Thursday, November 29, 2007

January 3, 2008 Presentations

On January 3, 2008 – the first class back from the winter break – we are going to do two things: review in detail the Fall 2007 semester and hear your preliminary ideas as to how the alternative organization you’ve been thinking about for your Winter 2008 term project is informed by the theory and history we’ve been studying thus far. Basically, this means that YOU will be collaborating with your classmates in the review by directly mapping it, albeit in a preliminary sketch, to your forthcoming projects. Don’t worry, you don’t have to have a firm organization in place yet. Just base this exercise on one of the ideas you communicated to me in our meeting that we had late in Fall 2007. And, in light of the fact we did not have a mid-term exam in December, I believe this task is warranted. It’s worth 4% of your final project mark, so take it seriously but don’t sweat over it. Have fun with it. Use it as an opportunity to re-read the texts – or, if you haven’t read certain texts yet, to actually DO the readings. Believe me, you will thank me come March when you have a zillion projects on the go and you need to prepare for your in-class presentation and your final Contemporary Research Paper. Plus, your Alternative Firm Analysis and especially your Contemporary Research Paper will be drawing extensively from the Fall 2007 theory and history, so you’ll doubly thank me come March when you won’t have to pull several all-nighters making sense of last semester.

So, the review/presentation for Jan. 3 will be as follows:

You are all to give a five to seven minute presentation of preliminary ideas concerning the theoretical grounding for your Alternative Firm Analysis and Contemporary Research Paper. I want to underscore the “preliminary” aspect of this. Don’t worry if you’re absolutely right or not, just do it. You are to also hand in to me a ONE-page bullet-point synopsis of your presentation from which you will speak from at the beginning of the class.

You will be drawing your theoretical materials ONLY from the course materials we’ve engaged with (texts, films, the blog, etc.). If you don’t have an actual firm or organization in mind yet, no worries. Just use the loose idea you communicated to me in our meetings to situate an imaginary organization that might fit your idea. For example, if you want to do a workers’ coop, or an alternative power organization, or a housing coop, or perhaps a woman’s rights collective, just go with this idea for the project. You have enough materials from the course to begin to draw a preliminary concept of what, for example, a workers’ coop might be. There are plenty of these organizations to choose from in Toronto. Just do a Google search on your idea and “Toronto” or “Ontario” and you’ll see what I mean. If you want, you can choose as a prototype one of the organizations you discover in your web search. Again, the resources I’ve made available for you on the blog – and that I will continue to update throughout the break, so check back often – will serve you well, so go there first.

Once you’ve selected your organization or your loose idea of an alternative organization, you are to answer the following things to frame your presentation:

1. What is this organization an alternative to? You can’t just say “capitalism” or “private property”, be more specific (see point 3)? What community does it serve/service?

2. Where does it fit into Fontan & Shragge’s “social economy”? Is it mostly reform-minded or utopian?

3. How does it seem to be organized to you at this early stage of your investigation? As a loose collective of autonomous individuals (eg, Anarchist Free University)? As a cooperative (eg, the various examples in Melnyk)? As a not-for-profit (eg, the United Way, any local community centre, etc.)? As a traditional business but with some form of alternative business model that follows some aspect of mutuality (eg, examples in Kropotkin)?

4. Where does it fit into Cavanagh & Mander’s “Alternative Operating Systems” and which of their “Ten Principles for Sustainable Societies” applies to it? You might also want to look at where the organization fits into the alternative “what can be done” model in Cavanagh & Mander’s Chapter 11.

5. Even if your organization isn’t a cooperative, where would it fall along Melnyk’s four traditions of cooperatives (all of his principles could apply to any form of alternative organization)? Why do you think so? You must support your claim here by showing some evidence from the actual organization or the social-political-economic sector it operates within.

