co-operatives – Gus diZerega

Hayekian Insights on Capitalism Part II: Capitalism and labor

Posted on March 19, 2015April 19, 2015 by Gus

Introduction

I am drawing a critical distinction between the role played by the market in coordinating human plans and the institutional forms people adopted in pursuing those plans. Market advocates usually assume because the market is formally voluntary, institutions arising … Read more

A response to Nathan Goodman on democracy

Posted on October 3, 2013 by Gus

Nathan Goodman provided an interesting criticism of my post on democracies not being states. His argument requires a lengthy discussion to address properly. Further, the discussion format on this site seems to hate paragraphs, so such a response would … Read more

Exploring economic freedom as if freedom and people actually mattered

Posted on July 20, 2013August 26, 2013 by Gus

Two quotations, juxtaposed, summarize the errors into which modern American defenses of ‘free markets’ and capitalism have entered. In the process these errors led to abandoning any real meaning for liberty or human well-being. Right wing libertarians in particular sincerely … Read more

Understanding Democracy, part III: Democracy as a spontaneous order

Posted on June 11, 2013 by Gus

I was out of town at our first “Cosmos and Taxis” conference in Vancouver, BC. Now that I am back I am picking up my series of mini-essays on what democracies are and why so many do not understand them.… Read more

What Libertarians can add to American life – if they take the time to understand their principles

Posted on April 24, 2013May 2, 2013 by Gus

UPDATE 4/26, 5/2

I have written a number of critiques of libertarian thinking recently, one a chapter in a just published book, and several shorter pieces on this blog. Along the way I have emphasized I agree with their fundamental … Read more

Capitalism vs. the Market II: re-integrating markets into civil society

Posted on February 27, 2013February 27, 2013 by Gus

The solution to ending capitalism’s dominance over human beings and human values has two dimensions. First, capitalist enterprises must be subordinated to the larger ethical standards of civil society. The “capitalist ecosystem” I described in Part I must be reabsorbed … Read more

Pagan Spirituality and the Future of America

Posted on October 6, 2012 by Gus

A new post of mine is now up at Patheos.… Read more

Mondragon- One Step Beyond Capitalism

Posted on September 27, 2012July 1, 2021 by Gus

From September 8 to 14 I took the opportunity to join a study-tour of the worker owned Mondragon Cooperatives in the Basque Country of northern Spain. It had been organized by the Praxis Peace Institute to expose Americans to the … Read more

Rethinking what democracy is: the co-operative model

Posted on August 11, 2012August 11, 2012 by Gus

Theories of emergent social order give us a new perspective on how human societies function. In doing so constitute a genuine paradigm shift in the social sciences, which have long been dominated by reductionist or statistical approaches to the subject. … Read more