So, democracy is not a “blueprint” as you suggest. It is a distribution of decision-making power. The most fair distribution is probably one person, one vote. To normalize the distribution, the extreme economic influence of passive ownership must be removed.

Lichen, I’m not sure that all cooperatives require any sort of payment for membership — at least not up-front. Many of them do it over time. But keep in mind, the purpose of this payment is to make workers the owners of the business rather than passive shareholders. In my view, this is the whole idea behind economic democracy. To eliminate the extreme influence of passive ownership in the workplace, finance and government, workers must reject wage-slavery to become the residual claimants and the decision-makers of enterprise.

So to rewrite the US Constitution to favor your perfectly reasonable proposals, the extreme influence of passive ownership must be removed from the democratic process.

A couple of items to offer here from a recent conference on Economics for Ecology and a manifesto for an economic model which places people before greed and profit based upon abstract numbers.

http://www.p-ced.com/projects/ukraine/sumy/

http://www.p-ced.com/about/background/

Jeff Mowatt

I see this author doing classic rhetoric and arguing over the distribution of money/ownership, and doing blame-a-thons. Why not bring up the debate of whether or not economies are necessary and/or legal? Just the fact that no other living creature uses them, already proves them un-natural and far from God-made. See the freemason pyramid scheme symbol on the back of the USA dollar? See the USA gov located in a “district of columbia” and not part of the USA? See how capitalists are part of (conned/shammed-into) a herd control “lab experiment”? Sure ya do. Here’s something you CAN “own”. Own up to rat-racing/pyramiding. Monetary discrimination should have been illegal long ago.

Larry “Wingnut” Wendlandt
MaStars – Mothers Against Stuff That Ain’t Right
(anti-capitalism-ists)
Bessemer MI USA

what makes sense to me, is a constitution that assures basic human rights and not just the lofty ones like the socalled free speech, free market, pursuit of hapiness, etc.

when we’d rewrite constitution we cld prescribe penalties for all those who knowingly disseminate disinformation or teaches falsehoods in schools.

above everything else a constitution wld ban wars on following principle: no land has the right to attack another. Each land has the right to defend self if attacked by another land or block of lands.

and then let the people work; pay their taxes; everything wld be fine.
the hell with more theories and economic or even social ‘science’.
as social ‘science’ is just another red herring.
we once lived an dhad no socialism, capitalism, free markets, freedom of speech, derivatives, banks, mercenary soldiers, cia, fbi, etc.

we can live well or better than ever with just healthcare and enlightement. Then add more goodies as we go along.
and once amers taste some of these goodies they’d want more of the same.
precisely what present americanism fears the most. tnx

Economic democracy starts in the workplace — fire the boss and reorganize democratically. So instead of a mere “sit-in”, why didn’t the workers at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago jump up and restart the machines, as the workers in 1,200 Argentina factories have done? There have been as many worker take-overs in the past 4-months in Argentina as there were in the 4-years prior. The main reason for much of the success in this endeavor is that the workers have virtually 100-percent community support for what they’re doing.

But this raises another question: If there is so much community support for workers’ civil disobedience, then why don’t the communities form publicly owned banks to buy the factories from the previous owners? Has this idea not occurred to them? Do they lack the funds or the organization? I doubt the latter, because they seem to be quite well organized. There might be a funding problem, but that’s something that’s not insurmountable with cooperative community support — and/or collaborative organization amongst the cooperatives.

Whether such a movement is likely in the United States or not, this would be the best place for it to start for a number of reasons. As the imperial power center of the world, an expansion of the cooperative movement here would speak volumes to regions elsewhere about rejection of irrational authority and assuming control of their own destinies. In terms of civil rights alone, a US movement in this regard would be a magnificent example for the rest of the world and possibly inspiration for them to emulate.

But the US is also the one place in the world that supposedly maintains the most freedom and democracy and “human rights” or whatever –”liberty and justice for all”, “land of the free and home of the brave”, and all that rot. These are at least the rules of the game that the passive owners of this country want us to believe. So, while it would be very easy for the US government to find an excuse to start bombing factories and villages in Argentina, it would certainly be more difficult to justify that strategy against domestic citizens within the United States.

Moreover, even the corporate controlled media can’t evade or distort a large, community supported performance like the one at Republic Windows and Doors. They must present the story as truthfully as possible or risk discrediting themselves through global exposure of their underlying corporate bias.

So there are lots of good reasons for expanding the cooperative sector in the United States — from the bottom- up. Most importantly, democratic worker control of the workplace removes the influence of passive ownership from production. Democratic community control of capital investment (banking) removes passive ownership from finance. The combination of both eventually removes the dominant influence of passive ownership from government.

Lots of people claim we need more “direct” democracy — probably in the form of referendum or something like that — and I don’t necessarily disagree. But how much more “direct” can democracy get than Bill Gates appearing before Congress to make a plea for immigration so he can avoid paying decent wages to American workers?

The problem isn’t that our system of democracy is not “direct” enough. The problem is that passive ownership (like Gates) has far more direct access to the system than the rest of us. He has access, he has time, he has opportunity, and he has the money to make sure his interests are satisfied — through lobbying and campaign finance and gifts and whatever else.

So, absent the extreme influence of passive ownership, representative democracy would probably work just fine. Instead of our leaders (public servants) being appointed and financially supported by corporate shareholders, they would be elected democratically from the ranks of the general public. This can be accomplished in one of two ways. We can either reorganize the political system to regulate (reform) the dominance of passive ownership — or — we can reorganize the economic system to prohibit (eliminate) the dominance of passive ownership.

The first option is a top-down approach. The second option is a bottom-up approach. Since passive ownership currently controls the political system, which of these approaches seems most likely to succeed? Well, passive ownership also controls the economic system — but not completely. They do rely heavily on our participation in that regard — far more than they do in the political arena. So even though the two don’t seem directly related, they most certainly are.

To suggest such a thing is to play along with the elites … to give them the cover they need (as the election of BaWreck O’Bushma demonstrates) that the same old same old will continue.

We were NOT founded on equality (look at the poor and the incarcerated) … nor freedom (don’t EVER forget the slaves) … nor any of the other horse manure connected with the “CONSTITUTION” … that document to protect and serve wealth!

IF there is going to be a rebellion, it sure as hell won’t start in the class driven US … it may start in places like Latin America … and it might (though not probably) have a snowballs chance in hell of starting in Europe. I doubt it.

Why?

Because you still believe in the BS of the ballot box … where we are given such real choices … as between a fascist such as McCain/Pail-one or BaWreck O’Bushma. The former talked up the empire the other yacked about change. Yeah? What change.

And, here is the point … YOU voted for one or the other. Thus playing into the myth of choice … of democracy. Sadly, if you are like most people you actually believe you can make a difference.

Hah.

RG the LG