Founded | May 1, 2014 |
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Headquarters | 939 W. Capitol St., , |
Area served | Jackson, Mississippi |
Website | https://cooperationjackson.org |
Cooperation Jackson is a network of worker cooperatives in Jackson, Mississippi, United States. It aims to develop a series of independent but connected democratic institutions to empower workers and residents of Jackson, particularly to address the needs of poor, unemployed, Black and Latino residents. [1] The development of Cooperation Jackson has been heavily inspired by the Mondragon Corporation in Spain, which is also a federation of cooperatives, and by historical cooperative movements as described in works by W. E. B. Du Bois and in the book Collective Courage by Jessica Gordon Nembhard. [2]
Cooperation Jackson, formed in 2014, enacts a vision of a radically democratic city of interconnected cooperatives and supporting institutions. Although the city of Jackson was already home to the Mississippi Association of Cooperatives, before Cooperation Jackson, there were not many existing cooperative businesses. Kali Akuno, a Cooperation co-founder and co-director, [3] describes a goal of bringing a strong focus of cooperative economics to an urban American context, as opposed to the currently more common rural context of agricultural and utility co-ops. [2]
The organization has attempted to work within and outside of the government to achieve its goals. It has had to fight off anti-democratic measures by the Mississippi state legislators including austerity measures, an attempted takeover of Jackson–Medgar Wiley Evers International Airport, and an attempt to pass a bill to hand control of the city government over to the governor. [4] The organizers also struggle with working in an economically depressed city in the poorest state in the United States. [5]
Akuno has described the network as a key part of enacting the Jackson-Kush Plan. [2] The plan, which was developed by the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and the Jackson People's Assembly, [6] involves building a strong base of community wealth, stability, racial equity, and economic democracy in Jackson. [1] It has three planks, which are the "building of a broad-based solidarity economy, the building of people's assemblies, and the building of an independent black political party." [7]
Organizers behind Cooperation Jackson believe that a solidarity economy rooted in democratic principles is a core requirement of developing the community's capacity and vision in making meaningful change. The Jackson-Kush Plan describes the role of this economy as a "transitional strategy and praxis to build 21st century socialism and advance the abolition of capitalism and the poverty and oppressive social relations that it fosters". [8] The direct democracy of people's assemblies and local government electoral strategy are designed to both benefit and benefit from a strong cooperative system. [7]
Cooperation Jackson has long focused on facilitating mutual aid projects. This has included creating and distributing personal protective equipment [9] and providing an eviction support hotline [10] in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Members have also created community gardens and composting sheds on vacant spaces to aid their goal of providing enough organic food to provide for the calorie needs of 20,000 people in Jackson. [11]
In 2021, Cooperation organizers began work with the Grassroots Center in Vermont to develop a land trust in that state in cooperation with the local indigenous population and to address food needs with regenerative agriculture. The project also seeks to serve as a safe haven for potential climate refugees who may be escaping inhospitable conditions in Mississippi. [12]
Several cooperatives exist as part of the Cooperation Jackson network. These include the lawn care business The Green Team, the organic vegetable farm Freedom Farms, and the print shop The Center for Community Production, which also operates a 3D printer. These cooperatives try to alleviate causes of poverty and discrimination while operating in an ecologically sustainable manner. A cooperative incubator exists, called the Balagoon Center. Cooperation Jackson also owns about three hectares of land which it operates as a community land trust. [13]
Distributism is an economic theory asserting that the world's productive assets should be widely owned rather than concentrated. Developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, distributism was based upon Catholic social teaching principles, especially Pope Leo XIII's teachings in his encyclical Rerum novarum (1891) and Pope Pius XI in Quadragesimo anno (1931). It has influenced Anglo Christian Democratic movements, and has been recognized as one of many influences on the social market economy.
Jackson is the capital of and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Mississippi. Along with Raymond, Jackson is one of two county seats for Hinds County. The city had a population of 153,701 at the 2020 census, a significant decline from 173,514, or 11.42%, since the 2010 census, representing the largest decline in population during the decade of any major U.S. city. Jackson is the anchor for the Jackson metropolitan statistical area, the largest metropolitan area located entirely in the state and the tenth-largest urban area in the Deep South. With a 2020 population of nearly 600,000, metropolitan Jackson is home to over one-fifth of Mississippi's population. The city sits on the Pearl River and is located in the greater Jackson Prairie region of Mississippi. Jackson is the only city in Mississippi with a population exceeding 100,000 people.
