This is what we're talking about! We need creative cultural producer-worker cooperatives in New Orleans in order for our creative cultural products and services not be appropriated and corrupted, for producer worker autonomy - musicians, artists and activists are an independent and suspicious bunch in New Orleans and across the region and for very good reason-
We need producer-worker cooperatives for an equitable, fair and just economy for New Orleans and our nation - for social and economic justice.
Martin Hess in a 2004 piece titled, ‘Spatial’ relationships? Towards a
reconceptualization of embeddedness, for the journal Progress in Human Geography, cited Karl Polayni, writing:
Activities that began as social i.e. of a non-market economy with their forms of reciprocal and
redistributive exchange, were constituted on the basis of shared values and norms that had
their roots in social and cultural bonds rather than monetary goals, societies based on
market exchange reflect only those underlying values and norms that consider price. They do
not recognize any other obligations. Therefore, Polanyi conceived market economies as
disembedded from the social-structural and cultural-structural elements of society.
...... while historically preceding economies were embedded in society and
its social and cultural foundations, Polanyi argues that modern market economies
are not only disembedded, but ‘instead of economy being embedded in social
relations, social relations are embedded in the economic system’ (Polanyi, 1944:
57).
And that is what New Orleans and so many other regions, cities and towns across America needs so urgently now - an economy that is "reciprocal and redistributive ...... constituted on the basis of shared values and norms", based upon, "social and cultural bonds" rather than - strictly "monetary goals."
For more on the New v. Old Economy go to the Summer 2009 issue of YES! Magazine and the U. S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives (See: Links & Resources section at the right of
page ) .....
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