Like any sensible person seeking to escape the Toronto winter, I decided to spend a few days in Winnipeg! Last time I was in Winnipeg was 2002, and the fall, and I told my hosts in the marvelous activist community out there that I wanted to return in the winter and experience the legendary -20 to -30 C or colder. For better or worse, this trip, thanks to global warming or natural variability, it was a positively balmy -5 C, not much colder than Toronto.
Like any sensible person seeking to escape the Toronto winter, I decided to spend a few days in Winnipeg! Last time I was in Winnipeg was 2002, and the fall, and I told my hosts in the marvelous activist community out there that I wanted to return in the winter and experience the legendary -20 to -30 C or colder. For better or worse, this trip, thanks to global warming or natural variability, it was a positively balmy -5 C, not much colder than Toronto.
But talking about the temperature makes a scandalous understatement of the warmth of the folks who hosted me. The series of lectures (one on Israel/Palestine, one on the economy, and one on the book “Real Utopia” that I have a chapter in) was set up by the Mondragon bookstore cafe, where I found community, a delicious southern fried tofu sandwich (which I had to have twice, recommended to me strongly by a highly credible source), a book I hadn’t gotten after searching several bookstores (Warnock’s “Creating a Failed State”), and very serious activists.
Paul Burrows (who I was very happy to see on this trip after 6 years), who helped found Mondragon and who is part of the A-Zone that the Mondragon is also a part of, laid out this case for actually creating alternative institutions:
…building a network of alternative institutions today is one approach, one front of many – but in my opinion, it’s a necessary one. Unfortunately, it’s one front which the Left has often done poorly, at least in terms of building alternatives which actually incorporate into the work structures the values that leftists profess to hold. But the lessons of existing alternative workplaces in Canada and around the world — both parecon-inspired ones, and other “fellow travellers” – are simple. Work can be organized without hierarchy, and still be organized, still be efficient, still get the job done. Workers can democratically control their own workplaces, set production goals, decide what is an acceptable average effort and pace, and determine their own wages, without running a business into the ground (as Ayn Rand and so-called “coordinator class” or managerial advocates everywhere suggest), and we can do this without turning our back on “activism” as it’s typically understood.
When someone makes a point so strongly, the listener is tempted to say: “well, are YOU doing it?” And at Mondragon, they can say: “why yes, we are.”
I would refer you to Paul’s essay for details, but I will say that I had more energizing conversations with folks around there than I’ve had in a while. When you’re able to assume so much common ground, the explorations become really interesting. What is best about the whole thing though is the long-term influence it has in the community and in the city. For worker-run co-operatives to be a “normal” part of life is good, but for worker-run co-operatives that are based on principles of balancing the work and dedication to running in an non-hierarchical way, has a very civilizing influence.
It shows beyond a doubt that this is not some utopian thing that can’t really be done, it’s just an option for running a workplace. It’s not run by superhumans, hopelessly naive fools, or cult followers, just people who are committed to trying to live and work consistently with what they believe.
There were also some interviews, one on the fabulous community radio station