How to Curtail Globalization - By Localization - The Solution Is

Cooperatives

by Garda Ghista (edited by Dieter Dambiec)

Economic propaganda in textbooks tells you there are only two forms -
capitalism and socialism/communism. However, this is blind thinking.
All major political parties have succumbed to this blind thinking as
well and even many progressive parties fail to recognise, as yet, the
co-operative economy. This failure merely supports the globalisation
trend. Indeed such a failure falsely confirms that democracy is only
political in nature and ignores the notion of economic democracy as the
real democracy. Political democracy has become a farce - mobocracy.

Democracy is defined as "government of the people, by the people and

for the people" But in fact it is the rule of the majority. Today's
democracy means "mobocracy" because the government in a democratic
structure is guided by mob psychology. The majority of the society are
fooled and succumb to fear tactics and insecurity; wise people are in a
minority. There is no self-empowerment. Democracy falls into
"foolocracy". In all walks of present-day life, the dark shadows of
immorality are hampering human progress. The annals of human
civilization say that the downfall of a particular government becomes
inevitable if it goes against the collective interests of the
middle-class people. Globalization goes against the collective
interest.

Is there any solution to globalisation? Is there any alternative? Is

there any way to stop its growth? The key point is that we need to
replace globalisation with localization . We need to re/build an
economic system whose hallmark is regional self-sufficiency created by
co-operative industries in which people are owners. It will no longer
be one employer and under him the employees - kept subordinate and
subservient. Based on localization, on localized economies, new
international labour laws can be created for the benefit of all people.
In co-operatives people will be able to work for living wages, and
they will get their equal and fair share of surplus funds at the end of
every year or relevant period. They will no longer be slaves to a
wealthy man. They will themselves be owners. That is the definition of
cooperative. All members are also the owners of the business. All
members share in the work and the labour, and all members share in the
profits. They together decide how much of surplus funds to return to
the members and how much to invest in expanding the business.
Cooperatives work very simply, and they can help women to escape from
poverty.

Cooperatives mean humane democratic production. We need to "encourage

the spontaneous development of democratic coops and create 'productive
space' in which to start to build a democratic economy. The Internet
can be used to help facilitate the democratic market."1

While strong management is essential for the success of cooperatives,

at the same time members must take care to avoid class-based divisions
in order to have equitable democracy work. This can be done by keeping
wages within a reasonable range and an efficient economy would make
this gradually come close together. One has to be very careful that
the managerial class in a coop does not begin to take it over - thus
nullifying it as a democratic economic entity. As far as possible,
cooperatives need to interact and do business with other cooperatives,
and continually minimize business interactions with capitalist
corporations. The work of starting cooperatives, of starting grassroots
economies, of unions - it is all related. The three groups should form
a coalition and join the global anti-capitalist movement, to realize
egalitarian and participatory values, and to move in the direction of
cooperatives, realizing that escaping capitalism is the key to physical
and financial liberation.

History of Cooperatives

In the book We Own It, the authors tell us on p. 15 that in 1844

weavers in Rochdale, England came together and wrote up the "Principles
of Cooperation".2 These principles later became known as the
"Principles of the International Cooperative Alliance",3 and they form
the guidelines of cooperatives even today. However, it is sure that
'cooperatives' existed long before the weavers of Rochdale, England. In
the book Race, Gender and Work by Amott and Matthaei, it states clearly
that the native American Indians used a cooperative agricultural system
until the white men came and introduced capitalism, factories and
subsistence wages.4 During the last Great Depression of the 1920s and
1930s, cooperatives sprang up all over America and Europe. However,
after the Second World War was over, cooperatives diminished. It was
related to the new economic affluence - the new boom economy.

