oregon's citizens' initiative review...

participatory budgeting in canada...

struggles for democratic participation and citizenship sometimes emerge in unexpected places. in the small canadian city of guelph, for example, a grassroots neighbourhood coalition has enabled ordinary people to collectively decide what community services their city government provides. although still evolving, guelph’s coalition has helped diverse city residents and staff learn about and build democracy, equity, and community. in the words of one participant: "each group is individual but yet when we come to this table, we need to advocate and make decisions based on the good of the whole. i now understand the statement, what is good for you is also good for me." the experience in guelph is only one example of how participatory budgeting is being adapted to canada. in the face of increasing inequality and neoliberalism, participatory budgeting has made public participation more powerful, government decision-making more democratic, and public spending more equitable // josh lerner & estair van wagner, 02.01.06, transnational institute

the age of unequals...

co-ownership advice, support, funding and development...

are employee-owned businesses a better fit for fostering competiveness in a high-skilled, knowledge-intensive economy? a growing body of research supports the thesis — as do westjet, vancity, PLC construction, many of canada’s law firms and management consultancies, and sure, also the karma co-op. but if employee-owned businesses are better for the economy and more resilient when times get tight, how do we create more of them?

the UK’s baxi partnership has a no-nonsense solution. give employees direct access to management and governance skills, and back them up with access to a dedicated revolving fund to provide the capital for the buyout. good business, but also an idea fit for the times. with aging, enterprising baby-boomers increasingly keen to offload their firms, today's employees with the right support could be tomorrow's ready buyers.

viktor frankl: why to believe in others...

if we take man as he is, we make him worse but if we take man for what he should be, we make him capable of becoming what he can be // goethe

traci fenton on organizational democracy...

( worldblu )

the five advantages of a democratic workplace...

in my last article i talked about the 7 trends making businesses more democratic including the internet, expectations of generations X and Y, new business standards in a post-enron age, political transitions, humanity’s search for meaning, corporate social responsibility, and the birth of what i call “lifestyle democracy.” these trends are making democracy in the workplace inevitable, but what about the benefits? can democracy – rather than a traditional top-down model of business – really be more advantageous? here are five reasons why i believe it can:

democratic companies are a talent magnet...
where would you rather work – a stifling, fear-driven workplace that may look great on a resume but makes your life miserable or one where you’re valued and your voice is heard? when given a choice, smart, creative, self-motivated people – the ideal employee – will choose the latter. regardless of pay or prestige, people want to work where they feel appreciated and heard. business owners and executives should look beyond motivational gimmicks and instead use democracy to attract the people needed to propel their businesses forward – and win the talent war in the process.

democratic companies come up with smarter ideas...
every business owner knows the maxim, “innovate or die.” but coming up with ideas and acting on them isn’t enough. you need smart ideas. how to get them? as james surowiecki writes, tap the wisdom of your crowd. chances are the employees developing your products or services, fielding customer service calls or selling to clients have some great insights for your next big idea – if only someone would listen.

democratic companies work fast...
it may seem paradoxical to say that democratic companies know how to work fast but it’s true. sure, the decision-making process, if it involves reaching a consensus, can take time. but the time and attention paid to everyone’s point of view only makes the execution phase faster once the decision is made. typically, top-down decisions leave employees thinking, “why are they doing that? why didn’t they consult me? this will never work.” most company’s best-laid plans fall apart in the execution phase because they didn’t have the democratic buy-in of the employees who would be executing on the decision. when employees have a say and understand the “why” behind a decision the execution is faster, more efficient and devoid of resistance.

democratic companies have happier employees...
the gallup organization recently reported that approximately three-fourths of the US workforce is disengaged at work, costing $300 billion annually. employees report that not being engaged also impacts their emotional and physical health. conversely employees who do feel engaged feel the opposite. a democratic system by definition is an engaging one, contributing to the physical and mental health of employees each day. being engaged, having a say, and being treated as an intelligent human being makes people happy – and creates a happier place to work as well.

democratic companies use democracy to boost the bottom line...
democracy impacts the bottom line because it attracts great talent, keeps turnover and absenteeism low and produces a more innovative workforce that executes on ideas quickly. a workplace with fewer layers of management due to a flatter, more decentralized system means that money can be used to hire great people – rather than manage underperformers. democracy means a leaner, faster, happier and more innovative company – factors which give the bottom line a boost // traci fenton, startupnation.com

ricardo semler on the modern corporation...