Socialism is a political philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes the economic, political, and social theories and movements associated with the implementation of such systems. Social ownership can take various forms including: public, community, collective, cooperative, or employee. No single definition encapsulates the many types of socialism, but social ownership is the common element. Traditionally, socialism is on the left-wing of the political spectrum. Types of socialism vary based on the role of markets and planning in resource allocation, the structure of management in organizations, and different approaches from below or from above. Some socialists favour a party, state, or technocratic-driven approach, while others disagree on whether government is the correct vehicle for change.
Autarky is the characteristic of self-sufficiency, usually applied to societies, communities, states, and their economic systems.
A cooperative is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-controlled enterprise". Cooperatives are democratically controlled by their members, with each member having one vote in electing the board of directors. Cooperatives may include:
The Gandhi Peace Award is an award and cash prize presented annually since 1960 by Promoting Enduring Peace to individuals for "contributions made in the promotion of international peace and good will." It is named in honor of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi but has no personal connection to Mohandas Gandhi or any member of his family.
The Mondragon Corporation is a corporation and federation of worker cooperatives based in the Basque region of Spain.
A worker cooperative is a cooperative owned and self-managed by its workers. This control may mean a firm where every worker-owner participates in decision-making in a democratic fashion, or it may refer to one in which management is elected by every worker-owner who each have one vote.
Solidarity or solidarism is an awareness of shared interests, objectives, standards, and sympathies creating a psychological sense of unity of groups or classes. Solidarity does not reject individuals and sees individuals as the basis of society. It refers to the ties in a society that bind people together as one. The term is generally employed in sociology and the other social sciences as well as in philosophy and bioethics. It is a significant concept in Catholic social teaching and in Christian democratic political ideology.
Cooperative economics is a field of economics that incorporates cooperative studies and political economy toward the study and management of cooperatives.
The history of the cooperative movement concerns the origins and history of cooperatives across the world. Although cooperative arrangements, such as mutual insurance, and principles of cooperation existed long before, the cooperative movement began with the application of cooperative principles to business organization.
Solidarity economy or Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) refers to a wide range of economic activities that aim to prioritize social profitability instead of purely financial profits. A key feature that distinguishes solidarity economy entities from private and public enterprises is the participatory and democratic nature of governance in decision-making processes as one of the main principles of the SSE sector. Active participation of all people involved in decision-making procedures contributes to their empowerment as active political subjects. However, different SSE organizational structures reflect variations in democratic governance and inclusive participation. Ultimately, SSE represents a crucial tool in guaranteeing that social justice ideals are upheld and that the wellbeing of the most vulnerable populations is paid attention to during the planning processes.
Economic democracy is a socioeconomic philosophy that proposes to shift ownership and decision-making power from corporate shareholders and corporate managers to a larger group of public stakeholders that includes workers, consumers, suppliers, communities and the broader public. No single definition or approach encompasses economic democracy, but most proponents claim that modern property relations externalize costs, subordinate the general well-being to private profit and deny the polity a democratic voice in economic policy decisions. In addition to these moral concerns, economic democracy makes practical claims, such as that it can compensate for capitalism's inherent effective demand gap.
Types of socialism include a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership and democratic control of the means of production and organizational self-management of enterprises as well as the political theories and movements associated with socialism. Social ownership may refer to forms of public, collective or cooperative ownership, or to citizen ownership of equity in which surplus value goes to the working class and hence society as a whole. There are many varieties of socialism and no single definition encapsulates all of them, but social ownership is the common element shared by its various forms Socialists disagree about the degree to which social control or regulation of the economy is necessary, how far society should intervene, and whether government, particularly existing government, is the correct vehicle for change.
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Workers' self-management, also referred to as labor management and organizational self-management, is a form of organizational management based on self-directed work processes on the part of an organization's workforce. Self-management is a defining characteristic of socialism, with proposals for self-management having appeared many times throughout the history of the socialist movement, advocated variously by democratic, libertarian and market socialists as well as anarchists and communists.
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Socialist economics comprises the economic theories, practices and norms of hypothetical and existing socialist economic systems. A socialist economic system is characterized by social ownership and operation of the means of production that may take the form of autonomous cooperatives or direct public ownership wherein production is carried out directly for use rather than for profit. Socialist systems that utilize markets for allocating capital goods and factors of production among economic units are designated market socialism. When planning is utilized, the economic system is designated as a socialist planned economy. Non-market forms of socialism usually include a system of accounting based on calculation-in-kind to value resources and goods.
A platform cooperative, or platform co-op, is a cooperatively owned, democratically governed business that establishes a two-sided market via a computing platform, website, mobile app or a protocol to facilitate the sale of goods and services. Platform cooperatives are an alternative to venture capital-funded platforms insofar as they are owned and governed by those who depend on them most—workers, users, and other relevant stakeholders.
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