Champlain Co-operator
Posted: Thursday, March 15, 2012 - 08:02
For years, activists from around Vermont have sunk an enormous amount of time and energy into the campaign to close the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. Working within the system, they painstakingly built support for the plant's decommissioning, and, following the 2010 election, it appeared that their strategy had paid off. The Legislature and Governor concurred that Entergy's contract would not be renewed, and that March 21, 2012 would be Vermont Yankee's final day of operation.
Unfortunately, instead of respecting the will of the people of Vermont, as expressed through our elected representatives, Entergy decided to bring the Federal Government into the scrap on their side. Overruling our representatives, the Nuclear "Regulatory"...
Posted: Monday, January 30, 2012 - 09:22
In the more than two centuries since the beginning of radical transformation of economic life that accompanied the rise of industrial capitalism, one of the most interesting trends has been the changing nature of the forms through which people have engaged in economic activities. Before the industrial revolution, an artisanal mode of production predominated, with many small work-shops producing the goods required by the largely agrarian economy. At first glance, such the existence of many small firms would suggest a highly competitive economy; however this was not the case. Rather, the high cost of transporting goods created by primitive transportation networks, the risk of brigands, etc., meant that, rather than a single integrated...
Posted: Tuesday, December 20, 2011 - 08:34
When considering the development of the early credit union movement, it is impossible to ignore the key role played by reform-minded business man Edward Filene (of Filene's Basement). After encountering cooperative banking on a trip to India, he arranged for the Canadien credit union pioneer Alphonse Desjardins to speak to a group of community leaders in Boston about cooperative banking. Thereafter, Filene led the charge in obtaining the first credit union law in Massachusetts in 1909, and he spent over a million dollars of his own money over the subsequent three decades on credit union organizing and advocacy.
Described by one historian as "an American Owenite" (in reference to the early 19th century British utopian industrialist and...