6. How is your organization an example of an alternative economic firm that tries to reclaim some aspect of the commons? What aspect of the commons is it reclaiming? Again, not only Cavanagh & Mander is useful here, but also Kropotkin, Thompson, and Hill and any of the readings from Week 8 (Oct. 25)?

NOTE: I’ll be impressed if you also draw on insights from the historical and theoretical essays we’ve considered to show how this organization is a continuation of longer and historically linked, bottom-up worker and peasant revolts.

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Take Home Alternative for Last Reading Reflection of Fall 2007

You are to let me know if you decide to do this Take Home Alternative to the Reading Reflection #3 by phoning me or text messaging me by Monday, Nov. 26 at 5:00 pm EST (I've given you a 5 hour extension on making a decision). My cell phone number is 416.940.0340. If you text message me, please also include your name in the text message.

Due:
• Monday, Dec. 3, 2007, 12:00 pm (noon) EST

Mode of delivery:

• Email me at vieta@yorku.ca. Due to the work-to-rule in place (see blog), I will not respond to your email but I will receive your Take Home Alternative by email.

Grading:

• Like the Reading Reflections, this option is weighted as 10% of your total course mark. Because this exercise is slightly more creative (and more challenging) than the Reading Reflections, I will automatically give a bonus mark of 0.25% to anyone who chooses this option. If you’ve done all of the readings and attended most of the seminars, you should find these questions very doable.

Instructions:

• You are to answer two of the following four questions in the exact same format as you would the Reading Reflections (2.5 pages, double-spaced per question, 5 pages total).
• Directly answer the questions as a mini essay. Unlike the Reading Reflections, you are to specifically answer the questions rather than primarily conducting a summary of the readings. I expect the responses to be tightly argued, drawing primarily from the readings in question. You may also draw from any other relevant seminar materials we’ve engaged with throughout the semester to support your responses. That is, your main goal for the two mini essays is to answer the question I pose using the specific readings I mention. You can then, if you wish, support your answers by using further examples you might deem useful from any of the readings we’ve conducted over the past three months, from class discussions, or from the films we’ve watched.

Please answer TWO of the following four questions. Follow the instructions above:

1) Critique the main themes of Adam Smith’s concept of the “division of labour” using a Marxist approach. In other words, how would Marx critique Smith’s theory of the division of labour and its place for human prosperity? What would he have to say about Smith’s key assumptions? (Hint: You can draw freely from the three Marx readings we’ve looked at throughout the term. I also encourage you to look at my essay on Marx that I have posted on my blog and that I lectured from early in the semester; you should get many hints from reading this essay first before answering this question, but it is not a requirement that you read this essay, only a strong recommendation: http://www.vieta.ca/SOSC4041/Lectures/BusSoc4041_Lecture1_Marx.pdf)

2) What would the Marquis de Condorcet have to say about contemporary neoliberal capitalist society? Do you think he would approve? Why or why not? Is this the future he was thinking about and where he envisioned “progress” taking us? (Hint: Pointing to a few key sections of Ellwood and/or Cavanagh & Mander might help you map out this answer.)

3) Concisely outline where Melnyk’s four cooperative traditions – the Liberal Democratic Tradition, the Marxist Tradition, the Socialist Tradition, and the Communalist Tradition – would fit into Fontan & Shragge’s two major modes of thinking about the social economy? Which tradition do you support for the role of cooperatives in the Canadian social economy? Why? (Hint at answering this question, although you can use a different structure: Use one paragraph to define the two modes of the social economy as an alternative economic model, one paragraph to look at each tradition in light of your definition of the social economy, and the last paragraph for telling me which tradition you would support for the social economy in Canada and why.)