Then came the sixties and the seventies - those were the decades of the
famous American civil rights movement and the anti-war movement.
Quietly, behind the scenes, the same people with the same idealism were
building alternative institutions: food cooperatives, housing
cooperatives, communes, and so forth. The spirit of the sixties lived
on through those coops. Volunteers abounded and worked their hearts out
to create new cooperatives. In the year 2002, poverty returned and is
rising. Today western countries are once again faced with rising
unemployment. In 2001 more than one million people in America lost
their jobs. Europe is following fast on American heels. Hence, many
governments are actively supporting the cooperative venture as a way to
lessen unemployment. But unless there is a wholesale change in the
notion of structuring the economy, such support will not be long
lasting.

Perhaps the most famous cooperative outside of America is Mondragon, in

the Basque area of Spain. It began in the 1940s and by 1990 it employed
60% of the area's workforce. It is also fascinating to note that the
large NGO (non-governmental organization) in the world is the
International Cooperative Alliance (ICA). It represents 237 national
and international organizations. Furthermore, the United Nations
recently passed a resolution making the first Saturday of July as the
International Day of Cooperatives.

Cooperatives Working Today

The subject of cooperatives is a vast topic. There are hundreds of

thousands in existence worldwide, and each with their own particular
structure, as described by their Articles, Constitution or By-Laws.
There are presently more than 50,000 cooperatives in America. The most
visible are food and other retail cooperatives, housing cooperatives
and day care centers. In addition there are agricultural cooperatives.
Some of the largest businesses in America are cooperatives.

Three examples are Sunkist, Ocean Spray and Land O'Lakes. A fourth
example is Yellow Cab Company. Little Professor Book Centers are a
chain of over 100 bookstores also run as a cooperative. The Solar
Center in San Francisco is still another successful cooperative in
existence since the seventies. According to Bruce Dyer of Proutist
Universal in New Zealand, "co-ops control 99% of Sweden's dairy
production, 95% of Japan's rice harvest, 75% of western Canada's grain
and oil seed output and 60% of Italy's wine production. Some of the
major commercial banks in Europe are cooperatively owned or organized,
including such giants as Germany's DG Bank, Holland's Rabobank and
France's Credit Agricole. Almost 100% of Japan' s fishermen are
organized in cooperatives."5 However, these co-operatives must
function in a capitalist world. So what we witness is economically
efficient co-operatives amidst economically inefficient capitalist
firms (many of whom survive under the corporate dole which includes
subsidies, etc). This makes it even more difficult for co-operatives
to survive.

The cooperative spirit is defined in 'We Own It' as "a spirit of

cooperation, of sharing, of working with and being open to other
people".6 This spirit is very much alive and growing. But, cooperatives
are also much more than that. All cooperatives are businesses. They are
economic enterprises. The coops likely to be the most successful are
those that acknowledge this fact, that set up a formal business
structure, that put in writing a list of by-laws for the
cooperative/company, whose members educate themselves regarding
management, economics and laws in relation to different business
set-ups, and follow good business management and marketing procedures
used by all successful businesses. People who start up a cooperative in
a very idealistic manner without putting due emphasis on the
practicalities of solid business operations, knowledge of laws, etc are
setting themselves up for difficulties if not failure. These aspects
are just as important for a cooperative as they are for any other
business to be financially successful or at least viable.

The ways in which cooperatives can be set up are innumerable. Sometimes

one person may start up their own businesses. Then, as s/he hires
employees, they may find that it is preferable to work as a collective
or with cooperative effort and system. The business changes from a sole
proprietorship over to a cooperative. One of the Principles of the
International Cooperative Alliance states that "the economic results
arising out of the operations of a society belong to the members of the
society and should be distributed [such that no one member gains at the
expense of others.] This may be done by:
(a) provision for development of the business of a cooperative;
(b) provision of common services; or
(c) distribution among members in proportion to their transactions with
the society".
A cooperative is owned and controlled by its members. It can be
anything then that its members want it to be. A coop can be set up to
serve its members only, or it can serve the entire community (with
cheap food, for example).

