plug: live from the co-op-con

Published
by
Aaron
on September 13, 2007
in politics and uk
.

Political Penguin is blogging The Co-Operative Party conference. LIVE.

You couldn’t get anymore left-wing, could you? ;)

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4 Responses to “plug: live from the co-op-con”

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  1. 1 Matthew Revell
    September 14, 2007 at 12:04 pm

    Ah, this reminds me of my CWS and Phone Co-op memberships and my love of co-operatives when I was younger.

  2. 2 tyger
    September 14, 2007 at 12:05 pm

    Were you an old Red, then?

  3. 3 Matthew Revell
    September 14, 2007 at 1:52 pm

    Not really but I was definitely left-leaning. I’ve spent most of life politically confused, tbh. I grew up in the single party state that is the north-east of England, which didn’t help.

    That’s why I dislike being in a political party: people instantly think I’ve made up my mind on a whole range of issues, when in fact I’m happy to consider life a learning experience.

    I was definitely big into the idea of co-operatives when I was younger and was quite involved in the Phone Co-op in the early days. I was into all sorts of lefty stuff when I was younger :)

    Some people could say my love of the open source movement is related, I suppose, but I don’t quite see it that way.

    I was always conflicted, though, regarding co-operative style groups: nice idea but in practice individuals working for their own benefit seem to get more done. If you put naturally productive, creative people into a co-op, they do disproportionately more work. At least, that’s what I’ve heard from people who’ve been involved in co-ops before.

  4. 4 tyger
    September 18, 2007 at 11:17 am

    Sorry late with the reply. Busy etc. Lost track etc. Apologies etc.

    I hate being in a political party. But, I want to be part of the process. As best I can. I have just as much vitriol towards the media as I do the political system, so if I’m going to have a voice - I need to choose one of them. I must decide soon

    ;)

    I think Open Source is as much a Libertarian movement as it is a leftie one. I once received a very interesting email from a marxist who was shit-hot on IT. He said that no-doubt collectivism is the most efficient economic system, but there has never been the processing power to administer it - hence the Soviet Union bureaucracy creaked and spluttered.

    He argued that - as Marx himself predicted - capitalism will enable the technological progress to actually make communism a workable reality. CPU technology and software developments will actually mean a huge bureaucratic system can be done without excessive economic resource.

    Interesting stuff. Probably nonsense, but interesting nonetheless.

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