Units of Trust

Stephen,


The "units of trust" scenario thatyou are describing sounds like a community/worker hybrid cooperative, where the community members and the workers of local distribution and production units own EQUITY shares in the various units.

The Mondragon system in the Basque Region of Spain started out similar to such a model and there is a cooperative food store, somewhere in North Carolina, that is set up as a community/worker cooperative.

Let's take a cooperative food store as an example. The difficult part of such an arrangement would be to balance the interests of the community with the interests of the workers. If it was a wealthy community then members might want to donate a premium for each purchase to increase the wealth of the workers. If the workers were wealthy (quite unlikely all up and down the distribution and production channels of food and associated necessities) then a patronage refund and/or dividend would be distributed to the community owners.

No need for banks, but equity unions could be helpful.

For example, in todays' post-supply-side economy, there is a tremendous over-abundance of assets, although many would be of questionable quality and/or utility. In the formula of Equity = Assets - Liabilities, it is very hard to determine where these Corporate Conglomerate Capitalists stand as the Capitalists have the very unethical practice of moving their money as suits their own personal interests and not those of the workers or any aspect of the environment.

To the holders of the over-supply, the lack of effective demand for that over-supply is a liability to the owners of those assets. But what is the equity position of those owners? Only holding Capitalists accountable for the asset over-supply situation that they created will help to transition to a rational distribution of goods.

Only an international equity union can manage such a transition.

In other words, take the money and run must not be allowed!!!!