In Proutist literature, there are various types of cooperatives: eg

consumer coops, banking coops, producer coops and worker coops. In many
cases, the last two are intertwined. The word owner is equivalent to
member. Profit in a co-operative is really "surplus" or "net margin" or
"savings". This can be distributed back to the members. It can also be
put back into the expansion of the cooperative. We may start a
food-buying club. People can get together each week and give their
orders. The next week their orders arrive. It can be cheaper than
purchasing in stores, because the overhead is far less. Sometimes, this
kind of food-buying club or baby cooperative seems so successful that
the members/organizers decide to expand it to a live store. These
stores may sell to members only or they may sell to the entire public.
There are many examples like this.

A food coop is a consumer coop. Consumer coops generally will return

any "profits" to their members, since their aim is to reduce prices for
all members. An arts and craft coop can also be something like this:
members individually create arts and crafts and market them through the
coop. This would be a producer's co-op. However, the coop can also
purchase art and ceramic supplies in bulk and sell to the members.

To answer the question, what is the financial set up of the cooperative

and how does it differ from the corporation, the answer is that
financial decisions are decided upon by the members. The Solar Center
in San Francisco has been successful for perhaps 40 years now, and
attributes its success to the following factors: (1) hard work; (2)
moderate pay/wages to members for work done; (3) careful monitoring of
capital (buying used trucks, for example and keeping a low inventory in
stock); (4) friendly investors; (5) satisfied customers; (6) idealism;
and (7) "the togetherness that comes from shared ownership, equal pay,
collective decision-making, and mutual concern for everyone's growth
and job satisfaction." The last factor was considered to be the most
important.7

According to Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar: "cooperatives evolve out of the

collective labour and wisdom of a community. The community must develop
an integrated economic environment, common economic needs and a ready
market for its cooperatively produced goods. Unless these three factors
work together, an enterprise cannot be called a cooperative."8

Saheg Avedisian, a member of the Cheeseboard Collective in Berkeley,

California, made the following statement regarding cooperatives:
"Being in a collective is a good way to take your political and
philosophical beliefs and make them a mainline part of your life. You
no longer have to talk about being liberal or doing something that's
politically correct because your own workplace frees you personally to
pursue your personal interests. If the world were somehow a collective
place economically, I think art would blossom. All the energy that goes
into our survival would be freed."9

Advantages of Cooperatives
In society, human beings must work together with others so that
everyone can move forward collectively. Women can start small-scale and
medium-scale cooperative enterprises. All they need to have is similar
interests, similar material needs, morality, and mutual respect.

Cooperatives are businesses that are owned and controlled by the

members, who generally also work in the business. There is democratic
control at all levels of the business. One member, one vote. Workers
share in the surplus revenue (called "profit" when run as a regular
business). Members will mutually agree to put some of the surplus funds
back into the business and also towards more education of the worker
members.

Worker members have much greater morale, since they also are part
owners in the business, and because each member is getting a share of
the profits - not a minimum wage salary doled out by the one owner of a
capitalist business. Members of cooperatives participate in all levels
of decision-making, they have greater self-expression and dignity, and
of course equality/equity amongst each other. This is unique to
cooperatives and certainly not to corporations. In a cooperative,
everybody can know (and it is preferred that they know) what the daily
break-even is, what yesterday 's sales were, how far above or below the
projected sales it is for the month and what the budget is. It means,
everyone is equally concerned about and involved with the profit-and
loss of the cooperative. In a cooperative, members will do their own
job but will also get the opportunity to learn every job if they
desire, and become completely rounded and fully knowledgeable in the
business.

Steve Hargraves, who works for the Bookpeople, a publishing company,

sums up the advantages of working in a cooperative as follows: "My
personal feeling is that running a company this way is a political
statement to the rest of the country. If you want to go to the heart of
the beast, the heart of the beast is economics. This is an economic
entity that we're dealing with, this culture, this society. We're
trying to develop a new way of looking at how to run a business.
Employee ownership is dependent on the fact that this company must
survive in this capitalist, profit-oriented system. If you can find a
different way of approaching those economics, in some ways you're
making a political move. That's the justification for me personally. I
feel that it's worth it."10

What is the most important ingredient in the success of a cooperative?

