I am convinced that any feeling of exaltation because we have people under us should be conquered, for I am sure that if we enjoy being over people, there will be something in our manner which will make them dislike being under us.

The manager cannot share his(/her) power with division superintendent or foreman or workman, but he(she) can give them opportunities for developing their power.

Unity, not uniformity, must be our aim. We attain unity only through variety. Differences must be integrated, not annihilated, not absorbed.

This article was first written for "Owners at Work", v. 20, no. 2 (Winter 2008/09).

Dateline: December 2, 2008. National Bureau of Economic Research announces that US in recession since December 2007.

Another recession in Ohio? We are still in the last one! Between January 1, 2000, and November 30, 2007, Ohio lost 255,200 manufacturing jobs -- 25% of our manufacturing base. Total Ohio employment dropped 154,700 or 2.8%. Since the "new" recession began on December 1, 2007 through October 2008, we’ve lost an additional 23,800 manufacturing jobs and 41,700 jobs over all.

Readers: In the task of increasing economic literacy in its many variations the transformation of what is understood by the word "economics" and the assumptions that many people have whiche cause them to substitute a low toned version of economistic nonsense for the high toned economistic toxic sewage there is a common pattern. It is one reason for the chaotic nature of the Tea-bagger's faux revolt, looking for simple answers and someone else to blame for it all. It also produces the reflexive sorts of Marxism which have a lot of dogma but little sense of application or constructive process.

Readers: This is an interesting piece of news. Hopefully, this will accomplish more that the much vaunted Apollo Project which has been in existence for several years now, and hasn't produced much more than a website and a lot of fanfare. This is quite a test for Mondragon as well.

   In the history of ideas in the U.S. within the social sciences, civic affairs, industrial psychology, management theory, social work, and related beach front property there was a span of time from about 1886 to 1928, when the major principles and practices took a turn toward conformity, rather than sustaining an open discourse. The majority of this shift is connected to investments by corporate interests to advance its own interests as political favors for pay and under the pretense of generosity, otherwise known as philanthropy.

  Often “mangement” in cooperatives has been a liability relative to the ability of a business to produce wealth on a sustainable basis and relative to its effect on its community. Even so, these difficulties do not really distinguish the management of cooperatives from management perpetrated elsewhere. Personalizing the faults of prior management after the fact does not address why management with in name only prior experience was accepted at the time and doesn't do anything toward changing the concept of management within cooperatives.

If establishing cooperatives was as simple as posting the Rochdale Principles and applying them as a recipe, then building successful cooperatives would be easy. What made the Rochdale Pioneer Cooperative model noteable both in its time and now, is that it sustained itself financially and culturally for more than a few years. The history of cooperatives is littered with the wreckage of cooperatives that failed as sustainable businesses or as cooperative cultures, or both.