Commons Sense: What might be a shared vision?

Pat Conaty Co-operatives UK

5 December 2013

Energy

ReclaimingFinance

Democratizing & Localizing Ownership

2

Commons SenseBuilding a Co-operative Economy Closer to Home

KE

Y F

UN

CT

ION

S

BASIC NEEDS: Food Shelter

Reclaiming the Commons

Fair Trading and the Co-operative Capital Gap

‘The Roman arena was technically a level playing field. But on the one side there were the lions with all the weapons

and on the other side the Christians with all the blood…… That’s a slaughter.

And so is putting people into the economy without equipping them with capital, while equipping a tiny handful of people with hundreds of thousands of times more than they can use.’

Louis Kelso

The Commons and co-operative networks offer aa democratic way of working and living

• Commonwealth is wealth beyond measure – when times get hard co-operative solutions are always unearthed

• Micro-change agents need to think of how to connect mutually

• History and struggles to build co-operative commonwealth provides guidance on the How question

Back to the Future: Associative Democracy

Guild socialist movement in Great Britain: 1907 to 1949(i) Co-operative strategy to organise industry democratically – national

guilds (railways, mines and construction) and local guilds – active work 1919 to 1929

(ii) Agricultural guilds for farming and the food sector(iii)Garden cities and towns – for regional self-reliance(iv)Social credit proposals for monetary reform (Clifford Douglas)(v) Agricultural guilds, Garden City movement advanced and National

Construction Guild established that built affordable housing in many big cities

(vi)Access to low-cost finance was a problem in the 1920s and 1930s (vii)Movement leaders led work to create the Welfare State and the NHS in

the 1940s: Keynes provided ‘cheap money’

What do these current images from across the UK have in common?

Community Co-operative Shares Market: Registrations

Co-operative Place Making and the Potential for Cross-fertilisation

1. Community land trusts and Cohousing2. Co-operative hydro-power schemes3. Co-operative wind power4. Solar Energy Co-ops for Community Buildings5. Community Development Finance Mutuals for

housing repairs and green loans6. Care co-operatives for social and health services

Evergreen Co-operatives (USA) – The Democracy Collaborative

‘Green Economy’ Co-operative Partnership• Cleveland, Ohio: a city that has lost half its population through de-

industrialisation over recent decades• Partnership backed by anchor institutions including the City, universities,

hospitals, the Ohio Co-op movement and the Cleveland Foundation• $200 million social investment fund set up to invest at 1% to capitalise

worker ownership co-ops using a Mondragon model• Co-ops created for solar energy installation, local food enterprises and a

low-carbon laundry for hospitals• Largest urban farm in the USA set up with a wind power heated

greenhouse (3.5 acres) and growing annually 3 million heads of lettuce and 500 tons of herbs

Mutual Home Ownership Society

Co-operative CLT model – researched by nef: Urban Model1. Housing Co-op owns the dwellings – rent to equity system 2. Separate CLT company owns the land• New members make a 5% deposit• Mortgage is corporate, not individual, leases assigned• Full repairing lease based on 35% of net household income• Lease payments convert to equity shares to purchase home• Co-op pays members that leave, their equity earned less 10%

12

Mutual Home Ownership CLT – CDS Co-ops

LILAC – Leeds Eco-village

1. LILAC (Low-carbon Living affordable community)2. First Mutual Home Ownership project – urban CLT3. 20 Co-housing homes – on former school site4. Pre-fabricated strawbale housing, renewable energy5. Investment from social bank, Triodos.6. National partnership in Wales to develop 500 Mutual Homes

on CLT land by 2015 – 8 projects underway

CDS Co-operatives - MHOSLimited equity return at Year 10 projected

•71 shares = £13,314•86 shares = £16,271•100 shares = £18,919•128 shares = £24,217•149 shares = £28,190•191 shares = £36,136

14

LEEDS Project - Lilac

Co-operative Land Bank

1. Extension of London Jubilee line (11 tube stations) finished in 1999.

2. Cost of public investment by taxpayers: £3.5 billion3. Urban land value uplift: £13.5 billion4. Co-operative Land Bank is a CLT for an urban district5. CLB can self-finance affordable housing on a big scale and for

an Eco-town or city and new Garden suburbs6. Precedents: Letchworth Garden City (33,000) and Irvine CLT

(USA) – similar size for the master plan – see also Japan and Hong Kong

Co-operatives globally – Transformative Power below the radar screen

• I billion members worldwide - 15 million in the UK• Providing services every week to 3 billion people globally• More employees than the multinational corporations• Involved in every single sector of the economy• Two-thirds of farmers in Scotland are in agricultural co-ops• 6000 co-operative enterprises operate in the UK and one new

co-op is setting up every day• Co-operative sector expansion of 20% in the UK 2008 -2012