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Marinaleda experiment (Spain)

Divisive Cotton

Divisive Cotton

Now I just have my toy soldiers
This is inspiring - I've never heard about it before

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/15/spanish-robin-hood-sanchez-gordillo

In the heart of it all, like Asterix's village in Gaul implausibly holding out against the Romans, is Sánchez Gordillo's town, the self-described communist utopia of Marinaleda. With a population of 2,600, the town has virtually full employment, communally owned land and wage equality. Over the past three decades, the townspeople have built 350 family homes with their own hands. Residents pay a "mortgage" of just ¤15 a month towards their homes, but have no opportunity to profit from selling them on.
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So what are their main industries? How does this village function? Is it completely self-sufficient, or does it produce and sell into the wider capitalist economy? In short, will it be slowly corrupted like Mondragon?
 
fogbat said:
You've already booked a ferry ticket, haven't you? :hmm:
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No, I need to finish my degree first and I'd probably want to do some outside contracts still occasionally* - OTOH the Mr would be more than happy left to his own devices bimbling about fixing stuff and gardening, so long as he was allowed his plants and somewhere to put some dirt trails and access to a small engineering workshop to build bike parts, engine parts, etc.

Can't possibly be fewer mod cons than a truck in a field. :D

*I have a feeling the sort of skills I'm planning on gaining and keeping may come in very useful at some point. *ahem* ;)
 
ItWillNeverWork said:
So what are their main industries? How does this village function? Is it completely self-sufficient, or does it produce and sell into the wider capitalist economy? In short, will it be slowly corrupted like Mondragon?
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Marinaleda is agricultural. Main crops: broad beans, artichokes, peppers and olives to produce oil.

Apparently, the place is run with a lot of popular participation through assemblies. There is no plod and everyone gets the same wage.

Of course it sells its produce. How on earth could it be self-sufficient? It's a little place with a population of about 2,700.

In what way has Mondragón been corrupted? Unlike this village in Sevilla, the Mondragón co-operative is (for good or ill) not linked to any version of Communism, as far as I know. It seems to me to be extraordinarily successful. (I suppose there could be one thing the two places have in common: strong national identities. Mondragón, I'm told, thrives on a strong sense of Basqueness and the strongest local party is Bildu, the radical Basque nationalists. This little place in Sevilla is led by a group within the United Left who, as well as being Communists, are Andalusian nationalists.)
 
Alongside this model is the model of international traveller communities that have sprung up around Orgiva (also in Andalucia). Places like El Morreon, Los Cigarrones and Beneficio (where the Dragon Festival used to be held) have been in existence since the mid 80s and have become proper communities of families and children. They don't have their own mayors but, to all intents and purposes, they exist as outlaw communities, policing, entertaining and educating themselves.
 
JHE said:
In what way has Mondragón been corrupted?
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In regards to Mondragon being 'corrupted', I suppose it was a bit of an over-the-top word to use, and I'm only really going off what I have read in a book by Sharryn Kasmir who lived there for a while, and criticises it for having recreated the same old class distinctions between managers and workers within it's organisation.

Kasmir conducted poll of workers at Mayc, a private company in Mondragon, and at Fagor Clima, a co-op of comparable size that turned out similar products.

In answer to the question “In your job, do you feel that you are working as if the firm is yours?”, manual workers at Mayc replied 75 percent in the negative as opposed to 78 percent at Fagor. When asked whether they felt “part of the firm”, 33 percent of the Mayc manual workers said no but Fagor workers were even more alienated. Fully half said they did not. Meanwhile, those in more skilled or management positions tended to be happier in both places.
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Mondragon has adapted to a “leaner and meaner” corporate culture that became the norm internationally under what has become known as neo-liberalism. In 1993, the Guardian reported that Mondragon, the “darling of Western universities’ sociology departments in the 1970s, has been radically restructured in preparation for the European Single Market.”

It stated that “increased salary differentials, advertising campaigns in Fortune and co-operate alliances with companies like Hotpoint have had many co-op workers wondering whether in the new Mondragon Cooperative Corporation some members are more equal than others.”
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The October 23, 2001 Guardian reported:

Under Mr Cancelo’s guidance the MCC [Mondragon Cooperative Corporation] members have learned to think like the shareholders of any other global business. In order to protect their own jobs from fluctuations in demand, 20% of the workforce are on part-time or short-term contracts and can easily be shed. Like all the co-op’s foreign employees and most Spanish workers outside the Basque country, the 148 staff at Maier UK – a Lichfield car parts company that MCC bought earlier this year – are not co-op members.
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http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2009/12/06/the-myth-of-mondragon/
 
ItWillNeverWork said:
In regards to Mondragon being 'corrupted', I suppose it was a bit of an over-the-top word to use, and I'm only really going off what I have read in a book by Sharryn Kasmir who lived there for a while, and criticises it for having recreated the same old class distinctions between managers and workers within it's organisation.
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They certainly have managers. I think the difference is that the co-op members (workers) decide who to appoint as manager and can get rid of him/her.

