The Co-operative Model: Mondragon, Reagan, and China

Dear comrades,

Attached is a short essay in which I've tried to bring together what I know about the various co-operative projects in China, and some thoughts about what kind of role such activities might play in the longer-term project of bringing about lasting social change. In thinking about this problem I've introduced some insights from Sharryn Kasmir's book _The Myth of Mondragon_, Bertell Ollman's argument against models of "market socialism" based on workers' co-operatives, and Karl Marx's inauguration to the First International. I'm afraid I haven't brought the various threads together very effectively, but I hope the essay will at least stimulate some discussion of what I consider a pretty important question.

The essay is also online: http://www.chinastudygroup.org/blog/husunzi/archives/000201.html

Matt

http://students.washington.edu/husunzi/cover.html

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"Revolutionaries are beautiful monkey kings...

We wield our golden-banded cudgels and use our magic to turn the old world upside down, smash it to pieces, pulverize it, and create chaos!

We are bent on creating a tremendous proletarian uproar,

and hewing out a proletarian new world!"
(Manifesto of the Qinghua University High School Red Guards, 1966)

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