Saturday, January 20, 2007
Anchors and Incubators
What impressed me most about cooperatives I associated with was the ability to function as an incubator of cottage industry. They naturally formed affinity groups within a fluid milieu that had both cultural as well as political dimensions while providing food and shelter.
They were not collectives where people lived together and had to negotiate those social aspects, but they did serve as a model and resource for cooperative housing, community gardens, and a free university. As a very profitable non-profit, the food store we started remains the anchor of social experimentation in the community--providing meeting space, grants, and food to unincorporated groups of activists that emerge from time to time in response to various unmet social needs.
I think the ability to focus one's energy is what makes this model effective.
They were not collectives where people lived together and had to negotiate those social aspects, but they did serve as a model and resource for cooperative housing, community gardens, and a free university. As a very profitable non-profit, the food store we started remains the anchor of social experimentation in the community--providing meeting space, grants, and food to unincorporated groups of activists that emerge from time to time in response to various unmet social needs.
I think the ability to focus one's energy is what makes this model effective.