Personally, if I worked for a co-op (other than a very small one) or for a workplace in some imaginary socialist future, that's what I'd want too. I don't expect to get rid of the management function - there has to be co-ordination, planning etc - and I don't think it would be wise to try to get rid of people whose main job is to be managers. I don't want to spend hours every day in meeting trying to make decisions that would be better made by managers. Instead, I want good managers, who listen and think before they decide, who know their stuff and deal with people well and, of course, I want them to be accountable. I don't mind being told what to do, as long as it's not by a bully, a fool or an incompetent.

I don't know how great the pay differentials are at Mondragón, but I'm not against all pay differentials. (It is interesting, though, and impressive that they manage to do without them in this unusual little village in Seville.)
 
JHE said:
They certainly have managers. I think the difference is that the co-op members (workers) decide who to appoint as manager and can get rid of him/her.

Personally, if I worked for a co-op (other than a very small one) or for a workplace in some imaginary socialist future, that's what I'd want too. I don't expect to get rid of the management function - there has to be co-ordination, planning etc - and I don't think it would be wise to try to get rid of people whose main job is to be managers. I don't want to spend hours every day in meeting trying to make decisions that would be better made by managers. Instead, I want good managers, who listen and think before they decide, who know their stuff and deal with people well and, of course, I want them to be accountable. I don't mind being told what to do, as long as it's not by a bully, a fool or an incompetent.

I don't know how great the pay differentials are at Mondragón, but I'm not against all pay differentials. (It is interesting, though, and impressive that they manage to do without them in this unusual little village in Seville.)
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The issue isn't with there being managers, it's that non-managers tend not to feel as if they are a part of the co-op. This is especially the case for people brought in as temp/contract workers. It's like how John Lewis bring in contract cleaners on poor pay, yet go on about how cuddly and fantastic a company they are because some other part of the workforce are technically 'owners'.

This isn't to dismiss Mondragon completely, it's just that I see a tendency for market pressures to erode away the good bits, leaving behind just another capitalist firm. Still, having said that I'd rather work at Mondragon than Foxconn.
 
ItWillNeverWork said:
The issue isn't with there being managers, it's that non-managers tend not to feel as if they are a part of the co-op. This is especially the case for people brought in as temp/contract workers. It's like how John Lewis bring in contract cleaners on poor pay, yet go on about how cuddly and fantastic a company they are because some other part of the workforce are technically 'owners'.

This isn't to dismiss Mondragon completely, it's just that I see a tendency for market pressures to erode away the good bits, leaving behind just another capitalist firm. Still, having said that I'd rather work at Mondragon than Foxconn.
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Sure, there are going to be pressures to adopt whatever policies work in a commercial environment, including all the nasty stuff to cut costs and have 'flexibility', which I guess is what happened at John Lewis.
 
Sirena said:
Alongside this model is the model of international traveller communities that have sprung up around Orgiva (also in Andalucia). Places like El Morreon, Los Cigarrones and Beneficio (where the Dragon Festival used to be held) have been in existence since the mid 80s and have become proper communities of families and children. They don't have their own mayors but, to all intents and purposes, they exist as outlaw communities, policing, entertaining and educating themselves.
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Not sure that the romantic description of outlaw communities applies a bunch of hippies tbh. Policing what ?
 
Spanky Longhorn said:
Como?
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'Compañero'/'compañera'/'compañer@' is used a lot more than 'camarada', but then 'compañero' is just a widely used word in Spanish.

'Camarada' may be used by the hard right (I don't know, but I expect you are right) and in military contexts (as the English word 'comrade' still is, as far as I know), but it is certainly also used by Communists.
 
JHE said:
'Compañero'/'compañera'/'compañer@' is used a lot more than 'camarada', but then 'compañero' is just a widely used word in Spanish.

'Camarada' may be used by the hard right (I don't know, but I expect you are right) and in military contexts (as the English word 'comrade' still is, as far as I know), but it is certainly also used by Communists.
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Fair enough, not only is my Spanish poor it's el languaje de las calle en Argentina
 
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