The Aquarian Agrarian: Party for Mutualism and Cooperation: Proposal for the State of Oregon

Party for Mutualism and Cooperation

(Proposal for the State of Oregon)

A potential political party

(at the municipal, county, state, and federal levels)

to promote cooperation, mutuality, voluntary action,

entrepreneurialism, egalitarian markets,

and transparency in government.

C.O.R.E. and the movement for a cooperativist party would like to partner with and garner the mutual support of all varieties of social service agencies and charities, local government and local business groups, cooperative and mutual banks and other enterprises, labor organizations, and citizens' and consumers' interest groups.

They are especially interested in coordinating with Street Roots (and - outside of Oregon - the North American Street Newspaper Association and the International Network of Street Papers), local Occupy chapters; Food Not Bombs; advocates for Cascadian independence; veterans' and retired persons' groups and communities, homeless people willing to volunteer; and independent and retired accountants, paralegals, public defenders, and public relations agents willing to give legal, financial, and other advice.

GOALS

1. Voluntary Cooperation in Government, the Economy, and Society

2. Mutuality and Independence in Government and Business

3. Local Banking Over National and Foreign Banking

4. Governance, Banking, Business, Labor, Social Services, and Justice

5. Growth of the Third (Voluntary) Sector

6. Alliances in Business, Trade, and Governance

GOALS

1. Voluntary Cooperation in Government, the Economy, and Society

To build a state- and local- level political party in Oregon in order to represent the lower and middle classes; by partnering with and garnering the support of credit unions, mutual banks, and cooperative banks, to invest in the improvement of local and community government, justice and social programs, enterprise and labor, and the self-sustainability of the volunteer sector.

2. Mutuality and Independence in Government and Business

To promote cooperation, mutuality, reciprocity, autonomy, and independence - over dependence and parasitism - in interactions between citizens and government, workers and businesses, and their representatives; and to insist that any good or service which the state deems compulsory upon the citizens to purchase or possess, be provided by the state imposing the requirement.

3. Local Banking over National and Foreign Banking

To reverse the trend of the people losing possession of their homes, properties, and enterprises to national and foreign banks – and their children and loved ones to child protective services and the prison system – by increasing local determination over policies regarding banking and investment in government and enterprise, and child care, parental rights, education, and the rights of the accused.

4. Governance, Banking, Business, Labor, Social Services, and Justice

To improve the provision of goods and services to the people through governmental and personal avenues; especially with regard to local governance, banking and finance, credit and lending, sustainable development and improvement of businesses and properties, independent workers' rights and collective bargaining reform, housing and transportation, mortgage foreclosures and abandoned property, homesteading laws and settlers' laws, adverse possession (or squatting), social welfare and homelessness, child care and education, police transparency, civil liberties, regulation of the legal professions, jury nullification, and awareness of corporate personhood and corporate government.

5. Growth of the Third (Voluntary) Sector

To make viable the independence and self-sustainability of the Third Sector (the sector of voluntarism, cooperation, mutuality / reciprocity, and community), to bring about its separation from the state, and to bring about its secession from the private-public partnership of the establishment economy; through a bipartisan, multipartisan, or non-partisan general strike; and / or through growing a political party infrastructure capable of purchasing landed jurisdictions from existing governments for the purposes of reorganizing the political environment for the development of bio-regionalism.

6. Alliances in Business, Trade, and Governance

To build coalitions between business alliances, and building combination aid-and-trade associations / trade organizations / economic and industrial unions into a cooperating and amicably competing group of non-statist international agencies providing economic and social governance and operating on a diverse array of cooperativist principles of governmental and entrepreneurial planning models.

