In a previous message I introduced an article about the agreement between the United Steel Workers and Mondragon Cooperative Corporation to  work to together to support the development of worker owned companies and firms. I want to follow that article up with another more detailed article by Carl Davidson of Solidarity Economy which presents his own analysis of the United Steelworkers Union and the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation agreement. The link to the article is
http://www.zcommunications.org/steelworkers-plan-job-creation-via-worker-coops-by-carl-davidson

Some may wonder why I am so insistent on the importance of this subject. The answer is both ideological and existential. Economic democracy or cooperative socialism as I prefer to call it,  lays at the very heart of socialism. And the Mondragon Corporation is by far the most developed example of economic democracy in the modern world or in human history as a whole for that matter. Socialism without an emphasis on a concrete economic democracy in which workers own and manage their own businesses  and ultimately the economy themselves is hardly worthy of the name. A statist Socialism in which a small elite in the name of the dictatorship of the proletariat or inspired by a Fabian dream of a planned centralized economy by economic experts or scientists suppossedly for the benefit of a passive working class  is anathema. Such dreams will not work as the communist experiment in the Soviet Union proved nor are they worthy of the respect of those who believe in human freedom and  autonomy. Enough for now. I suggest that you read the article.

Glenn King