It is the people. It is the people coming into your cooperative that
will make the difference - people with all kinds of different ideas,
backgrounds, education, with different levels of energy, dedication and
skills. People will respond to kindness and compassion far more than to
rules and regulations. It is the team spirit, communication skills and
interpersonal skills that are going to go a long way to make or break a
new cooperative.

"There is a great pleasure, a real joy in going out and doing your own
work on your own terms when you know that nobody is taking any more
than their share. That's wonderful and people are going to keep that.
To be working with other people on common ideas, goals, you share in
the control of it all. Looking forward to doing a task together is one
of the finest experiences I know of. To be able to carry that feeling
of working together for yourselves in a collective way is one of the
finest things."11

Cooperatives are truly the best means of organizing people in an

independent manner. Cooperatives are based on coordinated cooperation,
and not subordinated cooperation. There will not be any 'boss' in a
cooperative. All members are the bosses because they are all equal
owners. Managers are there to assist others. Capitalism has created
individualism, self-centeredness and selfishness. Cooperatives will
create a feeling of cooperation, a feeling of sharing, and a sense of
societal oneness. And most of all, they will enable the financial
self-sufficiency of women - which is the crying need of the hour.

The Grassroots Globalization Network (GGN) is a new project of the

Earth Island Institute.12 It promotes democratic ways for people to
create healthier local economies, safer communities and a cleaner
environment. The Network hence concentrates on networking to help solve
problems caused by globalisation, helping people to regain democratic
control of their communities and to become regionally self-sufficient
or self-sustaining. GGN is highlighting the great successes of
cooperatives everywhere - credit unions, land tenure reforms,
participatory budgeting, full-cost economic policies, community
currencies and other grassroots activities.13

PROUT Cooperatives

"The sweetest unifying factors are love and sympathy for humanity. The
wonts of the human heart are joy, pleasure and beatitude. In the
physical realm the best expression of this human sweetness is the
cooperative system. The cooperative system is the best representation
of the sweet nectar of humanity." - Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar

The PROUT (PROgressive Utilisation Theory) model of cooperatives have

been developed by the philosopher and economist, Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar.
According to Sarkar, cooperatives are essential in order for the
community and then the society to move forward in a collective manner.
Cooperatives "combine the wealth and resources of many individuals and
harness them in a united way. To ... achieve this cooperatives should
be structured so that individual interest does not dominate collective
interest."14 Sarkar states clearly that the commune system cannot work
because it is made up of master and servant relationships, or
supervisor and supervised. In this interpersonal setup, progress will
not be forthcoming. In communes there is no personal ownership. It
means the people will not work hard, as morale will be low. What is the
incentive to work hard? In the capitalist system, a large part of the
end profit is grabbed by middlemen. In a cooperative system, the
owners/members will make decisions regarding when and to whom to sell,
and at what price. People of all and varying skills will be utilized
with the expansion of cooperatives. During times of economic recession
or depression, all members' labour and contribution will be accordingly
reduced, so that no one suffers from the stigma of being without a job.
This will also help the economy to pick up to a healthy level of
activity. Here is a clear example of the humaneness of the cooperative
system as compared to the capitalist economic system where thousands or
millions of people are laid off with the snap of a finger.

PROUT cooperatives may comprise of:

(1) shareholders, who receive salaries for their work plus a return on
their shares;
(2) non-shareholders or labourers, who will enjoy stable employment and
living wages at the least.

Labourers can be further categorized as:

(1) permanent labourers who receive a percentage of the surplus revenue
in addition to their wages;
(2) non-permanent labourers, who receive wages only.

