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For Coöperation and the Abolition of Capital, Or, How to Get Beyond Our Extractive Punitive Society and Achieve a Just Society

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For Coöperation and the Abolition of Capital, Or, How to Get Beyond Our Extractive Punitive Society and Achieve a Just Society Columbia Law School Scholarship Archive Faculty Scholarship Faculty Publications 2020 For Coöperation and the Abolition of Capital, Or, How to Get Beyond Our Extractive Punitive Society and Achieve a Just Society Bernard E. Harcourt Columbia Law School, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship Part of the Banking and Finance Law Commons, Bankruptcy Law Commons, Business Organizations Law Commons, Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons, Environmental Law Commons, Law and Economics Commons, Law and Politics Commons, Public Law and Legal Theory Commons, and the Securities Law Commons Recommended Citation Bernard E. Harcourt, For Coöperation and the Abolition of Capital, Or, How to Get Beyond Our Extractive Punitive Society and Achieve a Just Society, COLUMBIA PUBLIC LAW RESEARCH PAPER NO. 14-672 (2020). Available at: https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/2708 This Working Paper is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Publications at Scholarship Archive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of Scholarship Archive. For more information, please contact [email protected]. For Coöperation and the Abolition of Capital Or, How to Get Beyond Our Extractive Punitive Society and Achieve a Just Society Bernard E. Harcourt September 1, 2020 New York, New York Version 1.0 Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3702010 © Bernard E. Harcourt – All Rights Reserved. 2 Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3702010 Table of Contents NOTE TO READER ................................................................................................................................ 5 INTRODUCTION: FOR COÖPERATION ................................................................................................... 6 CHAPTER 1. COÖPERATION TODAY .................................................................................................... 15 MUTUAL INSURANCE | STATE FARM ................................................................................................................. 16 CREDIT UNIONS | CRÉDIT AGRICOLE, FRANCE .................................................................................................... 18 PRODUCER COÖPERATIVES | LAND O’LAKES ...................................................................................................... 20 CONSUMER COÖPERATIVES | R.E.I. ................................................................................................................. 20 WORKER COÖPERATIVES | ISTHMUS ENGINEERING ............................................................................................. 22 RETAILER OR PURCHASER COÖPERATIVES | ACE HARDWARE ................................................................................. 26 THE RESILIENCE OF COÖPERATION .................................................................................................................... 27 CHAPTER 2. BEYOND CAPITALISM AND COMMUNISM ........................................................................ 30 THE MISLEADING LABEL “CAPITALISM” ............................................................................................................. 31 The provenance of a misleading term ................................................................................................ 31 THE REALITY OF TOURNAMENT DIRIGISME ......................................................................................................... 34 The Airline Bailouts ............................................................................................................................. 36 Hidden Jackpots in the CARES Act ...................................................................................................... 39 THE PROBLEM WITH “COMMUNISM” ............................................................................................................... 44 GETTING BEYOND THE COLD WAR ................................................................................................................... 49 CHAPTER 3. REIMAGINING COÖPERATION ......................................................................................... 51 THE MYRIAD DIMENSIONS OF PROPRIETARY INTERESTS ........................................................................................ 53 ALLOCATING THE PROPRIETARY INTERESTS ......................................................................................................... 55 THE SIMPLICITY OF COÖPERATION .................................................................................................................... 56 ADDRESSING GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE ............................................................................................................ 60 CHAPTER 4. ABOLISHING CAPITAL...................................................................................................... 61 THE CORPORATE FINANCE OF COÖPERATION ...................................................................................................... 61 The privately held company................................................................................................................ 61 The publicly traded corporation ......................................................................................................... 62 Coöperative enterprises ...................................................................................................................... 64 All the Difference ................................................................................................................................ 65 Redesigning the corporate landscape for coöperation ...................................................................... 66 FENDING OFF THE SKEPTICS ............................................................................................................................ 68 The Higher Return on Capital ............................................................................................................. 69 The Response ...................................................................................................................................... 73 HUMAN GREED ............................................................................................................................................ 76 CHAPTER 5. THE LONG HISTORY OF COÖPERATIONISM ...................................................................... 78 PETER KROPOTKIN’S 1902 BOOK, MUTUAL AID: A FACTOR OF EVOLUTION ............................................................. 78 A RECENT REVIVAL OF INTEREST ...................................................................................................................... 80 CLEARING SOME GROUND | OWEN, FOURIER, PROUDHON .................................................................................. 81 REIMAGINING COÖPERATION .......................................................................................................................... 86 3 Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3702010 Mutual Aid .......................................................................................................................................... 86 The American Coöperative Movement ............................................................................................... 88 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................................... 92 POSTSCRIPT: ABOLITION DEMOCRACY 13/13 ..................................................................................... 95 BIBLIOGRAPHY.................................................................................................................................. 98 NOTES ............................................................................................................................................ 115 4 Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3702010 Note to Reader This is the first draft of a book manuscript. As such, it is not a final book, but rather a work-in-progress. Because it addresses pressing issues, I have decided to share this first draft with readers. I am eager to receive your comments and feedback. I apologize for typographical errors, stylistic infelicities, and substantive errors—all mine. Please send me your thoughts and comments, preferably by way of comments on the Open Review website that hosts this first draft (http://harcourt.cooperation.law.columbia.edu) or by email to [email protected]. I thank you in advance, Bernard E. Harcourt. *** Special thanks to Mia Ruyter for critical conversations over the past six months. Special thanks as well for exceptional support and assistance to Fonda Shen for editorial, research, and bibliographic work; to Alexis Marin for research in nineteenth-century political theory; to Tanveer Singh for research on contemporary coöperatives, credit unions, and mutuals; and to Julia Udell for research on the 2020 bailouts. All errors are entirely mine. © Bernard E. Harcourt 2020 – All Rights Reserved Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought Columbia University, New York City 5 Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3702010 Introduction: For Coöperation In response to an infamous provocation: “What is property?”, Pierre-Joseph 1 Proudhon famously answered in 1840: “Property is theft!”
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