There's nothing inherent that would prevent a slave owning plantation, to be extreme, from also benefiting from a guarantee society relationship for financing investment in the same way that a cooperative farm would, as I see it. The co-op part seems entirely independent from the guarantee society part, right?
The co-op part seems entirely independent from the guarantee society part, right?
I advocate partnership frameworks for:
(a) Peer to Peer Credit - the 'Guarantee Society';
(b) Peer to Peer Investment - the 'Capital Partnership'
The latter is essentially a co-operative of owners of capital (investors) sharing revenues or production with a cooperative of users of capital (labour). "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
I want to make sure we separate the "touchy feely" stuff from what is actually required to make the system work for an entrepreneur with a practical need for investment resources
It's the part about giving workers an ownership in stake in the enterprise. Lots of people could have big problems with that because they don't trust their workers and their workers don't trust them. But Chris's plan here doesn't seem to rely on workers at all, just capitalists, so the worker co-op part of it seems completely superfluous in this scheme.
In fact, one of the most powerful applications is a worker buyout of an enterprise, whether that is an existing private company (where shareholders get a better 'exit' than using any other model, essentially by selling off future profits) or existing state provision, where it is a new and 'non-toxic' approach to public/private partnership.
In this context the City of Glasgow already has five such municipal partnerships (using LLP frameworks) between the council and private providers, but all are conventionally financed. What I am proposing is to bring investment within such partnerships.
The outcome is 'co-ownership' between labour and capital of productive assets, and a genuine alignment of interests. "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
A more common business problem among entrepreneurs who might want to use your scheme is that a business owner just wants investment capital to expand, without changing the owner-employee relationship with his workers. So I just wanted to clarify that you don't need to change your wage and ownership structure to participate in a guarantee society or an investment society.