POLICY AREAS

I. Reform and Development of State, County, and Municipal Government

II. Reform of the Banking Industry and the Financial System

III. Reform of the Housing Industry and the Property Rights System

IV. Reform of Social Welfare: C.O.R.E., Homelessness, Mutual Aid and Charity, Education

V. Reform of the System of Credit to and Development of Business

VI. Reform of the System of Rights of Unionized Laborers and Independent Workers

VII. Reform of the Criminal and Civil Justice Systems, and of the Regulation of the Legal Professions

I. Reform and Development of State, County, and Municipal Government

1. Transparency

2. Local Government

3. Government Investment

4. Local Business Alliance

5. Consumer and Political Advocacy

6. Private Communities

7. Bio-Regionalism

8. Cascadian Independence

II. Reform of the Banking Industry and the Financial System

1. Free and Egalitarian Markets

2. Finance and Market Regulation

3. Investment and Commercial Banking

4. Credit and Interest

5. Banking, Investment, and Credit

6. Banking and Lending

7. Coopetration in Banking

8. Treasury and Monetary Policy

III. Reform of the Housing Industry and the Property Rights System

1. Public Facilities

2. Settling, Homesteading, and Squatting

3. Unoccupied Public and Commercial Properties

4. Unoccupied Transportation Properties

5. Parks and Communal Lands

6. Cooperative Housing

IV. Reform of Social Welfare: C.O.R.E., Homelessness, Mutual Aid and Charity, Education

1. C.O.R.E. Values in Activism

2. Reciprocity in Social Service Provision

3. Access to Public Facilities

4. Aid-and-Trade

5. Aid-for-Work

6. Education and Schools

7. Child Custody and Protection

8. Voluntarism in Social Services

V. Reform of the System of Credit to and Development of Business

1. Local Business Development

2. Social Purpose of Business

3. Independent and Cooperative Business Organization

4. Cooperative and Mutualist Business Investment

5. Coordination Across Stages of Production

6. Cooperative Business Association

VI. Reform of the System of Rights of Unionized Laborers, Independent Workers, and the Unemployed

1. Egalitarian Workplaces

2. Collective Bargaining

3. Unemployment and Non-Collective Labor

4. Third Sector General Strike

VII. Reform of the Civil and Criminal Justice Systems, and of the Regulation of the Legal Professions

1. Tort Reform and Class Action

2. Non-Violent Crime

3. Police State

4. Rights of the Accused and of Juries

5. Regulation of the Legal Professions

POLICIES

I. Reform and Development of State, County, and Municipal Government

1. Transparency

Increase voluntarism and transparency in interactions between citizens and agencies of government.

2. Local Government

Increase communal autonomy, the self-determination of localities, subsidiarity, municipal home rule, and multiple-federalism.

3. Government Investment

Promote sustainable, egalitarian, and transparent investment in - and improvement to development of - state, county, and municipal governments; through fostering an environment conducive to cooperation between credit unions, mutual banks, cooperative banks, multi- stakeholder community development cooperatives, and non-profit community organizations (in the vein of the Free Detroit Project).

4. Local Business Alliance

Promote cooperation between sympathetic local businesses and alliances / associations / partnerships thereof, local chambers of commerce, and locavore groups and other domestic production advocacy groups.

5. Consumer and Political Advocacy

Promote cooperation between sympathetic citizens' and consumers' interest and advocacy groups, political action committees, legislative caucuses, and political parties in state and local government.

6. Private Communities

Allow community experimentation with the Georgist single-tax (Land-Value-Tax) model of private community organization.

7. Bio-Regionalism

Promote cooperation and understanding between the governmental establishment, Cascadian independence groups, and other groups and individuals promoting bio-regionalism.

8. Cascadian Independence

Build coalitions in order to grow the movement's political economy; so that the states of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho are permitted to constitutionally and independently secede from the government of the United States, and that the province of British Columbia is permitted to constitutionally secede from Canada; so that neighboring landed jurisdictions within the Cascadia watershed may be sold to other states or provinces, or to the national governments, in order to settle the borders of Cascadia through constitutional, legal, diplomatic, peaceful means oriented towards friendly trade.

II. Reform of the Banking Industry and the Financial System

1. Free and Egalitarian Markets

Promote the freeing of the markets, and move towards the perfection and completeness of markets and of competition; promote fair and amicable competition and diversity in markets for the provision of goods and services; and promote equal access to the factors of production as a condition for legitimate participation in markets for individuals, firms, and communities alike.

2. Finance and Market Regulation

Promote just policies in finance and market regulation; through de-incentivizing and punishing the imposition of high transaction costs that cannot be justified by the need to provide for the costs of administration (including unreasonable bank fees), deceptive and fraudulent profit- calculation practices, intrinsic and systemic risk of externalization such as social-cost and free-rider problems, high leverage (i.e., high ratios of speculative assets to tangible assets), collateralization of debt obligations, pernicious lending, and insider trading and manipulative speculative behavior in short selling.