4) Which of the four cooperative models outlined by Melnyk in chapters 2-5 do you think is the most viable alternative economic model for overcoming Marx’s alienation and Hill’s treatment of the poor by property owners? In other words, which of the four models presented by Melnyk do you feel would be the best alternative for the working class to address the tensions and contradictions present in capital-labour relations? (Hint: Remember that “property owners” in a capitalist system, as Marx mentions in the “Critique of the Gotha Program,” also includes those that own the means of production and distribution. Also, Hill’s piece is in many ways mapping out how it came to be that the exclusion of the poor and the non-land owners from “the people” was a precursor – and historical foundation – for how the 19th and 20th centuries’ working classes were similarly excluded from the privileges enjoyed by capitalist business owners.)

Monday, November 19, 2007

Why I am Joining the Work to Rule Action

Dear ENVS/SOSC 4041.6 students,

This is a letter to inform you that I am currently participating in a work-to-rule campaign launched by my union, CUPE 3903.

During the summer term, FGS stepped up their attack on the quality of education at York University, which has had a direct and negative impact upon the work and learning environment on campus. Specifically, Faculty of Graduate Studies (FGS) unilaterally cut the summer needs-based bursary program, which many members of CUPE 3903 financially depend upon in the summer months. This bursary was never a “gift” given by FGS to student-workers, but was fought for and won in response to the imposition of radically increased summer tuition fees in the mid-90s. Although a small portion of the bursary has been brought back under increasing pressure by student-workers on campus, it currently pales in comparison to its historical levels, and CUPE 3903 calls for its full retroactive return. Not only is the summer bursary program under attack, but the fall/winter needs-based bursary is also being severely underfunded in comparison to historical levels in order to create second-rate scholarship-based funding packages for incoming graduate students, packages that will take away the valuable benefits (health, dental, tuition rebate, etc.) currently enjoyed by members of CUPE 3903. CUPE 3903 calls on FGS and York University to retroactively fully fund the summer bursary, and to guarantee both the summer and fall/winter needs based bursary at a level that is suited to the real needs of student-workers at York University in the future, as indicated by the student-workers themselves.

While FGS and York University continue to under-fund and attempt to take away the hard won gains made by the student-workers on campus, FGS is attempting to simultaneously institute and expand a “Times to Completion” document that institutes prohibitive and punitive measures in order to rush as many graduate students through the doors of York University as possible in a shameless cash grab at provincial funding. Without thought for the real needs of graduate education as indicated by worker and student groups on campus - an increase in funding, increased numbers of faculty, increased numbers of staff, etc. - FGS and York University are unilaterally undermining the education and workplace of students and workers on campus. Rather than job cuts to experienced Unit 2 teaching assistant and tutor positions in order to haphazardly expand graduate enrollment, and cutting Unit 3 graduate assistants and Unit 1 teaching assistants in favour of paltry scholarship offers, CUPE 3903 insists that FGS and York University must meet its obligation to providing a sustainable quality education and work environment on campus.

In order to further pressure the York Administration to fulfill its obligations, I will be engaging in an escalating work to rule campaign beginning on November 19th, 2007. To begin and as per my rights in my collective agreement, I will be refraining from using internet communication with respect to all work conducted. I recognize that this may place you in a difficult situation. It is also true that the employer will likely claim that members of CUPE 3903 are violating their contractual obligations to York, and are engaged in an illegal job action, although it is clearly stated in my Collective Agreement that I am in no way whatsoever required to use e-mail communication pertaining to work matters. Only the Ontario Labour Relations Board can rule on the legality of this job action and the CUPE 3903 Executive has received extensive legal advice around this campaign and has been advised of its legality.

While admittedly, and intentionally, disruptive, it is paramount that everyone involved recognize that these actions are not being directed towards individual students. CUPE 3903 is undertaking this campaign in part to insure and create a genuine quality educative experience for both undergraduate and graduate students.