Thus, the more permanent a coop member and the greater his/her
contribution, the greater also will be the rewards. All human beings
can benefit from the cooperative system. Elderly single women through
owning shares can have a steady income provided to them. In the same
manner disabled people can be taken care of. Impoverished women by
their labour can also receive steady income plus a percentage of the
surplus revenues, so they no longer are impoverished.

PROUT cooperatives would elect a Board of Directors, and it would be

required that those Directors as a minimum qualification be known as
fearless moralists in their communities. In the developed stage of
PROUT cooperatives, at least three types of cooperatives - producer,
worker and consumer - would all be interacting with and buying from
each other and supplying each other with goods.

Let us take a brief look at a comparison of five types of enterprises:

Traditional, Capitalist, Socialist (as we find in Europe), Communist
and PROUTist.15 This can reveal at a glance some startling and
wonderful distinctions between PROUT cooperatives and cooperatives that
have existed up to the present time. See:
http://www.proutworld.org/features/coopschart.htm

Five types of Cooperatives: Traditional; Capitalist; Socialist;

Communist; Proutist

Traditional:
Ownership - Right to private ownership
Cooperation - Somewhat subordinated
Profit - Profit oriented
Morality - Objective morality based on laws
Minimum necessities of life - No assurance of minimum necessities
Economic evolution -Bottom to top but in an economically isolated way
Wages - According to work
Democratic values - Democratic
Economic competition - Must compete with capitalist ruthlessness
Employment - Encourage employment
Values of life - Economic prosperity

Capitalist:
Ownership - Right to private ownership
Cooperation - Definitely subordinated
Profit - Profit is everything
Morality - No concept of morality as innate to human beings
Minimum necessities of life - No concept of minimum necessities
Economic evolution - Towards individual/corporate monopoly system
Wages - According to whims of capitalists
Democratic values - Undemocratic - no concept of economic democracy
Economic competition - Amoral, diabolic economic competition
Employment - Seek to employ with smallest possible wage; decreasing
employment
Values of life - Economics or money is everything

Socialist:
Ownership - State ownership
Cooperation - Subordinated
Profit - Profit motivation
Morality - Objective morality and materialistic orientation
Minimum necessities of life - State is custodian, promising minimum
necessities
Economic evolution - State monopoly system (State capitalism)
Wages - According to ability and need (no concept of proper
distribution of surplus)
Democratic values - Undemocratic
Economic competition - No incentive of economic initiatives
Employment - Scope for employment but no growth as economy stagnant
Values of life - Economics is everything

Communist:
Ownership - State ownership
Cooperation - Subordinated
Profit - Profit motivation for benefit of party members
Morality - No morality (sees humans as economic beings)
Minimum necessities of life - State is custodian, falsely promising
minimum necessities
Economic evolution - State monopoly system (benefits party members)
Wages - According to whims of bureaucrats
Democratic values - Dictatorship (non-benevolent)
Economic competition - Competition between corrupt bureaucrats
Employment - Scope for employment at whim of bureaucrat
Values of life - Everything, even people, are for political /
economic manipulation

Proutist
Ownership - Worker / Member ownership
Cooperation - Coordinated
Profit - Consumption motivation (most efficient economically)
Morality - Morality based on cardinal human values and spiritual
values
Minimum necessities of life - Minimum necessities via constitutionally
guaranteed purchasing power
Economic evolution - Bottom to top with a program for fundamental
economic change
Wages - First living wages with rational distribution of special
amenities, then gradually higher standard of living
Democratic values - Democratically based socio-economic awareness,
education and morality without which democracy is a foolocracy,
economic democracy superior to political democracy Economic competition
- Economic efficiency via incentives / coordination ensuring physical
existence, mental expansion and spiritual development
Employment - People will not seek employment - jobs will seek the
people
Values of life - Material prosperity so as to enable more time for
mental development and spiritual liberation

The quintessential evil of capitalism is that:

(1) it denies the poor people any economic participation;
(2) it is based on self-interest, selfishness and profit alone;
(3) money is everything, human beings count for nothing;
(4) competition is everything, the collective good has no value;
(5) it has no notion of ecological harmony and based on outdated
utilitarian views;
(6) it is undemocratic at the economic level and uses political
democracy for its own ends.

