The Socialist Entrepreneur

Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett’s book, The Spirit Level, was a rigorous, evidenced-based exploration of the damage economic inequality does to society. Published in 2009, it came out at just the right moment, and along with the Occupy Movement and the Bernie Sanders campaign, it played an important part in opening up a new conversation about class, in the USA in particular.

Their new book, The Inner Level, examines the damage that inequality does to our psychological health, and it is just as powerfully-argued, evidence-based and rigorous. I found it particularly helpful in trying to get to grips with the psychology of the rise of Donald Trump and the politics of Brexit in the UK. The evidence they gather shows how inequality raises levels of fear and anxiety in societies. These, of course, are some of the same emotions that feed the politics of nationalist populism, which in turn lead to social policies that widen the economic gap, driving us around in a perverse vicious cycle of social self harm. In a society caught in a cycle of growing inequality and anxiety, a leader like Trump isn’t an aberration; in unequal societies, sociopaths like Trump naturally rise to the top:

Greater inequality not only causes psychopathic tendencies to manifest in more people, it provides the cut-throat environment in which those tendencies come to be seen as admirable or valuable … (74)

I have a new favorite book! Ever read a book that comes at just the right moment, that seems to perfectly sum up how you are thinking or feeling about something, and then points a way forward? I had that experience this weekend with Martin Parker’s new book, Shut Down the Business School: What’s wrong with management education.

Parker is a Professor of Organisational Studies at the University of Bristol in the UK, and his  thesis is that much of what is wrong in the world can be traced back to the business school and how management is taught there. In his view, business schools can’t be reformed; they should be shut down, and in their place he proposes a new kind of school: a school of organizing that would study and teach about all kinds of organizations, not just capitalist corporations, and this would definitely include worker-owned firms. In fact, he uses the worker-owned organic food distributor, Suma Wholefoods, as one of his examples of the kind of organization that main-stream management education typically ignores.

Shut Down the Business School is a short book and I blazed through it. Parker sprints through some of the main theoretical debates in politics and organizational theory, but manages to keep the discussion largely jargon-free. And he is really funny and irreverent. This is a book (partly) aimed at academics, but it isn’t academic at all in tone. I was often laughing and underlining zingers as I read.

This is a theoretical book, or a manifesto perhaps, and for readers of this blog who are looking for practical advice for starting and managing a new worker-owned firm, you won’t find it here, but still I think you should pick up this book. You’ll be inspired. Parker’s vision of a new economy is so fresh and hopeful, even if you never plan to go near a business school, it is very much worth the read.

Martin Parker. 2018. Shut Down the Business School:What’s wrong with management education. London: Pluto Press.

Jackson Rising is a recent collection of essays about the growing movement for economic democracy and Black self-determination in Jackson, Mississippi, USA. Edited by local activist, Kali Akuno, and the academic, Ajamu Nangwaya, Jackson Rising was published right at the end of last year, so it represents an up-to-the-minute account of this movement. Jackson, Mississippi, is a very poor, Black-majority city who’s population has suffered under some of the worst systemic racism in the US, but in June, 2013, a long-time Black activist and civil-rights lawyer, Chokwe Lumumba, was elected mayor, and his administration adopted a radical plan for the regeneration of Jackson that was founded in part on establishing a network of worker cooperatives in the city. In Nangwaya’s words, the plan was to “transform the city of Jackson into America’s own Mondragon.” (p. 110)

Sadly, Chokwe Lumumba died unexpectedly, just eight months into his term, but in June, 2017, his son, Chokwe Antar Lumumba was elected mayor in a landslide victory, and intends to continue his father’s work. Chokwe Antar Lumumba’s electoral victory was a resounding popular endorsement of his father’s regeneration plans, but critically, the movement in Jackson is much bigger than than just these two men. Centered around the organization, Cooperation Jackson, a broad base of local activists have come together to set up this network of worker-owned businesses.

Readers of this blog will find Jackson Rising both inspiring and thought-provoking, but it should be noted that this collection of essays does not provide a detailed account of the practicalities of setting up worker cooperatives in the Southern US. Rather, the authors in this volume explore the theory behind the movement and how they understand worker-ownership as a key strategy for advancing civil rights and Black self-determination in the US. I learned a lot about the history of my own country from reading this volume, and in the end, Jackson Rising left me feeling exited and profoundly hopeful.

Kali Akuno and Ajamu Nangwaya, Jackson Rising: The struggle for economic democracy and Black self-determination in Jackson, Mississippi. Daraja Press, 2017.

Near the end of World War I, Georgia declared independence and set up one of the world’s first experiments in democratic socialism. The Georgian experiment wasn’t perfect. Mistakes were made. And it didn’t last long, just three years. In 1921, the Democratic Republic of Georgia was crushed by Russian communists, but in that short time, their experiment was very successful, and cooperatives played an important role in the economy of the young republic. Eric Lee has just published a history of this period, The Experiment: Georgia’s Forgotten Revolution, 1918–1921, and in it he includes a short chapter on cooperatives. The chapter is short in large part because the cooperative side of the experiment was not well documented:

the story of the Georgian cooperatives is an important one, and yet most histories of the country have barely touched on them. Some have focused extensively on tiny organisations like the Bolshevik party, while ignoring the hundreds of thousands of Georgians whose lives were changed by the cooperative movement, or for that matter the trade unions. This may have to do with historians’ generally focusing more on politics and war, and less on social movements. (p. 123)

Nonetheless, Lee manages to dig up some interesting information. He cites one estimate that in the republic almost as many workers were employed in cooperatives as were employed in private businesses:

By 1920, only 195 of Georgian workers were employed by the private sector. A majority — 52% — were employed by the state and a further 18% worked for municipal or cooperative enterprises. (p. 127)

Lee’s book was interesting in general. I was entirely ignorant of this period and I found it really inspiring. I would strongly recommend it.

Via Coop News. Image CC 4.0 Scoundrelgeo.