Wealth from the ground up: Cooperative Finance
Season 1, Episode 2, Mar 13, 2019, 10:56 AM
In this episode of the State of Power podcast, we explore three examples of cooperative finance: How a Cooperative Bank in the Basque region of Spain fueled the local economy, how local employee-owned businesses in the United States are experimenting with democratic ownership, and leveraging existing “Anchor institutions”, and how a state government program in Kerala, India, has enhanced economic prospects from more than four million women through support for cooperatives.
This episode is one of a series of three, drawn from discussions around an upcoming TNI publication, on how we can build “Public finance for the future we want” curated and edited by Satoko Kishimoto and Lavinia Steinfort.
In 2008, as financial markets fell into chaos, the world got an acute reminder of the limitations of the current neoliberal financial system.
We need a systemic reversal, to ensure that public resources serve people and planet, and enhance collective and individual well-being. For this to become reality, we must pursue radical but doable proposals and practices, showing how progressive (local) authorities, social movements, workers and unions, among other engaged actors, can provide democratic and diverse ownership of finances and wealth for the future we want.
Photo credit: kudumbashree.org/ (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Photo credit: kudumbashree.org/ (CC BY-SA 4.0)