On the other hand, the cooperative system:

(1) helps the weak and impoverished persons to grow, to become strong
and self-sufficient;
(2) is based on the collective interest and collective good, and not on
profit;
(3) allows for the rendering of social service to become prominent in
the community;
(4) human beings have more value than money and profit;
(5) provides economic stability because there is no hoarding of wealth
(eg stockpiling of unconsumed goods), and no profit motive (profits are
rational only)
(6) it is democratic - one person, one vote.

Democracy means 'Economy of the people, for the people and by the
people!'

Prabhat Sarkar in his development of PROUT economics has indicated that

there should be a two-phase plan to introduce cooperative land
management. First, all uneconomic land holdings should join the
cooperative system so as to convert them to economic holdings.16 In the
second phase, all persons should be encouraged to join the cooperative
system. Third, there should be rational distribution and
redetermination of ownership of the land. In the fourth phase, a
congenial atmosphere will be created due to mental/psychic expansion
and a deep study of morality, where people will learn to think for the
collective welfare rather than for their own petty self-interests. This
will be a gradual change in the community. The people themselves will
be persuaded to develop this kind of altruistic mindset. The efficiency
of an economic system surpasses that of the goal of competition policy
in capitalist economies (which is the marginalisation of profit) but
which is contradicted by the capitalist quest for profits. Efficiency
in a co-operative economy means that profits are rational and arise due
to the need to distribute to workers / shareholders so as to provide
purchasing capacity for the minimum necessities of life and after that
amenities to render services to the society.

Sarkar further says that cooperatives, to be successful, require three

factors: morality, strong supervision, and the wholehearted acceptance
of the masses. Wherever these factors are present, the cooperatives
have been reasonably successful.17 The poor people need to be educated
regarding the benefits of cooperatives to their lives. They need to
understand that it will bring them out of poverty and will provide them
enough purchasing capacity to lead a dignified life.

Sarkar wants that modern technological equipment be used for farming,

as this will free up many hours for the farmers and particularly for
the women and children, giving them the glorious opportunity to develop
themselves. He also wants no intermediaries in cooperatives. They are
the leeches who suck the blood and sweat of the labourers and grab all
profits in their greedy paws. It is also a critical point that
cooperatives remain controlled by local people. Tea plantations, coal
mines and all other natural resources such as minerals under the ground
must not be given to outsiders to control. Local people must get first
chance for employment. If jobs remain, then transient labour can be
used.

As an interim measure, where the landowners have remained the owners,

and they hire labourers for reaping the harvest, then 50% of the
profits will go to the landowner and the other 50% will go to the
labourers. This is in the first phase, mentioned above. In the second
phase, the landowners will get 25% of the profit and the labourers will
get 75%. In the third phase, there will be rational distribution of
land and redetermination of ownership. All owners will be encouraged to
join the cooperative system at this point (the fourth phase). Sarkar
then states: "This time period from the first phase to the fourth phase
of the implementation of the cooperative system can be called the
transitional period for the implementation of PROUT".18

Prabhat Sarkar also explains that only a certain percentage of the

population should be involved in agricultural work. He gives the figure
of the maximum of 40-45%. The remaining population should be engaged in
setting up and running industrial cooperatives or service industries.
This is very important, for it will allow people to remain in their
towns and villages and not have to migrate to cities for work.