I will do my best to keep you posted on developments as they unfold, as well as any escalating job action that may be taken. I very much hope that there will be a timely and favourable resolution to this issue. Questions and comments may be directed to cupe3903worktorule@gmail.com

Sincerely,

Marcelo Vieta
Member, CUPE 3903

For more on CUPE 3903's work-to-rule campaign, go here.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

A CONVERSATION ABOUT WORKER CO-OPERATIVES

Part of A Potential Toronto
Initiated by Toronto School of Creativity & Inquiry (TSCI)
More info: www.tsci.ca | tscinquiry@gmail.com
Thursday, 15 November 2007
7:30 - 9:30pm

Toronto Free Gallery
660 Queen St. East
(w. of Broadview, e. of the Don Valley Parkway)

'A Potential Toronto' wrap party immediately afterwards, with DJs Dorian and Dorian.


Go here for more info.

Friday, November 9, 2007

QUEER PUBLICS


A Conversation with Paul Couillard, Deirdre Logue, John Paul Ricco and Jason
St-Laurent

Part of A Potential Toronto
Initiated by Toronto School of Creativity & Inquiry (TSCI)
More info: www.tsci.ca | tscinquiry@gmail.com

Friday, 9 November
7:30pm

Toronto Free Gallery
660 Queen Street East (w. of Broadview)



Go here for more info.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Migrants, Borders, Citizenship

Part of 'A Potential Toronto'
Initiated by Toronto School of Creativity & Inquiry (TSCI)

More info: www.tsci.ca | tscinquiry@gmail.com

Tues., 23 Oct. 2007
7:30 pm - 9:30 pm
Toronto Free Gallery - 660 Queen Street East (two blocks w. of Broadview)

Fleeing marginality and harm in their native countries, many Torontonians continue to live on the margins in their new one as non-status migrants. At the same time, migrant groups have created and spearheaded myriad safe spaces, deep community networks, and countless cultural initiatives throughout Toronto, transforming established norms of citizenship in the process.

What networks of affinity are emerging between self-organized migrant groups? How are politicized groups of non-status migrants redefining citizenship? How are regularization initiatives addressing human rights and migrant safety? How are legalization campaigns like 'Don't Ask Don't Tell' facilitating new security for Toronto's non-status residents?

Join us on Tues. Oct. 23 as Peter Nyers (McMaster University, Citizenship Studies Media Lab), Cynthia Wright (York University), Patricia Diaz (Colombian Forced Migration Project), and members of No One Is Illegal (Toronto) open a collective conversation about how citizenship is being rethought within the city's migrant communities.

About A Potential Toronto

A Potential Toronto is an event series and exhibition spotlighting alternative economies, minor spaces, and organizing strategies. It is a preliminary step in a longer-term counter-cartography project which would render currents of radical energy visible, audible, and tactile.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Oct 18 Seminar and Beyond...

For Oct. 18th's seminar, we're going to be doing a review of the past weeks and will still be working on materials up to and including Week 6 (Oct 11). Week 7 (Oct 18) will be pushed back to next week. Actually, the entire Lecture and Reading schedule will be pushed back a week, including the next Reading Reflection which will now be due on Nov 8, not Nov 1. The last Reading Reflection will still be due on Nov 29, however.

I will be updating the Lecture, Reading, and Assignment Schedule (http://www.vieta.ca/SOSC4041/Course_Documents/4041_2007_lecture_reading.pdf) AND the Course Outline (http://www.vieta.ca/SOSC4041/Course_Documents/Course_Outline_HTML.html) that you can access off the blog BY LATE TONIGHT (it's not yet changed). We'll go over these changes tomorrow.

So, for Oct 18th's class, we'll be doing the following:
1) Going over the updated course schedules and outline
2) 1 hour or so lecture from me summing up "Part 2: Outlining the Issues" and all readings to date
3) A brief film
4) Group exercise (make sure you're totally up-to-date on the readings) up to and including Oct. 11.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Week 4 Class Excercise: Toronto's "Women Against Poverty Collective", 3 June 2007 Women's Housing Action

Excercise instructions:
As I spoke to you all in class last week, at one point during the seminar on Sept. 27 (this Thursday) we're going to conduct a class debate. We're going to look at the lead up to and the consequences of the June 3, 2007 WAPC squat of an abandoned apartment building in downtown Toronto from the perspective of "reformers" and "social changers," as defined in the Fontan & Shragge reading from last week.

