A mutualist joke

Why do all anrchists drink herbal tea?

Because all proper tea is theft

(Courtesy of Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo)

The Great British Property Scandal and Co-operative Housing

A few weeks ago I went to the Houses of Parliament foran event entitled Co-operative Housing: a way to address the housing crisis? David Rogers President, International Co-operative Alliance Housing Sectorwas particularly interesting.

I’ve also just watched the great little two part show The Great British Property Scandal on Channel 4.  Co-op’s aren’t mentioned in the show but it seemed to me that a lot of the problems mentioned in the show could easily be addressed by a co-operative model.

www.socialnetwork.coop

In a sudden moment of rebellion against facebook about a month ago I set up a co-operative social network at www.socialnetwork.coop. If you like the idea of a co-operative alternative to facebook then join www.socialnetwork.coop and get all your friends to join.

It’s a bit rough and ready at the moment but that’s because it’s only me and the beauty of a co-operative is that the more people that join the better it gets. In particular the co-op could use some technical expertise.

Although the site is up the co-op isn’t formed as yet because you can’t form a co-op with one person. If you’d like to join me in forming the co-op then drop me a line.

Mutuals Yearbook 2011 released

The Mutuals Yearbook for 2011 is out. Headline figures:

• over 18,000 mutuals
• over 60 million members
• over 1 million employees of mutuals
• over £111 billion revenue

Happiness at the LSE

I went along to a very good-natured debate tonight at the LSE between Professor Lord Layard and Professor Lord Skidelsky. Happiness research is something I’m very interested in.  In fact it was a chapter on happiness at the back of an introductory economics book that first lead me on the path to mutualism.

I was so cramped in my seat that I didn’t really get a chance to take notes but once the video’s up I’ll have another look. Skidelsky seemed to be playing the contrarian a bit but raised some challenging points which Layard responded to well. Skidelsky’s also threw in a few jokes for the punters, at one point asking whether happiness “was like God having an orgasm in your head”.  Hovering behind the debate was clearly a political argument about cuts and levels of public ownership.

As I said before, the debate was good-natured throughout. It seems that you just can’t debate happiness without having a smile on your face.

I’m curious to know whether any of these happiness experts has ever considered mutualism as a solution. I might have to ask them sometime.

The Co-operative Housing Tenure Bill

This week MP Jonathan Reynolds introduced the The Co-operative Housing Tenure Bill in the Commons under the Ten Minute Rule. The Bill essentially aims to change the law so that membership of a co-op will give rise to the right to occupy thus ending the 1,000 year convention that it is only through freehold or tenancy that someone can occupy land. For a better explanation read this piece by co-op housing expert David Rodgers on Left Foot Forward.

Property prices have played a central role in the financial crisis which has been rumbling along the last few years. House price inflation is a phenomenon which is talked about all the time but never seriously questioned. Is it some fundamental law of the universe that house prices must, over time, increase? Or is it just a side-effect of our individual pursuit of profit?

To paraphrase Darryl Kerrigan, the buildings in which we live are not houses, they’re homes, and it’s time we started treating them as such and not just as commodities to trade and fight over.

The oniomanic riots

I’m living away from the UK at the moment in a small agricultural community in a controlled European economy and it was from this vantage point that I stayed up for a few nights last week to follow the riots. From afar I have to say that Britain looked grim.

Since I’m away could someone nip by Highgate Cemetery for me and check to see if Marx has a wry smile on his face because above all else these riots were a failure of capitalism. Admittedly one of the main motivations seems to have been fun but what I also saw were hyped-up consumers with no jobs hell-bent on consuming as much as they possibly could because, well, that’s the route to happiness isn’t it?

The great irony is that the solution which has been proposed in the past and will shortly be proposed again in the future is yet more consumption. If only we could consume more, then we could make more and sell more and advertise more and litigate more until we’re consuming so much that everyone will be employed and have that most precious of things: a stake in society. We’ll have to listen to endless, meaningless recitations of growth figures; growth which will make us increasingly unhappy. It’s a mad, mad solution. Completely mad.

The time to abandon growth and profit and, dare I say it, progress, is nigh. Let’s mutualise!

Property Is Theft!: A Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Reader

I now have my copy of Property Is Theft!: A Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Reader edited by Iain McKay. I’ve been eagerly awaiting a new anthology. I’ve always found the Proudhon oeuvre quite a daunting prospect so many thanks Iain McKay. That said it’s sitll a weighty tome at over 800 pages so it might take me a while to finish. I’ve read bits and pieces of Proudhon before but I’ve never managed to read anything cover to cover before.  I’ll report back once I’ve read a couple of centimetres.

Co-operative food

I always try to buy my food from co-operatives and living in South London I have a few good options which I thought I’d tell you about.

My top choice is farehshares just up the road from me in Kennington.  This is the best place in London (co-operative or non-co-operative) to buy dry goods in bulk. Everything is conveniently stored in dustbins, tubs and other suitable containers so all you need to do is turn up with some bags and be prepared to weigh out everything yourself. Everytime I go I am staggered by the value.

As well as dry goods they also do vegetables which never seem to be the same from week to week but which always taste great.

Not far from Fareshares is my second choice which is the Co-op on Camberwell New Road in Camberwell where I get anything that I can’t get from Fareshares. The Co-op is the biggest farmer in the UK and it has fairly rigorous ethical standards so I buy my meat there and any fruit and vegetables that I can’t get at Fareshares. I’m an enthusiastic member of the Co-op; I even went to a regional meeting a few months ago.

Finally, I went to the People’s Supermarket a few weeks ago as well. It’s currently featuring in a Channel 4 series which you can watch here. The People’s supermarket is somewhere between Fareshares and a regular Co-op. I bought some chicken thighs, some flour, some mushrooms, some artichokes and a bottle of Orangina. As well as being a shop it also has a kitchen serving dishes made from food nearing its expiry. It’s not that convenient for me so I won’t be going there regularly but it’s a great idea and I really hope it succeeds.

Update: And I’ve just found out via the Politics for People blog that there is to be a Co-op in central London right on the Strand near where I work.

1m turnover £100bn

Mutuo has published the mutuals yearbook again. It’s available here.

The headline news is that the total mutual turnover in the UK has exceeded £100bn for the first time. The total number of employees in the mutual sector has also exceeded 1m for the first.

All these numbers are slightly arbitrary I suspect because the numbers for the sector aren’t that readily available. If anything I’m sure that they are understated. There are thousands and thousands of mutual arrangements in our society which fall under the radar of such reports. Small sporting and social clubs generate happiness far in excess of their financial significance. The few thousand pounds that an under-9′s football team turns over in a year wouldn’t warrant inclusion in the report but the happiness for the parents and the children is incalculable.