3. Investment and Commercial Banking

Promote the separation of investment banking from community commercial banking by implementing Glass-Steagall-type legislation at state and local levels of government, and the restoration of Glass-Steagall-type legislation at the federal level.

4. Credit and Interest

Procure for the people easy credit and low interest rates; not low because they are set artificially

low by cartels of pernicious lenders, but low because markets would naturally favor modest

growth rates, egalitarian investment and liability, and low transaction costs.

5. Banking, Investment, and Credit

Promote cooperation between sympathetic non-profit and not-for-profit banks, savings banks and savings-and-loans, labor banks, resource banks, partnerships, trusts and trust funds, corporate credit unions, Accumulating (ASCAs) and Rotating (ROSCAs) Savings and Credit Associations, multi-stakeholder co-operatives, limited-liability companies, non-capital stock corporations, investment and investment services agencies, registered investment companies, holding companies, insurance and insurance services agencies, credit and credit counseling services agencies

6. Banking and Lending

Promote fair and egalitarian banking and investment by preventing the revocation of the federal tax exemption for credit unions, and by promoting adequate taxation of – or the giving of adequate social dividends from the profits of – pernicious lenders in the private and public sectors not operating on mutual and cooperative banking models.

7. Cooperation in Banking

Build and promote cooperation between sympathetic credit-union leagues and cooperative interbank networks.

8. Treasury and Monetary Policy

Promote just treasury and monetary policy by opposing usury and fractional reserve banking; by allowing states [as North Dakota is doing] to establish state banks (especially if they are non- profit or not-for-profit; or operate on mutual or cooperative principles); and by allowing communities, social groups, enterprises, and alliances thereof to experiment with alternative currency by issuing their own labor- and resource- backed currencies (for example, in the manner of Mountain Hours of Summit County, Colorado).

III. Reform of the Housing Industry and the Property Rights System

1. Public Facilities

Augment the rights of the homeless to access public and common utilities and services, augment the rights of evicted tenants and victims of mortgage foreclosures to seek compensation from landlords, and increase penalties for fraud and gambling by landlords.

2. Settling, Homesteading, and Squatting

Reform laws related to the rights of settlers, homesteading, and squatting; including by amending the state's requirement of ten years of exclusive occupancy for adverse possession.

3. Unoccupied Public and Commercial Properties

Support sustainable improvements to the development of abandoned and unoccupied public and

private properties; such as residencies and commercial offices; schools and hospitals; and unincorporated, undeveloped, underdeveloped, blighted, and low- property-value properties and areas.

4. Unoccupied Transportation Properties

Support sustainable improvements to the development of abandoned and unoccupied transportation infrastructure properties; such as parking garages, highways, bridges, train system properties, airports, and other lands managed by the Oregon Department of Transportation; in addition to seasteads and mobile floating occupations and residencies, and subway systems (in future Portland, or in large cities in other states as the movement develops and spreads).

5. Parks and Communal Lands

Permit housing on - and support sustainable improvements to the development of - communal farming lands; community public parks; state forests, camping grounds, and other lands; and national forests, camping grounds, and other lands in the state (besides parks and wildlife preserves).

6. Cooperative Housing

Supplement deficiencies and deficits in the provision of shelter to the people; through promoting cooperation between sympathetic building and housing cooperatives and utility cooperatives, through providing volunteer-based temporary shelter at agencies offering aid-for-work, and through restoring use of and developing abandoned housing facilities and habitable areas.

IV. Reform of Social Welfare: C.O.R.E., Homelessness, Mutual Aid and Charity, Education

1. C.O.R.E. Values in Activism

Improve the image of the disadvantaged by promoting activism which respects C.O.R.E. Values (Clean, Organized, Respectful, and Energetic), promoting understanding and respect between

the homeless and disadvantaged, and residents, tourists, police, and providers of social welfare services.

2. Reciprocity in Social Service Provision

Insist that any good or service which the state deems compulsory upon the citizen to purchase or possess as a condition of exercising basic freedoms and rights – be it identification and travel documents, legal paperwork and legal representation, health insurance, justice and security, or access to public facilities and social programs – be provided by the state imposing the requirement.

