[P2P-F] Int'l Year of the Cooperative

Mon Feb 13 18:44:25 CET 2012

Hello colleagues,

Shareable just published an interview with Chuck Gold of ICA about the
Int'l Year of
the Coop:
http://www.shareable.net/blog/co-ops-are-big-business-charles-gould-interview

This follows a recent Shareable feature story about cooperatives, "Meet the
New Boss: You"
http://www.shareable.net/blog/meet-the-new-boss-you

We commissioned these articles to help educate the general public about the
value of
cooperatives in creating democratic societies.  Many of you probably share
the idea that
coops have special relevance in the age of Occupy, mounting financial
crisis, and
increasing employment precarity, especially among youth.

I hope that you will share these articles in your communities, and perhaps
more importantly
with those on the boundaries of your communities who are seeking new ways
to be in the world.
I think they make good introductions to coops and also correct common
misconceptions
about them, like that they are small and counter-cultural (a US bias, at
least).

Shareable is working informally with other groups, including the P2P
Foundation, to raise the
profile of coops as a solution (albeit an imperfect one) and get
cooperative development into
policy discussions.  The US has systematically supported
cooperative development in the past
to address market failures (the Rural Electrification Administration in The
Great Depression).
Perhaps we will return to this and join many other countries with
cooperative economic strategies.

I also invite you to share with us any media that you're doing around
coops.  We'd like to share your
media with our community, which you've helped us to grow to 50,000 unique
visitors a month.

Thank you!

-Neal

--

Neal Gorenflo | Publisher, Shareable <http://shareable.net/> |
@ShareableDesign <http://twitter.com/#!/ShareableDesign> | 415.867.0429
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