1. GEOG 352: Day 21

2. Housekeeping We're quite far behind on things because of school closures and the like. We never really got a chance to talk much about the Ridley and Low article, but there are some notes on the web about it. How much, if any, did we get through of Porritt (Chapter 15) on civil society? This week I would like to dip into that and also briefly discuss the article I wrote with Judith Harris and some related concepts. (We've discussed the short Monbiot article sufficiently.)‏ Next week we need to reschedule the Monday presenters. The final exam is scheduled for Tuesday, Apr. 14 at 9:00 a.m. in the Gym. On Wednesday, we'll discuss Chapter 7 in Anielski.

3. Harris & Alexander on the 'Communitarian' Economy The essence of the article is that – in contrast one could argue with Porritt – capitalism and socialism are not the only economic alternatives. In addition to describing the defining features of those two systems, it advances a third alternative – that of communitarianism. It also argues that, as much as they may have differed from one another, capitalism and socialism shared certain modernist precepts in common: a belief that nature exists solely to serve human needs and a tendency to subordinate human development to industrial efficiency.

4. Harris & Alexander on the 'Communitarian' Economy This builds on the insight of Karl Polanyi that industrialism disembeds people and nature from the land and turns them into 'human and natural resources,' thus severing their organic link to place. An attempt to classify the economy that is compatible with Harris & Alexander, and which helps shine light on the communitarian economy, is offered by Peter Ross and David Usher in their book From the Roots Up: Economic Development As If the Community Mattered. They divide the economy into two main sectors: formal and informal.

5. Harris & Alexander on the 'Communitarian' Economy The formal sector consists of big business and the public sector. The informal sector consists of seven sub-sectors:  small business enterprises  collective and cooperative enterprises  community organizations and enterprises  voluntary activity  barter and skills exchange  mutual aid, and  household activity. Can you think of examples of each of these sub- sectors?

6. Harris & Alexander on the 'Communitarian' Economy What distinguishes the two major sectors is: the rationale for economic activity and scale. The rationale for the formal economy is profit maximization and advancing the political goals of the state, which sometimes tie in with enhancing profit maximization in the big business sector. The rationale in the informal sector is serving the needs of producers, consumers, communities, and also (in some cases) nature. While the scale of the formal economy is massive, the scale of informal sector organizations is often quite small, with some organizations straddling the line.

7. Harris & Alexander on the 'Communitarian' Economy An interesting example of a highly successful region that relies on relatively small, skill-intensive enterprises and co-ops is Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy, an area centered on Bologna. As Ernesto Sirolli descibes, the region (as of 1999) had 4 million people and boasts a business ratio of one business for every 11 persons, 90% of which have fewer than 99 employees. In Capri, the knitwear capital of Europe (population: 60,000), businesses do over $2 billion in sales, and the average enterprise has five employees. Collaboration amongst businesses is a prominent feature of economic life, as are co-ops.

9. Harris & Alexander on the 'Communitarian' Economy In Emilia-Romagna, noted for its parmesan cheese, produced by over 700 farm co-operatives: Cooperatives make up over 40% of the GDP of the ER region In Bologna two out of three citizens are members of a cooperative In Bologna over 85% of the city's social services are provided by social co-ops Per capita income in ER has risen from 17th to second among Italy's 20 regions Per capital income is 50% higher than the national average.

10. Harris & Alexander on the 'Communitarian' Economy Of the European regions, ER is number 11 of 122 regions in terms of GNP per inhabitant Bologna has the highest disposable income of any of Italy's 103 provinces Bologna has the highest per capita expenditure on the arts of any city in Italy The unemployment rate of 4% is virtually full employment 70% of Bologna's households have home ownership. Source: http://www.cooperativegrocer.coop/articles/index.php ?id=483 http://www.cooperativegrocer.coop/articles/index.php ?id=483

11. Harris & Alexander on the 'Communitarian' Economy If you Google “co-ops in Emilia-Romagna,” you'll find lots of other interesting info as well. Another famous example of a co-op economy is the system of famous Mondragon co-ops centred in the Basque country of northern Spain. The idea behind the communitarian economy is that it potentially re-embeds the economy in nature and society and enables it to serve more sustainable ends. It's even possible that we might find a way to create a “steady-state economy” in such a system. Do you think this is possible and, if so, what would it look like?