3. Access to Public Facilities

Improve access to and information of common and public facilities in public areas - for the public in general and for the disadvantaged and homeless in particular - by promoting cooperation between sympathetic churches and rescue missions, food pantries and activist feeding groups, other charities and non-profits, mental health and addiction clinics, hospitals, and homeless- positive businesses and individuals; and by distributing maps showing locations of public facilities, such as the aforementioned establishments, as well as drinking fountains, electric outlets, shelters, and restrooms.

4. Aid-and-Trade

Improve the coordination and efficiency of the delivery of personal social welfare by building a mutual aid society into an aid-and-trade association; through promoting cooperation between sympathetic charity organizations, mutual support and mutual aid networks, mutual organizations, mutual and friendly societies, fraternal organizations, building societies, benefit and benevolent societies, burial societies, non-profit and not-for-profit non-stock corporations, non-commercial organizations.

5. Aid-for-Work

Build aid-for-work agencies, and associations thereof, for disadvantaged persons wishing to volunteer and access employment services – including immediate care (for spouses, children, and pets) and education for children – by coordinating with state and local public service agencies (including parks and recreation departments, and animal food and care services such as Pongo and Paws), veterans' administrations and groups, adults' and seniors' groups (clubs, lodges, fraternal organizations, etc.), retired person's organizations, retirement homes and retirement communities.

6. Education and Schools

Supplement deficiencies and deficits in the provision of education to the youth of the public;

through providing volunteer-based education at agencies offering aid-for-work, through coordinating with cooperative educational institutes, and through restoring use of and developing abandoned school facilities.

7. Child Custody and Protection

Fight for the unity of families and the proliferation of the human species, by combating and reversing the alienation of the proletariat from its biological product (i.e., the next generation); through pursuing parental rights' reforms, including through liberalizing laws allowing and / or mandating the taking of child custody by child protective services for parents failing to meet arbitrary and unreasonable societal standards of adequate and appropriate provision of food, medicine, shelter, housing utilities, and various forms of insurance - as well as for failing to pay off debts and to obey laws against non-violent activities - and through raising awareness of corporate government, corporate citizenship, corporate personhood, Strawman Theory and Capitis Deminutio.

8. Voluntarism in Social Services

Promote the independence, mutualization, and syndicalization of social service bureaucracies, by

diminishing the need for compulsory taxation to fund the administration of the pertinent programs, through promoting volunteering and voluntary giving as solutions to deficiencies and deficits in both public and private social service provision.

V. Reform of the System of Credit to and Development of Business

1. Local Business Development

Promote sustainable improvements to the development of occupied and unoccupied business offices and logistics properties and private-sector landed property, through finance and planning of business and commercial banking at the state and local levels.

2. Social Purpose of Business

Improve the social benefit of trade and commerce by coordinating the activity of sympathetic fair- trade businesses, social-purpose businesses and ventures, social enterprise agencies, profit- and surplus- sharing agencies, benefit corporations, social economy organizations, and enterprises supporting the payment of social dividends.

3. Independent and Cooperative Business Organization

Accede to the re-framing of government as a business in popular political culture; by embracing business-oriented solutions to social problems; through promoting the uplifting of the lower and middle classes through entrepreneurialism and cooperative business organization; by encouraging divestiture of enterprises from non-sympathetic established business alliances and state and local chambers of commerce; by raising awareness about corporate government, citizenship, and personhood; and by coordinating investment and aid between sympathetic Third Sector enterprises.

4. Cooperative and Mutualist Business Investment

Build community business alliances on cooperative and mutualist principles, by choosing cooperative enterprises and mutualist enterprises as members, and promote mutual aid and investment between such enterprises and associations.

5. Coordination Across Stages of Production

Coordinate cooperation between sympathetic enterprises in the various stages and sectors of trade, through partnership with:

a. Producers' and Manufacturers' Groups

(including producers' cooperatives, artists' cooperatives and artisans' guilds, farmers' and agricultural cooperatives, industrial trade and craft unions and guilds, and industrial societies);

b. Retailers' and Trade Groups

(including retailers' cooperatives, cooperative retail and commercial banking institutions, industry trade groups, employers' associations, and cooperative grocery and drug stores);

and

c. Consumers' and Customers' Groups

(including consumers' rights and consumer advocacy agencies, state consumer action networks, customers' and consumers' cooperatives, purchasing cooperatives, and consumer-driven health care cooperatives).