almost all businessmen think their employees are involved in the firm and are its greatest asset. almost all employees think they are given too little attention and respect, and cannot say what they really think. how is it possible to reconcile these two positions? the sad truth is employees of modern corporations have little reason to feel satisfied, much less fulfilled. companies do not have the time or the interest to listen to them, and lack the resources or the inclination to train them for advancement. these companies make a series of demands, for which they compensate employees with salaries that are often considered inadequate. moreover, companies tend to be implacable in dismissing workers when they start to age or go through a temporary drop in performance, and send people into retirement earlier than they want, leaving them with the feeling they could have contributed much more had someone just asked. the era of using people as production tools is coming to an end. participation is infinitely more complex to practice than conventional corporate unilateralism, just as democracy is much more cumbersome than dictatorship. but there will be few companies that can afford to ignore either of them// ricardo semler, maverick, p.107

charlie breaks his silence...

the return of history...

in a column called “a crisis of understanding,” robert j. shiller of yale pointed out that the best explanation of the crisis isn’t even a work of economic analysis. it’s a history book — “this time is different” by carmen m. reinhart and kenneth s. rogoff — that is almost entirely devoid of theory. one gets the sense, at least from the outside, that the intellectual energy is no longer with the economists who construct abstract and elaborate models. instead, the field seems to be moving in a humanist direction. many economists are now trying to absorb lessons learned by psychologists, neuroscientists and sociologists. they’re producing books with titles like “animal spirits,” “the irrational economist,” and “identity economics,” about subjects such as how social identities shape economic choices. this amounts to rediscovering the humility of an earlier time. after all, adam smith was a moral philosopher, friedrich von hayek built his philosophy on an awareness of our own ignorance, and john maynard keynes “was not prepared to sacrifice realism to mathematics,” as the biographer robert skidelsky put it. economics is a “moral science,” keynes wrote. it deals with “motives, expectations, psychological uncertainties. one has to be constantly on guard against treating the material as constant and homogenous..." economics achieved coherence as a science by amputating most of human nature. now economists are starting with those parts of emotional life that they can count and model (the activities that make them economists). but once they’re in this terrain, they’ll surely find that the processes that make up the inner life are not amenable to the methodologies of social science. the moral and social yearnings of fully realized human beings are not reducible to universal laws and cannot be studied like physics// david brooks, 03.25.10, new york times

vital ingredient in wall street reform goes missing...

last fall, it was all about the wall: financial bigwigs like former federal reserve chair paul volcker, former citigroup co-CEO john reed, governor of the bank of england, mervyn king, all espoused reestablishing the legal barrier between the derivatives casino that masquerades today as wall street and commercial banks holding insured deposits. it made good sense: the wall goes up in 1933, america becomes the premier financial center for 66 years. the wall comes down in 1999, the financial system collapses exactly 9 years later with the precise characteristics of the massive wall street swindles that occurred in the late 1920s when there was also no wall. but the wall has now gone missing in the current financial reform bill advanced out of the senate banking committee by its chairman, senator christopher dodd. equally noteworthy, the historic 1933 legislation that built the essential wall between flim-flam securities salesmen and aunt tilly’s insured bank account, commonly known as the glass-steagall act, has gone missing itself from the internet. to underscore how extraordinary this is, if you put “glass-steagall act” in the google search box, it brings up 220,000 hits. and, yet, it is next to impossible to find the actual text of the legislation on the internet// pam martens, 03.26.10, counterpunch

giving clubs back to fans...

the labour government is to unveil radical proposals that would give football fans first option to buy their clubs when they were put up for sale and require clubs to hand over a stake of up to 25% to supporters' groups. under the scheme to give fans a stake, supporters' trusts with elected representatives, audited accounts and financial services authority recognition would be responsible for maintaining the link between clubs and their community and ensuring fans are not priced out of the game. the government could, however, face legal challenges from existing owners over the dilution of their shares. it has echoes of the model proposed by the so-called red knights attempting to buy manchester united. wealthy fans will contribute 74.9% of the overall purchase price, but supporters will hold a "golden share" of just over 25%, giving them a blocking stake on any change of ownership and an influential boardroom voice. legal advice is being sought on the idea of a change of ownership at a club triggering a mandatory window for fans to take the opportunity to shape the ownership structure and buy the club at a price set by an external, independent auditor. under the proposals, fans would be free to set up their co-operative style model, shareholding trust or other structure that enabled them to have a say in the club. while the government will reiterate that it has no desire to regulate football directly, the prime minister believes the democratisation of football club ownership taps into wider themes about the "mutualisation" of public services and the need for regulatory reform// owen gibson, 03.28.10, guardian

the spanish anarchists...

chomsky on anarchism and strategy...

