Ancestors

Toot

Written by GeofCox on 2025-01-20 at 21:51

As a lot of new people seem to be joining here, I thought I should have a go at an #introduction.

I am I guess a bit unusual in having been a serial entrepreneur, and a business advisor, but also a life-long socialist. I started my first business while still at school, and another at university; then I discovered social enterprise - using business models and methods not for private gain, but for common benefit. I got involved in the wholefood co-op and radical bookshop movements, then went on to work in social enterprise development, setting up a co-operative specialising in organisational structure design, writing a number of technical guides on this, and on how to restructure conventional organisations as co-ops and social enterprises - and indeed advising on some of the largest transformations to social enterprise in the UK. I went on to work internationally on the development of legislation and financial support for social enterprise, both for governments and international aid bodies.

Throughout I also worked with universities, first in cultural history and then in social enterprise. Alongside my PhD I taught on the Keele University 'American Mind' course - a broad cultural survey course. I've studied many aspects of history, culture and the arts - and been a part-time practitioner in both pottery and music (guitar) - but my main early focus was on literature. Later, naturally, I became more involved in teaching and researching social enterprise development, working with a number of universities and other organisations.

[#]socialenterprise #coops #companylaw #business #economics #universities #culture #arts #literature #history

=> More informations about this toot | More toots from GeofCox@climatejustice.social

Descendants

Written by Andrew Prall on 2025-01-20 at 21:59

@GeofCox What do you think is the future of #coops or #cooperatives? I worked as a cooperative specialist in Peace Corps for over two years, then at an agricultural co-op bank. I wish the business model could gain more traction in the U.S.

=> More informations about this toot | More toots from dr_prall@mas.to

Written by GeofCox on 2025-01-21 at 09:17

@dr_prall

The co-operative organisational model is very old - as are other forms of social enterprise - going back at least as far as the English Revolution in the mid-17th century - so I think as soon as capitalism established itself sufficiently for there to be a relatively unregulated labour market, people started to form themselves defensively into market-oriented but anti-capitalist business entities. It's an expression, I believe, of people's natural resistance to a-moral, anti-social economics.

Incidentally, the business of one of the pioneers of social enterprise, Firmin & Sons, still exists - it is now 370 years old.

Or in terms of scale - there are more members of co-operatives in the world than there are shareholders - 1 in 4 of all business start-ups in the European Union (1 in 3 in France) is a co-op or other form of social enterprise.

For all these reasons, I see co-ops, etc, as built-in aspects of currently dominant ways we organise our economies - and possibly as prefiguring post-capitalist forms of organisation, just as feudal 'merchants' pre-figured capitalism.

But if you're thinking of the immediate future in the US under Trump - my guess would be that this also is positive. Look at the example of Mondragon - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation - which bloomed under the very adverse conditions of fascist Spain, in probably the most oppressed regional culture (Basque). It did not do so because the government supported it or the people that made it - but precisely because they were not supported.

=> More informations about this toot | More toots from GeofCox@climatejustice.social

Written by millerebonds on 2025-01-20 at 22:28

@GeofCox Thank you and welcome again

=> More informations about this toot | More toots from millerebonds@framapiaf.org