I will randomly divide the class into two groups, one group will be made up of "reformers" and the other, "social changers." You will then convene as a group for about 10 minutes and prepare a "reformist" or "social change" case for the social economy issues that the WAPC action brought to light: poverty, housing, women's rights, the plight of the marginalized, the role of the state in provisioning for our housing and safety needs, and perhaps other related issues that permeate urban Toronto and that were touched on by the WAPC action.

Each group will get 5 minutes to present their case and then each group will take turns rebutting or commenting on the other group's position. We will then have a respectful discussion interchanging ideas and try to arrive collectively at how the June 3 case study helps us understand a bit better the "tensions" with the social economy that Fontan & Shragge mention in their essay.

Here are some questions you might want to ponder from both sides of the social economy debate:

1) What specific issues did the WAPC's June 3 action bring to the surface?
2) How might "reformers" and "social changers" critique or support these issues? In other words, how would each side respond to the social issues that were brought to the surface as a consequence of the direct action tactics taken by the WAPC?
3) How, if at all, might each side support or be opposed to the tactics used by WAPC? (For eg: Would reformers agree with taking over private property in order to secure housing for homeless and battered women? If not, what might their solution be to the social issue? How would social changers respond to the tactics used?)
3) What institutions were affected and/or implicated in the June 3 action? How would each side react to the actions taken by the state (i.e., city hall, the courts, the police) during and after the June 3 squat?
4) How would each side address or seek to change these social institutions in light of the issues brought up by the June 3 action?
5) How might each side suggest we deal with homelessness, poverty, and the plight of the marginalized?

Brief background reading and viewing:

Monday, September 24, 2007

A Potential Toronto | Launch: Thurs. 27 Sept.

A POTENTIAL TORONTO
INITIATED BY TORONTO SCHOOL OF CREATIVITY & INQUIRY (TSCI)
More info: www.tsci.ca

LAUNCH: THURS. 27 SEPT. 2007

27 SEPT. - 10 NOV. 2007
TORONTO FREE GALLERY
660 QUEEN ST. EAST (W. of BROADVIEW)

Fear disciplines. Capital divides. States order. Creativity sells. Cynicism saturates. Against the persisting ethos of the 'Common Sense Revolution' are dots that puncture the city's territory. Where are they? A Potential Toronto is an event series and exhibition spotlighting alternative economies, minor spaces, and organizing strategies. What experiments and proposals are out there for democratizing space, cracking constraints, and co-operating differently? What works, and why? What blocks an alternative from flourishing? What concepts help us think through it? Exploring these questions, A Potential Toronto is a preliminary step in a longer-term counter-cartography project which would render currents of radical energy visible, audible, and tactile.


LAUNCH: THURS. 27 SEPT. 2007
6:30pm: OPENING FOR 'COMMON SENSE REVOLUTION' / 'TORONTO'S URBAN UNCONSCIOUS'
7:30pm: 'A POTENTIAL COMMONISM' - A TALK BY NICK DYER-WITHEFORD PARTY TO FOLLOW


'A POTENTIAL COMMONISM' - A TALK BY NICK DYER-WITHEFORD [AUTHOR OF 'CYBER-MARX']
It has been said that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. Does the widespread interest in 'commons' by environmental, labour, and open-source activists draw a new line of fight and flight pointing beyond capital? Nick Dyer-Witheford presents a talk on the concept of commonism.

'COMMON SENSE REVOLUTION' - SCOTT SORLI
This information graphic tracks Ontario welfare income for a single person against the number of homeless who have died on the streets of Toronto over the past two decades. The year 1995 is particularly striking, the year that welfare income begins to plummet, the year that homeless deaths begin to jump, the year that the Harris Conservatives were first elected.

