The Solidarity Economy must become more political to achieve its goals
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The association of organizations K.AL.O Attica "Coordination" invited Kali Akuno from Cooperation Jackson to speaker at two events in Athens, Greece. The first event was Monday, July 1st in the garden of the Immigrants' Shelter, Tsamadou 15, Athens entitled " From self-management of work in the self-organization of life”. The second public event was Sunday, July 7th at the 25th Anti-Racist Festival of Athens, entitled " Why self-management? Experiences of solidarity economy from our own nearby America .'
The reason for this invitation is obvious: Cooperation Jackson, in which Kali participates, is a powerful example of connecting the Solidarity Economy with social movements, in a region plagued by the consequences of both capitalist management and systemic racism.
In the interview that follows and which he gave to Syntonismus, he talks about everything: the rise of the extreme right, the Social Solidarity Economy as a weapon for workers and marginalized social strata, but also the immediate need for its deeper politicization.
General Framework questions:
This is an election year, and specially for the USA and EU, there is a tendency towards the rise of far-right or authoritarian parties. Do you think that the “western” democracies are being stressed and challenged?
First things first, I think we need to challenge the notion that the political forms that exist in the USA and the EU are democracies. What they are are instruments of mediation between property owners, workers, farmers, ethnic and religious groups, and various types of minorities, that are constantly engaged in struggle for power, positioning, social and economic benefits under the facade of a rules based order, designed primarily to protect property rights. We need to recognize that nation-states and instruments of capitalist mediation are subject to major shifts and changes to meet the needs of capital. And capitalism, and capital itself, is in the midst of a profound transformation, one that is creating profound instability the world over. What the USA and the nation-states of the EU are experiencing are the social ripples of this transition as the dictates of capital shred the post-WWII social contracts to pieces. Right now, with the traditional parties and institutions of the left being all but incapacitated since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the far right is providing a limited set of promises to the dominant social groups in the respective nation-states they are in to return them to higher standards of living and former glories. Right now, without a coherent program and narrative, they are going to continue to win the battle of positioning and continue to facilitate the nation-states transition into its fascist form of governance.
What are the main stakes of the American elections and what would a possible re-election of Trump mean in terms of the democratic foundations of modern American society? How do you think a possible Trump re-election will affect Cooperation Jackson's strategy?
It should be understood that Trump is merely a figurehead of a growing and advancing right-wing social movement in the USA, one we describe as a neo-confederate or neo-fascist movement. Trump didn’t create this movement, it has deep social roots in the settler-colonial foundations of the USA. It is also critical to understand that Trump is not the only critical figure in this movement, not by far. It is deeply supported, well funded, and determined. Trump and the social movement that he represents learned from their experiences in power three years ago. When they get back in power, and I firmly believe they will, they will transform the US government. The limited bourgeois experiment that has existed and shifted in the USA since the civil war, will fundamentally end when the neo-confederate forces have control over the Executive and Judicial branches of government, and likely the Senate as well. But, even if they don’t control the Senate, these forces are going to likely limit the voting franchise, eliminate democratic rights for racial minorities and women, end all of the regulatory agencies that protect the environment, water quality, food quality and production, health care, and much much more. We at Cooperation Jackson anticipate that a civil war is coming on account of the advance of this far-right social movement and what it is aiming to unleash to attain its objectives. Trump’s reelection will hasten this and we are doing everything we can to get ready for it materially and politically.
Ten years after the emergence of Βlack Lives Matter social movement, what has changed on a social and/or institutional level?
On a social level, much has changed in the US since the emergence not only of the Movement for Black Lives, but also the Occupy Movement and the social democratic movement that emerged in the Wake of Bernie Sanders Presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2020. The left leaning social forces in the US are finding their voice, but unfortunately these mass movements haven’t led to the development of mass organizations and organized political forces. So, they haven’t led to many institutional changes, only a few cosmetic social concessions here and there. The question remains, in the face of the advance of the reactionary social movements at play, will the forces of the social movement left be able to contain the ascent of the far right without structured political institutions. I doubt it. But, time will surely tell in the coming few months.
Cooperation Jackson and Solidarity Economy Questions
Kali, can you briefly explain to us the social framework in which Cooperation Jackson emerged? What its mission is and what its short-term objectives are?
It is hard to answer this question briefly. But, I’ll give it a try. Suffice it to say, we emerged to confront the ongoing subjugation of Black or New Afrikan people in the USA. We focused on Mississippi because of its strategic positioning and the concentration of New Afrikan people in the state, and the broader Mississippi Delta bio-region, which we call the Kush District. Cooperation Jackson grew out of a social movement called the New Afrikan Independence Movement, which is tendency within the overall Black Liberation Movement. In the 2000’s, one of the organized expressions of this movement, the New Afrikan People’s Organization, which I was a member of, developed a strategic framework called the Jackson-Kush Plan, which laid the foundations for Cooperation Jackson. We were born in 2014 to execute the solidarity economy dimensions of this framework, and our short-term objectives are to build a lively and comprehensive solidarity economy in Jackson that improves the quality of life for the Black working class majority of Jackson, and lays a foundation for the development of a regional and eventual USA empire wide solidarity economy movement that challenges capitalist social relations and gives material support for a transformative eco-socialist political movement.
