicalism is to abolish the wage system, regarding it as wage slavery. Anarcho- syndicalist theory therefore generally focuses on the labour movement.

Anarcho- syndicalists view the primary purpose of the state as being the defence of private property, and therefore of economic, social, and political privilege, denying most of its denizens the ability to enjoy material independence and the social autonomy that springs from it. In contrast with other bodies of thought, particularly with Marxism- Leninism, anarcho- syndicalists deny the possibility of a workers' state, or a state that acts in the interests of workers, as opposed to those of the powerful, and posit that any state with the intention of empowering the workers will inevitably work to empower itself or the existing elite at the expense of the workers. Reflecting the anarchist philosophy from which it draws its primary inspiration, anarcho-syndicalism is centred around the idea that power corrupts and that any hierarchy that cannot be ethically justified must either be dismantled or replaced by decentralized egalitarian control. - wiki

3. A worker cooperative is a  co-op that is owned and self-  managed by its workers. This control may be exercised in a number of ways. A cooperative enterprise may mean a firm where every worker- owner participates in decision making in a democratic fashion, or it may refer to one in which management is elected by every worker- owner, and it can refer to a situation in which managers are considered, and treated as, workers of the firm. In traditional forms of worker cooperative, all shares are held by the workforce with no outside or consumer owners, and each member has one voting share. In practice, control by worker- owners may be exercised through individual, collective, or majority ownership by the workforce; or the retention of individual, collective, or majority voting rights (exercised on a one-member one-vote basis). A worker cooperative, therefore, has the characteristic that each of its workers own one share, and all shares are owned by the workers. The International organisation representing worker cooperatives is CICOPA. CICOPA has two regional organisations: CECOP- CICOPA Europe and CICOPA Americas. - wiki

                      HISTORY of worker Co-Ops

Worker cooperatives rose to prominence during the Industrial Revolution as part of the labour movement. As employment moved to industrial areas and job sectors declined, workers began organizing and controlling businesses for themselves. Workers cooperative were originally sparked by "critical reaction to industrial capitalism and the excesses of the industrial revolution." The formation of some workers cooperatives were designed to "cope with the evils of unbridled capitalism and the insecurities of wage labor".

The philosophy that underpinned the cooperative movement stemmed from the socialist writings of thinkers including Robert Owen and Charles Fourier. Robert Owen, considered by many as the father of the cooperative movement, made his fortune in the cotton trade, but believed in putting his workers in a good environment with access to education for themselves and their children. These ideas were put into effect successfully in thecotton mills of New Lanark,  Scotland. It was here that the first co-operative store was opened. Spurred on by the success of this, he had the idea of forming "villages of cooperation"  where workers would drag themselves out of poverty by growing their own food, making their own clothes and ultimately becoming self-governing. He tried to form such communities in Orbiston in Scotland and in New Harmony, Indiana in the United States of America, but both communities failed.

Similar early experiments were made in the early 19th century and by 1830 there were several hundred co-operatives. Dr William King made Owen's ideas more workable and practical. He believed in starting small, and realized that the working classes would need to set up co-operatives  for themselves, so he saw his role as one of instruction. He founded a monthly periodical called The Co-operator, the first edition of which appeared on 1 May 1828. This gave a mixture of co-operative philosophy and practical advice about running a shop using cooperative principles. - wiki

4. The Mondragon Corporation is a corporation and federation of worker cooperatives based in the Basque  region of Spain. It was founded in the town of Mondragon in 1956 by graduates of a local technical college. Its first product was paraffin heaters. It is the tenth-largest Spanish company in terms of asset turnover and the leading business group in the Basque Country. At the end of 2014, it  employed  74,117 people in 257 companies and organizations in four areas of activity: finance, industry, retail and knowledge. By 2015, 74,335 people were employed. - wiki

                          Wage regulation at Mondragon

At Mondragon, there are agreed upon wage ratios between executive work and field or factory work which earns a minimum wage. These ratios range from 3:1 to 9:1 in different cooperatives  and average 5:1. That is, the general manager of an average Mondragon cooperative earns no more than 5 times as much as the theoretical  minimum wage paid in their cooperative. For most workers, this ratio is smaller because there are few Mondragon worker- owners that earn minimum wages, because most jobs are somewhat specialized and are classified at higher wage levels. The wage ratio of a cooperative is decided periodically by its worker- owners through a democratic vote.

