Five examples of popular self-government around the world

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Many people today like to talk about cooperatives, self-organization and self-government, but it is often difficult to give specific examples. Below is a selection of 4 examples of how similar ideas have been implemented in different parts of the world.

An incredible miracle in China

There is a village called Huaxi in Jiangsu province in China about two hours' drive from Shanghai. The Chinese themselves call it "Village No. 1 of the Celestial Empire." The village is really unusual. All Huaxi residents live in their own cottages, drive exclusively on Merses and BMWs and have more than one hundred million yuan in their bank accounts.

What happened in 1985 in our homeland

According to M. Chartayev: “The most important economic indicator is costs. The cost of production in the first three years has decreased by four times and continues to decline, although not at the same rate. Labor productivity for 10 years of work has increased 64 times. In order not to think that this is a misprint, - emphasizes Chartayev, - I will say in another way, 6400 percent. This is, of course, in comparable prices, and not due to inflation. With such labor productivity, you can afford a lot, so the standard of living in our union is about an order of magnitude higher than the national average. This is confirmed by such an objective indicator as the birth rate. With a negative population growth in Dagestan (as in Russia as a whole), the birth rate in our union is six times higher than the death rate. Over the past three years, the number of sheep has tripled, the number of cattle has increased by 50 percent, and the acreage has increased by 50 percent. Intensive housing construction is underway - in 1995, 60 three-storey cottages were built for members of the union, and social infrastructure is being developed. New directions of activity have appeared: processing, construction, transport services”

In fact: the gross agricultural output from 1985 to 1993 increased more than 14 times with the same number of workers, the yield increased 3 times, labor productivity - 64 times, costs decreased by an order of magnitude, the technical and social base increased dramatically,, in 10 times, the cost of production has decreased.

Beautiful three-story houses for every family, personal wealth, exemplary schools, a decrease in morbidity, a birth rate that is 6 times higher than a death rate - these are the social results of the transition to this system.

But the main result of the introduction of a new system of relations is not income, not profit, but the interest of workers in the results of their labor and the success of their neighbor, responsibility for their work of all participants in production, regardless of position, real return for the work invested, social harmony.

The alienation from the results of labor has been completely eliminated. The contradiction between public and private property, between the poor and the rich, is resolved, because in the model, conditions for enrichment are created for everyone as a result of the normalization of the labor and production regime. The increasing well-being of everyone does not cause a negative response from others, since the well-being of all increases accordingly"

The relations of collective, social co-ownership of the results of labor and the means of production provide not only material prosperity (it can be achieved by robbery), but also allow one to live according to conscience. But this is precisely that Russian idea in its most laconic and capacious expression.

Spain is a Basque country

The Mondragón cooperative movement takes its name from the small town of Mondragón, located in northern Spain, in the autonomous historical region of the Basque Country. The ideological inspirer and founder of the Mondragon cooperative movement is the priest Jose Maria Arismendi, who in the early 40s. XX century arrived in the Basque Country, where he taught the catechism and taught social studies to students.

Israel: Kibbutz is voluntary

There are about 220 kibbutzim in Israel today. What is Israeli communism today? How, after failing all over the world, is this experiment still going on here in Israel?

Forja Argentina factory run by workers

Capture is a Canadian documentary released in 2004 by Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein. The film tells the story of workers in Buenos Aires, Argentina, who rebuilt the Forja factory where they once worked and put it into operation under workers' control. This is an amazing film that, unlike other anti-globalization films, depicts the perspective of the future society. Societies of direct democracy, self-government and truly popular property.