What is the main driving force of Cooperation Jackson? What are the main projects you implement?
Our driving force is unquestionably our vision, which is best expressed in the Build and Fight chapter of our Jackson Rising book. As for our main projects, it's critical to understand that our foundation is our community land trust. The Fannie Lou Hamer Community Land Trust is an effort to decommodify and decolonize as much land in Jackson, MS as possible. The community land trust affords us the space to start building the solidarity economy we envision, by providing space for housing, for commercial operations, production facilities, and agriculture. All of our cooperative business operations reside on these lands. Following the development of this institution, we focus on advancing food security, building worker owned cooperatives, and regenerative methods of material sourcing, production, distribution, consumption and recycling. The chief vehicle we have to help us advance the movement towards local food sovereignty is Freedom Farms Cooperative. The next step towards this end is opening a community grocery store, the People’s Grocery Cooperative, which is currently under development. Our regenerative oriented cooperatives are Zero Waste of Jackson which is a recycling and composting cooperative. Along with the Green Team which is a landscaping and organic waste management cooperative. We also have an emerging and evolving Community Production Cooperative, which is working to become a small-scale regenerative manufacturing cooperative, that utilizes local material resources to produce goods on as needed basis. We also have a local print and design cooperative, the Eversville Design and Print Shop Cooperative, and a catering cooperative called the Evers Cafe. We are also trying to develop a number of supportive solidarity institutions, to fortify our cooperatives, and improve the quality of life of the people of Jackson. We are currently working on developing a mutual exchange network, wherein community residents can barter and exchange with each other and supportive local businesses, to meet their material needs without the need to exchange or spend hard US currency. The first steps in the development of this institution is the Really, Really Free Market, which we are in the process of transforming into a monthly operation.
Solidarity Economy as a movement within this extractivism capitalism.Opportunities and limits.
Let’s be honest, most solidarity economy operations throughout the world at present serve either as relief institutions or niche economic operations. This is because they are very constrained by the dynamics of capitalism. Not the least of which is access to capital, as a means to secure materials within the framework of capitalist social relations. And also access to material resources that don’t require purchase, which again just supports commodity relations. Now, the deep democratic and self-organizing dimensions of the solidarity economy can be profoundly transformative, and help us create a society of associated producers, of which we have little doubt from our perspective. But, the solidarity economy movement must become more of a political movement to accomplish its goals. This is going to be hard to do, particularly in places like Eastern Europe, wherein anything socially collective is perhaps too reminiscent of the state socialist experiments that were exercised and imposed on many of the states that once comprised the Eastern Bloc and the former Soviet Union. And in Western Europe, the US and many other places in the world, we have to fight the deep anti-communist ideology that permeates the world on account of the success of capitalist propaganda, but also the shortcomings of the various experiments that have called themselves socialist in the third world since WWII. So, we have an uphill battle to define how our bottom up construction of socialism will in fact be different from previous experiences that appropriated the name of socialism. We have a lot of work to do. But, the deep ecological, political and economic crisis we are confronting as a species demands it.
This year you celebrated 10 years, what achievements did you celebrate?
Quite frankly, our biggest achievement is surviving this long. These last 10 years have not been easy. We’ve been beset by political attacks, under resourcing, internal fracturing, and a global pandemic. But, we are still here and we are slowly, but surely learning, adapting, and growing.
Taking into account the polycrisis period we leave in, can cooperativism (or cooperatives in the Solidarity Economy universe) be a vehicle for social transformation?
Let me say unequivocally, yes. We believe that our experience bears this out. In the midst of revanchist and reactionary settler-colonial state like Mississippi, that was buttressed for four years by utterly reactionary government for four years, we have found ways and means to deepen solidarity practices amongst the working class in our community and make some critical strides towards improving our material lives through our self-organization. We take strength that Mondragon grew under the Franco dictatorship in Spain, just like many social movements survived and thrived under adverse conditions during the dictatorship in Greece. We believe that self-organized and self-conscious people will find a way, and that the solidarity economy provides us with many essential tools to not only survive and thrive under adverse conditions, but to create a new society, one not defined by capitalist social relationships and commodity production. Capitalism is a short phase in the history of humanity. And we are here to work on hastening its timely demise by working in concert with each other to produce a democratic world, defined by associated producers sharing the gifts of the earth in right relationship with our mother earth. This is the way.