Compared to similar jobs at local industries, Mondragon managers' wages are considerably lower (as some companies pay their best paid managers hundreds of times more than the lowest-paid employee of the company) and equivalent for middle management, technical and professional levels. Lower wage levels are on average 13% higher than similar jobs at local businesses. Spain's  progressive tax rate further reduces any disparity in pay. - wiki

The Statement on the Co-operative Identity, promulgated by the  International Co-operative Alliance  (ICA), defines and guides co-operatives worldwide. It contains the definition of a co-operative as a special form of organization, the values of co-operatives, and the currently accepted cooperative principles (the Rochdale Principles) that direct their behavior and operation. The Statement with the latest revision of the cooperative principles was adopted by ICA in 1995.

According to the Statement, a co-operative  is defined as "an  autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and  cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically controlled enterprise." Co-operatives "are based on the values of self-help, self-responsibility,  democracy, equality, equity and solidarity. In the tradition of co-operative founders, co-operative members believe in the ethical values of  honesty,  openness,  social responsibility and caring for others." - wiki

5. The Rochdale Principles are a set of ideals for the operation of cooperatives.  They were first set out in 1844 by the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers in Rochdale, England and have formed the basis for the principles on which co-operatives around the world continue to operate. The implications of the Rochdale Principles are a focus of study in co-operative economics. The original Rochdale Principles were officially adopted by the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) in 1937 as the Rochdale Principles of Co-operation. Updated versions of the principles were adopted by the ICA in 1966 as the Co-operative Principles and in 1995 as part of the Statement on the Co-operative Identity. - wiki

                  Original version (adopted 1937)

1. Open membership.

2. Democratic control (one person, one vote).

3. Distribution of surplus in proportion to trade.

4. Payment of limited interest on capital.

5. Political and religious neutrality.

6. Cash trading (no credit extended).

7. Promotion of education.


                       ICA revision (1966)

1. Open, voluntary membership.

2. Democratic governance.

3. Limited return on equity.

4. Surplus belongs to members.

5. Education of members, public in cooperative principles.

6. Cooperation between cooperatives. - wiki

6. Economic democracy or stakeholder  democracy is a socioeconomic philosophy that proposes to shift decision making power from corporate managers and corporate shareholders to a larger group of public stakeholders that includes workers, customers, suppliers, neighbors and the broader public. No single definition or approach encompasses economic democracy, but most proponents claim that modern property relations externalize costs (environmental damage), subordinate the general well-being to private profit, and deny the polity a democratic voice in economic policy decisions. In addition to these moral concerns, economic democracy makes practical claims, such as that it can compensate for capitalism's inherent effective demand gap.

Proponents of economic democracy generally argue that modern capitalism periodically results in economic crises characterized by deficiency of effective demand, as society is unable to earn enough income to purchase its output production. Corporate monopoly of common resources typically creates artificial scarcity, resulting in socio- economic imbalances that restrict workers from access to economic opportunity and diminish consumer purchasing power.  Economic democracy has been proposed as a component of larger socioeconomic ideologies, as a stand-alone theory, and as a variety of reform agendas. For example, as a means to securing full economic rights, it opens a path to full political rights, defined as including the former. Both market and non-market theories of economic democracy have been proposed. As a reform agenda, supporting theories and real-world examples range from decentralization  and economic liberalization to democratic cooperatives, public banking, fair trade, and the  regionalization of food production and currency. - wiki

7. Participatory economics, often abbreviated parecon, is an economic system based on participatory decision making as the primary economic mechanism for allocation in society. In the system the say in decision making is proportional to the impact on a person or group of people. Participatory economics is a form of decentralized economic planning  and socialism involving the common ownership of the means of production. It is a proposed alternative to contemporary  capitalism and central planning. This economic model is primarily associated with political theorist  Michael Albert and economist Robin Hahnel, who describe participatory economics as an anarchist economic vision.

The underlying values that parecon seeks to implement are  equity, solidarity, diversity, workers' self- management and efficiency (defined as accomplishing goals without wasting valued assets). The institutions of parecon include workers' and consumers' councils utilizing self- managerial methods for making decisions, balanced job complexes, remuneration based on individual effort, and participatory planning. - wiki

8. Communalism, a political theory based on the writings of Murray Bookchin. Bookchin developed Communalism after he broke with anarchism believing it to be individualist and lifestylist. It is based on libertarian municipalism, confederalism, and social ecology. - wiki

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