Re: moving the discussion forward

[John Logue <jlogue@kent.edu>]

The latest in the eosubnat discussion from Dr Race Mathews at 
Monash University in Australia.

For maximum discussion, send your responses to "eosubnat@cog.kent.edu."


-Sender: race@pop.netspace.net.au
>Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2000 11:27:59 +1100
>To: John Logue <jlogue@kent.edu>
>From: RaceM <race@netspace.net.au>
>Subject: Re: moving the discussion forward
>
>Given that one of the uses of federal systems is to promote 
>diversity, both federal and state legislation employee ownership 
>legislation may have their place. My own experience in both spheres 
>of government suggests to me that the aim of legislation should be 
>largely if not exclusively facilitative - ie. that government should 
>not have a hand-on involvements in causing individual employee 
>ownership arrangements to be happen, but rather should focus on 
>seeing that an appropriate legislative framework is provided, 
>impediments removed, consciousness raised and information made 
>available and - perhaps - transparent incentives in the form of tax 
>breaks offered on the basis of their status as a public good. While 
>some aspects of company and tax law may be federal prerogatives, 
>there is still ample scope for initiatives by state legislatures.
>
>The Mondragon experience suggests that local or regional credit 
>unions or other mutualist financial intermediaries can have a key 
>role in providing capital for the establishment of ESOPs which would 
>otherwise be harder to obtain or afford.  The use the Mondragon 
>credit union, the Caja Laboral Popular, made of its slogan "savings 
>or suitcases" in mobilising local capital for the manufacturing, 
>retail, financial, service and support co-operatives which now 
>comprise the largest business group in their region and the ninth 
>largest in Spain should be food for thought for all of us who share 
>John Logue's perception of the need for local communities to retain 
>some influence over how and to what extent their affairs are shaped 
>by globalisation.
>
>Similarly, there is no reason why - say - a credit union or insurance 
>mutual should not become a provider of business support services for 
>employee-owned firms such as those of the Empresarial Division of the 
>Caja Laboral Popular in the Mark I phase of Mondragon. Given that, as 
>much in North America as in Australia, credit unions and insurance 
>mutuals are struggling to regain the sort of relevance to the lives 
>of their members which is needed in order to keep them out of the 
>hands of predatory demutualisers, it may be that self-interest as 
>much as altruism would make such an involvement attractive to them. 
>Moreover, as the Mondragon experience makes plain, it might also open 
>some interesting doors for them in exploring a range of other 
>possible synergies along Basque lines with subordinate or delegated 
>public bodies such as municipaltities or regional development 
>authorities.
>
>Now that the growth of what is in effect a second Mondragon in 
>Catalonia - the "Grup Empresarial Cooperativ Valencia" - has finally 
>laid to rest the myth that Mondragon is a one-off quirk of Basque 
>history and sociology which necessarily cannot be replicated, it 
>should be possible to get on with the practical task of deriving from 
>Mondragon such lessons as may be be applicable to our own 
>circumstances, and in particular to the facilitation and support 
>services which plainly would expedite a widespread adoption of ESOPs. 
>The antecedents of this approach and how it might be given effect is 
>explored in more detail in two papers I have posted in the COG 
>library, and my 1999 book "Jobs of Our Own: Building a Stateholder 
>Society" (Sydney, Pluto Press, and London, Comerford and Miller).
>
>On a related matter, for all that, as Father Greaney points out, 
>Bellocian distributism has been hijacked and prostituted in quarters 
>ranging from social credit to the crypto-fascism of Britain's 
>National Front, its central tenet - that ownership should be widely 
>distributed rather than concentrated in the hands of wealthy 
>minorities as under capitalism or of the state as advocated by some 
>socialists - is alive and well at Mondragon. If Belloc and Chesterton 
>had lived to see Mondragon, they might well be surprised by the 
>evolved form of distributism which it exemplifies, but it is unlikely 
>that they would be disappointed.
>
>While not wanting to claim any but lay competence in the 
>interpretation of papal writings on Catholic social doctrine, a 
>recent extensive reading of what Belloc and Chesterton and their 
>distributist associates had to say about distributism - not least in 
>their weekly journals of the day, the "Eye-Witness", the "New 
>Witness" and "G.K.'s Weekly" - leads me to believe that their 
>understanding of what it meant and the measures which might be 
>required to bring it about was more radical and far-reaching than 
>Father Greaney's account perhaps implies.
>
>That they were not moderates is apparent, for example, from 
>Chesterton's "What's Wrong with the World", where he writes with 
>great force and eloquence: "The thing to be done is nothing more or 
>less that the distribution of the great fortunes and the great 
>estates. ... If we are to save property, we must distribute property 
>almost as sternly and sweepingly as did the French Revolution".  Does 
>not residual claimancy or anything else proposed by those singled out 
>by Father Greaney as misinterpreting Catholic social teachings - 
>notably David Ellerman, Shann Turnbull and Keith Wilde - pale by 
>comparison with so sweeping an aspiration?
>
>
>Dr Race Mathews,
>Senior Research Fellow,
>International Centre for Management in Government,
>Monash University/MountEliza School of Business and Government.
>
>Postal Address:
>123 Alexanda Avenue,
>South Yarra, Vic, 3141,
>Australia.
>
>Phone/Fax: (03) 9826 0104.
>
>
>  
>


John Logue
Ohio Employee Ownership Center
Kent State University
Kent, OH 44242
(330) 672-3028
(330) 672-4063 fax
jlogue@kent.edu
http://www.kent.edu/oeoc/