very substantial social changes (are) in order, and anarchists ought to be thinking about it. thinking about it doesn't just mean i'd like to have a free and just society; that's not thinking about it. we have to make a distinction if we want to be effective. that's the question: if we want to be effective, we have to make a distinction between what you might call proposals and advocacy. i mean, you can propose that everybody ought to live in peace, love each other, we shouldn't have any hierarchy, everyone should cooperate, and so on. okay? it's a nice proposal, okay for an academic seminar somewhere. advocacy requires more than just proposal. it means setting up your goals (proposal), but also sketching out a path from here to there -- that's advocacy. and the path from here to there almost invariably requires small steps. it requires recognition of social and economic reality as it exists, and ideas about how to build the institutions of the future within the existing society, to quote bakunin, but also to modify the existing society. that means steps have to be taken that accommodate reality, that don't deny it's existence ("since i don't like it, i'm not going to accommodate it"). these are the only ways to be effective// noam chomsky, 03.12.10, reddit blog

why greater equality makes societies stronger...

it is well established that in rich societies the poor have shorter lives and suffer more from almost every social problem. now a groundbreaking book, based on thirty years’ research, takes an important step past this idea. the spirit level shows that there is one common factor that links the healthiest and happiest societies: the degree of equality among their members. not wealth; not resources; not culture, climate, diet, or system of government. furthermore, more-unequal societies are bad for almost everyone within them—the well-off as well as the poor. the remarkable data assembled in the spirit level reveals striking differences, not only among the nations of the first world but even within america’s fifty states. almost every modern social problem—ill-health, violence, lack of community life, teen pregnancy, mental illness—is more likely to occur in a less-equal society. this is why america, by most measures the richest country on earth, has per capita shorter average lifespan, more cases of mental illness, more obesity, and more of its citizens in prison than any other developed nation. wilkinson and pickett lay bare the contradiction between material success and social failure in today’s world, but they do not simply provide a diagnosis of our woes. they offer readers a way toward a new political outlook, shifting from self-interested consumerism to a friendlier, more sustainable society. the spirit level is pioneering in its research, powerful in its revelations, and inspiring in its conclusion: armed with this new understanding of why communities prosper, we have the tools to revitalize our politics and help all our fellow citizens, from the bottom of the ladder to the top//

i will fight for what i believe in until i drop dead... and that's what keeps you alive // barbara castle

...does activism make you happy?

marching in the drizzle against wars in far-off countries, writing letters protesting the government's latest reactionary policy, sitting through interminable meetings that keep sprouting any other business. it may be noble, but political activism is hardly a barrel of laughs. and yet it makes you happier. so find two university psychologists in new research that looks for the first time at the link between political activity and wellbeing. malte klar and tim kasser started by interviewing two sets of around 350 college students, both about their degree of political engagement and their levels of happiness and optimism. both times, they found that those most inclined to go on a demo were also the cheeriest. so there's a link – but can politics actually make a person happier? in the third study, the academics took a bunch of students and divided them up into groups. the first were encouraged to write to the management of the college cafeteria asking for tastier food. the next lot wrote asking the cafe to source local or fairtrade products. they were then tested on their wellbeing, and the group who had involved themselves in the political debate were far and away the strongest on the "vitality" scale: they felt more alive and enriched than those who merely complained about the menu. there are many fascinating aspects to this . first, the activist-students didn't necessarily care about food ethics, but just taking action made them feel better. second, sending a memo is hardly the most engaging political action – and yet it had a big impact on those taking it. third, the study flies in the face of the popular wisdom that happiness resides in creature comforts and relative affluence. perhaps activism gives people a sense of purpose, or of agency or just a chance to hang out with other people. most likely it does all of the above// aditya chakrabortty, 03.02.10, guardian

the robin hood tax...

zero point of systemic collapse...

we will not, especially in the united states, avoid our götterdämmerung. obama, like canada’s prime minister stephen harper and the other heads of the industrialized nations, has proven as craven a tool of the corporate state as george w. bush. our democratic system has been transformed into what the political philosopher sheldon wolin labels inverted totalitarianism. inverted totalitarianism, unlike classical totalitarianism, does not revolve around a demagogue or charismatic leader. it finds expression in the anonymity of the corporate state. it purports to cherish democracy, patriotism, a free press, parliamentary systems and constitutions while manipulating and corrupting internal levers to subvert and thwart democratic institutions. political candidates are elected in popular votes by citizens but are ruled by armies of corporate lobbyists in washington, ottawa or other state capitals who author the legislation and get the legislators to pass it. a corporate media controls nearly everything we read, watch or hear and imposes a bland uniformity of opinion. mass culture, owned and disseminated by corporations, diverts us with trivia, spectacles and celebrity gossip. in classical totalitarian regimes, such as nazi fascism or soviet communism, economics was subordinate to politics. “under inverted totalitarianism the reverse is true,” wolin writes. “economics dominates politics – and with that domination comes different forms of ruthlessness”// chris hedges, 02.08.10, adbusters