surfistahumanista

Hi Gar,

I appreciate your commitment and the lifetime of work you have done working toward the betterment of all. I thought I would ask a couple of difficult questions to stimulate the discussion - and because they are always on my mind when I hear you speak, but I never hear them addressed.

While the Mondragon model seems like it has many things to recommend it, there are troubling aspects as well. While the managerial strata there seem to be quite happy, the workers less so. Maybe this is anecdotal, but I believe I have read some numbers on it. A decent wage and benefits are nothing to sneeze at and in comparison to most american jobs it looks orders better, but many of those workers (not managers) look unhappy and they are still stuck in assembly-line jobs. I would hope to strive for something less alienating and more joyful, creative, etc... I do understand the concept of transitioning through phases, e.g., capitalism with socialism to socialism, but Mondragon has been around for a long time and they seem to have a fairly stratified model that isn't changing. In fact, they are operating in other countries and benefiting from cheap labor. They say they are "working on" changing things...

So, is the problem size and growth? Is it that they are operating within capitalism? Is it that people with lower IQs or less drive are doomed to work on assembly-lines until they are replaced by robots or cheaper labor, a la u.s. hyper-capitalism?

The other question is this: In a capitalist world where neoliberal agendas are ubiquitous and virulent - and directly opposed to socialism - how do we fight and build at the same time?

I fear that the power of capital has never been stronger. For example the TPP or something like it is a direct threat to decentralized non-corporate power, to democracy, to freedom in fact. As I just mentioned, it seems to me, we have to fight and build at the same time; that is, an anti-neoliberal agenda needs to be "baked in" to the process, or we will essentially be rearranging deck chairs on the titanic. I understand that will alienate a lot of business owners who don't even consider themselves political... Well, more questions that are always on my mind...

~Thanks for your time and all you do.