'TORONTO'S URBAN UNCONSCIOUS' - ADRIAN BLACKWELL, TINA CHUNG, ANDREA GAUS, DAVIDE GIANFORCARO, KIM LIGERS, ANDREA MACECEK, GRAEME STEWART, and GEOFFREY THUN. Projects from the University of Toronto's Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design

This design research project focuses on Toronto's Western Rail triangle, an area of urban fabric that suffers from both social and physical isolation from the rest of the city. We argue that this territory acts as Toronto's urban unconscious, divided from other spaces by ravines, railways, highways, and industrial fabric. These seven architecture and urban design projects make use of the area's existing potential to imagine useful and pleasurable spaces for daily life.

** EVENT SERIES DETAILS TO FOLLOW:
COMMONS READING GROUP [begins 1 oct.]
WOMEN AGAINST POVERTY COLLECTIVE [11 oct.]
YOUTH [18 oct.]
BORDERS + MIGRATION [23 oct.]
ABANDONED HOUSING: USE IT OR LOSE IT [29 oct.]
ORGANIZING [1 nov.]
QUEER PUBLICS [9 nov.]
WORKER CO-OPS [10 nov.]

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Capital quote...

The capitalist then takes his stand on the law of the exchange of commodities. He, like all other buyers, seeks to get the greatest possible benefit out of the use-value of his commodity. Suddenly the voice of the labourer, which had been stifled in the storm and stress of the process of production, rises:

The commodity that I have sold to you differs from the crowd of other commodities, in that its use creates value, and a value greater than its own. That is why you bought it. That which on your side appears a spontaneous expansion of capital, is on mine extra expenditure of labour-power. You and I know on the market only one law, that of the exchange of commodities. And the consumption of the commodity belongs not to the seller who parts with it, but to the buyer, who acquires it. To you, therefore, belongs the use of my daily labour-power. But by means of the price that you pay for it each day, I must be able to reproduce it daily, and to sell it again. Apart from natural exhaustion through age, 8c., I must be able on the morrow to work with the same normal amount of force, health and freshness as to-day. You preach to me constantly the gospel of "saving" and "abstinence." Good! I will, like a sensible saving owner, husband my sole wealth, labour-power, and abstain from all foolish waste of it. I will each day spend, set in motion, put into action only as much of it as is compatible with its normal duration, and healthy development. By an unlimited extension of the working day, you may in one day use up a quantity of labour-power greater than I can restore in three. What you gain in labour I lose in substance. The use of my labour-power and the spoliation of it are quite different things.


~Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. 1

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Lecture 1: Marx, Alienation, and Capital 101

Marx’s essay, “Estranged Labour,” a chapter from Marx’s early work written in Paris and known as the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 (and only published in the 1930s), is at core about how humans feel as they work within the capitalist system. In a nutshell, Marx claims that capitalism, through its construction and use of private property and the capitalist’s ownership of the means of production, alienates the real producers (i.e., the workers) not only from the very products they produce and the processes of production they work with, but also from themselves and each other.

What does it mean to feel alienated? To be alienated means to be separated from something. Marx uses this to describe how workers feel within the capitalist mode of production. He used the term to “denote the division and separation between the upper class (bourgeosie) and the lower class (proletariat). In recent years, the term has been used to suggest estrangement, powerlessness, and the depersonalization of the individual” within our contemporary society. So why does Marx claim we are alienated within the capitalist system? What is inherent to capitalism that alienates most of those who work within it? Trying to answer these two questions is the focus of this essay. Attempting to answer them also necessarily means we have to understand some of the key structures of the capitalist system, as well. Let’s start by looking briefly at the essay “Estranged Labour.”

Read the rest of the essay/lecture.

