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Season 5
Season 5 began in October 2021.
Why the Left Needs to Grow the Cooperative Movement
March 2022 (Season 5 - Episode 10)
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In this episode of All Things Co-op, Kevin, Cinar, and Larry discuss the urgency of scaling the cooperative movement. Traditional capitalist enterprises leave the majority of workers feeling trapped and exploited. Democratically-run worker co-ops are a functional solution to a system built on workplace inequality. The ATC guys explore how to grow the co-op sector by asking questions like: Why do co-ops need to scale? For what purpose? What does a scaled co-op economy mean in terms of challenging capitalism? Can the cooperative system help unify and support a Leftist political movement?
Cooperative vs. Capitalist Enterprise
February 2022 (Season 5 - Episode 09)
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In this episode of All Things Co-op, Kevin recommends a few resources for listeners who are interested in starting and running their own worker co-op. He then takes a step back and contextualizes cooperatives within our current economic system. What does it mean to do startup work in the worker co-op system? How does the co-op model relate to and differ from traditional capitalist enterprises?
Blockchain and Cryptocurrency
February 2022 (Season 5 - Episode 08)
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In this episode of All Things Co-op, Kevin talks to blogger and podcaster “The Blockchain Socialist” about the possibilities of blockchain technology as a mechanism for worker cooperatives and the Left. Though often tied to cryptocurrency, blockchains can also function as a means to enable cooperatives to maintain data sovereignty, to engage with various economic actors outside of traditional capitalist structures, and to enable scalability while retaining democratic governance of enterprises. Though blockchain is not going to fix every problem, it does offer up many interesting opportunities to shift away from centralized, hierarchical capitalist institutions.
Accumulation - The Ruthless Pursuit of Profit
January 2022 (Season 5 - Episode 07)
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In this episode, the ATC guys answer a question from a listener: "In the Soviet Union commodity production was retained and thus the money-commodity-money cycle that creates capital was able to continue, with the main change being that the capital accumulation was now directed by the state. Would a cooperative society not run into a similar issue, where the capital accumulation is merely directed by a different entity (in this case the co-ops) instead of eliminating capital accumulation itself?"
Kevin, Larry, and Cinar dive into this question and provide their perspective on issues of capital accumulation, commodity production, and the incentives of cooperative enterprises.
Lessons from Venezuela's Social Economy
January 2022 (Season 5 - Episode 06)
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In this episode of All Things Co-op, Larry, Kevin, and Cinar talk to Michael Lebowitz about his perspective on the social economic models in Venezuela and Yugoslavia. They speak about the creation of the social economy, the experience of Chavismo in Venezuela, and the differing goals of some cooperatives and traditional trade unions. Lebowitz highlights the importance of self-actualization through protagonism and how the most successful of these models focused on solidarity over self-interest.
Platform Cooperatives with Minsun Ji
December 2021 (Season 5 - Episode 05)
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In this episode of All Things Co-op, Cinar, Larry, and Kevin talk to Minsun Ji, a labor organizer and Co-op expert. They discuss what a platform cooperative is, how it differs from a corporate or capitalist platform, and its connection with the larger labor movement. Minsun also talks with the ATC guys about the growth of the social economy and cooperatives in Korea, and shares her take on the popular Netflix series Squid Games and what it reveals about the reality Korean workers are faced with today.
An Interview with Patrick Conlon of WORCS
December 2021 (Season 5 - Episode 04)
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In this episode of All Things Co-op, Larry and Kevin talk to Patrick Conlon of Worker Ownership Resources and Cooperative Services, otherwise known as WORCS.
Cuba's New Cooperative Legislation
November 2021 (Season 5 - Episode 03)
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In this episode of All Things Co-op, Cinar, Larry, and Kevin bring back Camila Piñeiro to discuss new legislative developments in Cuba that specifically focus on growing worker cooperatives. They briefly discuss the history of worker cooperatives in Cuba, the previous limitations on cooperatives, and the recent removal of those limitations. While US media paints recent protests in Cuba as a call for neo-liberal capitalism, Piñeiro tells us that this is really just a new phase in the "human experiment" that is Cuba's revolution. A new generation of Cubans are looking to reacquaint socialism with worker control and looking to vest that control in worker co-operatives rather than the solely in the state or party.
Lessons from Zuccotti - What Occupy Wall Street Taught Us
October 2021 (Season 5 - Episode 02)
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In this episode of All Things Co-op, Larry, Cinar, and Kevin talk about the lessons from occupy as we commemorate the 10 year anniversary of that revolutionary fall. They discuss what we should learn from that experience, what we owe to it, and how it still provides us crucial lessons on organizing in revolutionary times. It also forces us to reckon with the idealism of pure horizontalism, and the necessity of leadership in periods of struggle.
Cooperative Structures and Organizations
October 2021 (Season 5 - Episode 01)
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In this first episode of Season 5, Larry, Kevin, and Cinar share their thoughts on the status of co-operative organizations, the need for more overtly political co-operative organizations, and how big a role co-operative organizations should play in attempting to build the institutions that could serve as a part of an institutional challenge to the status quo.
OTHER SEASONS OF ALL THINGS CO-OP
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