He further explains the terms coordinated cooperation and subordinated

cooperation. "Operation" means to get something done through any
medium. If an operation is done collectively, then it is cooperation.
Cooperation means something that is done with equal rights, equal human
prestige and equal locus standi (ie legal and social rights). He says
that if this cooperation is between human beings who have equal rights
and mutual respect for each other and all participants are working for
the collective welfare, then this working relationship is called
'coordinated cooperation'. If people work together but if some of those
people are keeping themselves under other people's supervision or
domination, then it is called subordinated. This subordinated
cooperation has been the cause of society's moral degeneration,
including racism (as seen by the dispossession of indigenous cultures).
For this very reason, Sarkar is advocating cooperatives as the way
towards a new and truly democratic economic system, because in a
properly structured cooperative, all people are working collectively in
coordinated cooperation. Subordination is a thing of the past.

1 GEO - Grassroots Economic Organizing, Issue 41, Mar-Apr 2002.

2 Peter Honigsberg, Bernard Kamoroff and Jim Beatty, 'We Own It:
Starting and Managing Cooperatives & Employee Owned Ventures', Bell
Springs Publishing, 1991.

3 The six Principles of the International Cooperative Alliance are as

follows:
(1) Membership of a cooperative society should be voluntary and without
artificial restriction or any social, political, racial or religious
discrimination, to all persons who can make use of its services and are
willing to accept the responsibilities of membership.
(2) Cooperative societies are democratic organizations. Their affairs
should be administered by persons elected or appointed in a manner
agreed upon by the members and accountable to them. Members of primary
societies should enjoy equal rights of voting (one member, one vote)
and participation in decisions affecting their societies. In other than
primary societies the administration should be conducted on a
democratic basis in a suitable form.
(3) Share capital should only receive a strictly limited rate of
interest.
(4) The economic results arising out of the operations of a society
belong to the members of that society and should be distributed in such
a manner as would avoid one member gaining at the expense of others.
This may be done by decision of the members as follows: (a) by
provision for development of the business of cooperative; (b) by
provision of common services; or, (c) by distribution among members in
proportion to their transactions with the society.
(5) All cooperative societies should make provision for the education
of their members, officers and employees and of the general public in
the principles and techniques of cooperation, both economic and
democratic.
(6) All cooperative organizations, in order to best serve the interest
of their members and their communities, should actively cooperate in
every practical way with other cooperatives at local, national and
international levels.

4 Theresa Amott and Julie Matthaei, 'Race, Gender and Work: A

Multicultural Economic History of Women in the United States', South
End Press, Boston, 1996.

5 Bruce Dyer, 'Why Cooperatives: The New Zealand Context'

http://www.proutworld.org/features/whycoop.htm

6 Peter Honigsberg, 'We Own It', Bell Springs Publishing, 1991.

7 Ibid, p. 35.

8 Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar, 'Proutist Economics: Discourses on Economic

Liberation', Ananda Marga Publications, Calcutta, p. 113.

9 'We Own It', p. 114.

10 Ibid, p. 94.

11 We Own It, p. 121.

12 GEO Newsletter, Issue 51, Mar-Apr 2002, p. 11.

13 Ibid.
14 Dieter Dambiec (referring to works of P. R. Sarkar) in
'Cooperatives: Alternative Economic Structures and Business
Enterprises', http://www.proutworld.org/features/coops.htm

15 This chart is taken almost verbatim, with only slight changes made
by this author, from the book 'A Look at Decentralized Economy and the
Cooperative System', by Ac. Tadbhavananda Avt., PROUT Research
Institute, Copenhagen. Published by Proutist Universal, Copenhagen,
1993.

16 On p. 122 of Proutist Economics, Sarkar defines 'economic holdings'

as those where the market price of the produce will exceed the cost of
production including capital, labour and machinery. Lands which produce
economically viable agricultural wealth - where output exceeds input -
are called 'economic holdings.' 'Uneconomic holdings' Sarkar defines as
those lands where the market price of the produce is less than the cost
of production after including the costs of all the inputs.

17 Ibid, p. 115.

18 Ibid, p. 128.