This is true, the Big Ideas out there as alternatives to the Neo-Liberal Capitalist Model are: Keynesian Social Democracy or State Socialism.

There is very little discussion about workers' democracy, about civil society taking things into their own hands about removing not only the Bosses who inherit their power via the private state but of not creating new "public" dieties a new bureaucratic tyranny that imposes decisinos via the state, yes the governments change but public bureacracues become entrenched fiefdoms with new Bosses as well.

This cooperative model is an alternative to both and one that is not as known.

I truly believe that this movement, the cooperative movement, including investment labour funds and funds under real community control will be the engine of the movement towards Economic Democracy.

The important work of people in the Big Idea should be welcome by all tru Economic Democrats.

I too like big ideas, and cooperation is an interesting idea as a possible alternative manner of economic organization. My only concern would be the history of cooperatives over the past half century. It is commendable to look back to the antigonish movement, but why did it lose steam? And why did so many cooperatives come to look like private sector firms in terms of their work organization and their relationship to their communities? Again, this isn't to pick a fight with the Big Idea people, but to insist on real clarity in laying out how we get beyond the hurdles that took the piss out of the progressive potential of coops in the past. Maybe someone can give me some ideas here.

The short answer to your question, Peter, is that any movement for economic democracy must have some interdimensionality. Cooperatives don't start in a vacuum....they are not value free institutions. They serve some objective based on some purpose based on some worldview. Cooperatives can, perish the thought, be made to support reactionary ends as well. The building of cooperatives, even when successful, when other issues are being neglected, is of limited value. I think the Big Idea campaign is trying to connect the Cooperative Movement to a new kind of globalization, and that is certainly a worthy idea, and a good angle that should be developed further.