6. Cooperative Business Association

Build business alliances into coalitions thereof, confederations of cooperatives, cooperative wholesale societies, trade associations, and trade confederations; and promote coordination with cooperative corporations (such as those operating on Mondragon and similar models) and the National Cooperative Business Association.

VI. Reform of the System of Rights of Unionized Laborers, Independent Workers, and the Unemployed

1. Egalitarian Workplaces

Promote the proliferation of egalitarian management by labor in enterprise, and the operation of workplaces on cooperativist, mutualist, syndicalist, guild-unionist, and entrepreneurialist principles.

2. Collective Bargaining

Incentivize and encourage the spread of collective bargaining agreements which support the rights

of individual workers; such as members-only collective bargaining, dual-unionism, minority unionism, and other agreements which minimize the risk of free-rider problems in worker representation.

3. Unemployment and Non-Collective Labor

Augment and broaden the provision of workers' and bargaining rights through the creation of homeless persons' and welfare recipients' unions, and through coordinating cooperation between sympathetic unemployed person's unions, freelancers' unions, and groups promoting New Mutualism.

4. Third Sector General Strike

Wage a bipartisan, multipartisan, or non-partisan general strike in order to promote the end of exploitation, to raise awareness of the movement's coalition-building, and to bring about the secession of the Third Sector from the establishment economy (the private-public partnership).

VII. Reform of the Civil and Criminal Justice Systems, and of the Regulation of the Legal Professions

1. Tort Reform and Class Action

Oppose tort reforms which inhibit the rights of juries to award compensation to victims; and take steps to make viable large-scale class-action lawsuits against the beneficiaries of improper government largess, and of corruption in government and business.

2. Non-Violent Crime

Promote the abolition of mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines for non-violent crimes at the state level; repeal and/or liberalize vice laws against alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and illicit drugs with medicinal uses; and lower and/or remove obstacles to non-violent felons' rights and abilities to find employment, purchase health insurance, travel outside the United States, and vote.

3. Police State

Combat and prevent the spread of tyranny, arbitrary coercion, and disproportionate force in the delivery of police services to the public; through increasing the transparency of police activities to the public (including by urging communities to experiment with affixing surveillance equipment to police offices, vehicles, and uniforms); and through keeping the weapons of war off of the people's streets by passing legislation at the community and state levels which ban the active domestic use of tanks and drones.

4. Rights of the Accused and of Juries

Promote the rights of the accused and of jurors and juries; by supporting a restoration of the civil liberties protected by the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments, and an augmentation of the rights of the accused and of Miranda Rights; by increasing awareness of the rights to represent and defend oneself in court, and to an adequate defense, and of plea bargaining; and by discouraging the prosecution of those charged with distributing literature on public grounds which promotes the awareness of juries' rights and jury nullification.

5. Regulation of the Legal Professions

Increase public transparency of the regulation of the legal professions, by pursuing investigation of state and local bar associations, legal guilds, and law enforcers' and other public employees' unions, in order to punish and counteract attempts by the professions to defend attorneys' stature and compensation against the risk of widespread self-defense in court by the accused (including by ending the self-management of the legal professions; preventing the disbarring of licensed attorneys for questioning the propriety of the jurisdiction of courts; increasing transparency into the signing of anti-corruption and constitutional support oaths by judges, prosecutors, and political representatives; and preventing the unfounded dismissal of prospective jurors in voir dire (jury selection processes) for reasons which may stem from prospective jurors' degrees of legal and constitutional knowledge).

For more information, please contact:

Joe Kopsick

Phone: 608-417-9395

E-Mail: jwkopsick@gmail.com

For more entries on banking, the treasury, currency, inflation, and business, please visit:

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2011/10/comparative-economics.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2011/10/occupy-madison-flyer.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2012/02/inflation-adjusted-minimum-wage-vs.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2012/11/new-institutional-economics.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2013/02/agorism-and-mutualism-summaries-and.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2013/03/market-anarchism-economists-vs.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2013/12/inflation-adjusted-minimum-wage-vs.html