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After putting in a Freedom Of Information request, the minutes for the East Sussex County Council Pension Fund Investment Panel - from 1974 to 2007 - have been released for the first time. As I noted in my analysis of the minutes:

After writing a couple of blog posts (one and two) about how Cranks could be clearer about its politics for its members and the general public, I was happy to see when I went in the other day that there were three sheets of paper on the wall explaining the politics of the place.

As I said in my last blog post, after I sent an email to the Cranks mailing list we discussed the politics of Cranks in one of our bi-weekly meetings. I haven't been able to post these thoughts up sooner because I have been offline for a month building a roundhouse with Tony Wrench in South West Wales. More on that later, but for now..

I have been helping out in Cranks, a community bike workshop in Brighton, since last September. A few days ago I sent the email below to our mailing list about the politics of Cranks. I thought I'd put it online because it reflects some of my current thinking as well as giving an insiders view of Cranks. Yesterday we discussed some of the points in the email in a group meeting. I'll be posting in a few days some of the outcomes from the meeting and my thoughts on them.

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I have written extensively about what is wrong with the mainstream media and the benefits of co-operative ways of working. The article below outlines one of the most interesting alternatives or synergies that I have come across - The Dominion paper based in Canada.

Have been editing the wikipedia page on workers' co-operatives. Over the next few years, I will try help make it into a great source of information on workers' co-ops. I've already made some very substantial changes, which will hopefully stay - and be improved upon - over time.

When you search for workers' co-operatives in Google it is the first thing that comes up.

As you can see from my last blog post I am very interested in alternatives to capitalism. Co-operativism is one such alternative. Below is a short history of the English co-operative movement from Molly Scott-Cato in her book Market, Schmarket: Building the Post-Capitalist Economy (which I have put on my list of favourite books of all time). If people are interested in alternatives to capitalism, then I would recommend reading the extract below from chapter 3 below as well as the rest of her book.

“If, as a politically active environmentalist or campaigner for social justice, one’s answer to the question is they are, indeed mutually exclusive [that capitalism, in whichever manifestation, is in its very essence inherently unsustainable], then one’s only morally consistent response is to devote one’s political activities to the overthrow of capitalism. If one's answer is that they are entirely compatible (that there are no structural, inherent characteristics within a capitalist system that would make sustainability an unattainable goal), then it is morally consistent to pursue sustainable development (as the path that leads to that goal) within and through that capitalist system. And if one's answer is that they are only compatible under certain conditions (it isn't capitalism per se that is at issue here, but which model of capitalism), then the transformation of those aspects of contemporary capitalism that are incompatible with the attainment of sustainability becomes both a moral and a political precondition of being an effective environmentalist or campaigner for social justice.” Jonathon Porritt - Capitalism as if the World Matters - page 87

Since mentioning the Argentinian Hotel Bauen workers' co-operative in a previous blog posting there have been some terrible developments. Read the article below for prime examples of the non-stop struggle between labour and capital as well as of the state representing the interests of the capitalist or ownership class.

ZNet Commentary
Hotel BAUEN: Workers without bosses face eviction August 09, 2007
By Marie Trigona

UPDATE: Also check out this excellent update by Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis on the state of workers' co-operatives in Argentina.

Just read this following article on workers' co-operatives in Argentina and thought I'd post it up here.

The surge of workers' co-operatives after the economic crisis in 2001 is well documented in the film The Take (you can download it here).