Half Past Capitalism Dru Jay

There's a lot to learn from Sweden's Meidner Plan, which would have phased in worker ownership over 30 years. As a followup to our episode with Joe Guinan, Dru Oja Jay spoke to Shannon Ikebe about some of the new archival materials about the Meidner plan, and insights it contains for current efforts to plan beyond capitalism.

Read Shannon's dissertation on Sweden's wage earner funds here: https://escholarship.org/content/qt4sk7w0r0/qt4sk7w0r0.pdf

Yuill Herbert, a co-founder and long-time worker member at Sustainability Solutions Group, joins us to talk about life in an expanding co-op, and the 100-acre land trust he also helped start.



Sustainability Solutions Group: https://www.ssg.coop/

Podcast links: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/halfpastcapitalism

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/halfpastcapitalism

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/druojajay

Esteban Kelly, Executive Director of the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives, joins Dru Oja Jay to discuss the state of the worker cooperative movement, the ecological approach to organizing, the evolution of equity discourse and its neglected revolutionary origins, and more.

The USFCW: https://www.usworker.coop/en/

Unlikely Advocates: Worker Co-ops, Grassroots Organizing, and Public Policy: https://nonprofitquarterly.org/unlike...

The Meidner Plan was a transformative plan proposed by Swedish trade unions in the mid-1970s to gradually transfer ownership of mid-sized and large businesses to their workers, and subsequently to workers at large.



Dru Jay is joined by Joe Guinan, the President at The Democracy Collaborative and co-author of The Case for Community Wealth Building and of People Get Ready! Preparing for a Corbyn Government.



They discuss some of the historical context and some of the plans shortcomings.



For more about the Meidner plan, read articles in The Peoples Policy Project, Jacobin, and The Socialist Register.

-- Recorded July 2023 --

Amrita Wassan is the Senior Director Programs at Center for Economic Democracy (CED), and they are an educator, organizer and solidarity economy practitioner. Francisco Perez is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Utah and he’s director of the Center for Popular Economics. They are both part of the team that teaches Economics for Emancipation, which is “A Course on Capitalism, Solidarity and How We Get Free”.

Find out more at https://economics4emancipation.net/

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Find out more about the Solidarity Economy Incubator for Zero Emissions (SEIZE) at solidarityeconomy.ca

Matt Christman from Chapo Trap House, the Cush Vlog, and Hell on Earth joins Dru Jay to discuss the tyranny of the self, fear of death and horizons of post-capitalism.

Check out Matt's vlogs here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl5ddgvszig&list=PLhxUDrMFUqyMQSozC1ES-Q4BkT8MJbY_1