Working on the Edge

"Ontario's poorest workers have been denied tens of millions of dollars in wages over the past five years because of the province's outdated and unenforced labour laws. That's the shocking finding of a report released this week by the Workers' Action Centre titled Working on the Edge, which chronicles seven years of employer abuses in the Greater Toronto Area. The violations include wages below minimum pay rates, failing to pay overtime or statutory holiday, vacation and termination pay and denying workers sick leave, unemployment insurance, health, injury and pension benefits."

This is a quote from a June 2, 2007 editorial in the Toronto Star entitled "Protect Ontario's Poorest Workers." The editorial goes on to comment about a recent report entitled Working on the Edge, written by a group of academics and activists and sponsored and released by Toronto's the Workers Action Center.

Monday, September 17, 2007

Social Economy as an Alternative to Globalization in Guatemala

CERLAC and the Guatemala Community Network are proud to present:

---Social Economy as an Alternative to Globalization---

With:
Rosa Garcia Corado
Alianza por la Vida y la Paz, Guatemala

Rosa Garcia Corado is a member of the Alianza por la Vida y la Paz, a
coalition of social and popular organizations, indigenous and ladino
women and men from Petén, Guatemala. The Alianza strives for respect for
life and peace, and fights against economic, social, cultural, political
exploitation and exclusion. During the past years, the Alianza has
centered its efforts on building a People's economy network, as a
counterproposal to the destructive neo-liberal policies being
implemented in the region. This is a real challenge and a process which
has led them to constantly analyze the local, national and international
market economy, and to define their own alternatives at the community
and organizational level.

Rosa will speak on how women participate in alternative economic
projects such as cooperatives and community based initiatives as a means
of building empowerment for women in the social economy.

September 17, 2007
2:30 p.m.
305 York Lanes, York University, Toronto

For more information: cerlac@yorku.ca, 416.736.5237,
http://www.yorku.ca/cerlac/news_events.htm#rosa

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Course Outline

Course Description
The purpose of this fourth year seminar course is to investigate in detail alternative economic formations which are characterized by some degree of “mutuality”, such as non-profits, co-operatives, worker-owned firms and local economy organizations. This course will take an interdisciplinary approach to this topic by wedding the history and theory of these formations with a critical, empirical, and practice based investigation of the contemporary forms, successes, and failures of these institutions.

While this course is primarily designed for fourth year Business and Society (Honours) majors, and is particularly relevant for those interested in pursuing a career path in the non-profit sector, it is relevant for anyone interested in the history, theory and practice of alternative economics. Therefore, its focus is on developing a keen understanding of the successes and failures of past and current “social economy” formations, and the possibility that the social economy might be integrated into an alternative economic development strategy. We will look at what this strategy might be, why we might need an “alternative” strategy if the current status quo economic system is said to be efficient for delivering us goods and services (is it?), and what the role of the state is in an alternative economic model (do we even need the state?)

The course will be broken into these five broad sections: (I) Outlining the Issue of Alternative Economics, (II) History, Theory and Debates, (III) The Social Economy Today, (IV) Co-operatives, and (V) The Social Economy and Local Development.

With an eye toward the students’ pending entry into the work-world or post-graduate academic study, the course will develop the following competencies:

1) A clear understanding of the history, theories and debates which inspire and mark various forms of alternative economic association
2) A critical understanding of the practical issues which challenge the successful development of alternative economic forms
3) An understanding of the relationship between alternative economic forms and the social, political, and cultural world which surrounds them
4) Critical writing, oral presentation and practical economic analysis

Because of the practical and empirical focus of this course, emphasis will be placed on developing an interface with actual practitioners in the broad field of social economy. There will be speakers brought in from the field to address the class on contemporary issues, concerns and solutions. There will also be at least one field trip to a local co-operative institution in the second term. Finally, students will be asked to develop a concrete strategic analysis of a local alternative economic firm or organization as part of the practical component of the course.

[GO HERE FOR MARK BREAKDOWN AND ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTIONS FOR ENTIRE COURSE]