Page 24 RAIN Jan./Feb. 1984 Based on the first three seminars, a Handbook of Tools for Community Economic Change has been published by Intermediate Technology Development Group (P.O. Box 337, Croton-on-Hudson, NY 10520; 914/271-6500). We'll be publishing an excerpt from the Handbook in our next issue. —KN Workplace Democracy and Social Change, edited by Frank Lindenfeld and Joyce Rothschild-Whitt, 1982,412 pp., $12.00 from: Porter Sargent Publishers, Inc. 11 Beacon Street Boston, MA 02108 Everyone who cares about social change should read this book. It is not a spectacular piece of reading, but the topic it covers is one of the most important strategies for serious social change that we have in these hard times. Workplace democracy is, simply put, the wave of the future— and this book provides a good introduction to it; perhaps the only broad introduction available in one volume. What is workplace democracy? It is more things, really, than deserve to be called by just one name. It is workers' cooperatives, but it is also work improvement programs in traditional firms. It is "quality circles" and kibbutzim. This collection of essays is special because it chooses to emphasize the more radical strains in the movement for workplace democracy. In so doing, the book is both a reflection of directions the movement has already taken and, hopefully, a signpost for its future course. Workplace democracy has come a long way in the last 10 years. Before it, there was a strong cooperative movement— but it was mostly limited to consumer- run stores, farmers' marketing associations, or the occasional housing cooperative. The important change of the last 10 years—a change that was, 1 think, a natural development of the fresh thinking of the New Left—was a revival of interest in cooperative, or worker-run, businesses organized for production. At first, this revival consisted largely of a rediscovery of successful models of the past—such as the 40-year-old plywoodmaking co-ops of the Pacific Northwest, or the Mondragon cooperative federation of Spain. (Both of which are represented here by reprints of early, landmark articles on their experiences.) This rediscovery came at the same time that young people were experimenting with new types of collective enterprise. Many examples of this experimentation are considered in the book, including a cooperative food warehouse, a collective legal practice, a feminist abortion clinic, and a free school. In the most recent stage, activists have tried to create complex and challenging industrial cooperatives—often through conversion of existing firms by worker buyouts, but also through careful, well-planned startup of new firms. Mixed in with the case study essays are a variety of theoretical essays that deal with issues of legal structure, group dynamics, or economic viability. Two of the best of these are David Ellerman's "On the Legal Structure of Workers' Cooperatives" and a small masterpiece by the French socialist Andre Gorz, entitled "Workers' Control is More Than Just That." Among the 21 essays there are a handful of losers or just plain so-so's, but there are enough classics reprinted here to make this book a basic text in the emerging field of workplace democracy. —Scott M. Androes Institute for Community Economics 151 Montague City Road Greenfield, MA 01301 413/774-5933 I.C.E., which is growing by leaps and bounds, began publishing its newsletter. Community Economics, in the summer of 1983. The Institute's work previously focused on publishing The Community Land Trust Handbook (See review in RAIN VIII:9), and the newsletter carries a flavor of the community land trust model in its treatment of socially responsible investing, revolving loan funds, community employment programs, and cooperative ventures. Each issue focuses on one community land trust. News from others around the country appears as well. Since The Marne Land Advocate went under, this quarterly newsletter has been filling the need for reporting ideas and new developments in this growing movement. —KN ACCESS: Energy Renewable Energy: The Power to Choose, by Daniel Deudney and Christopher Flavin, 1983, 431 pp., $18.95 hardcover from: W. W. Norton & Company 500 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10110 From photovoltaic cells on American rooftops to fast-growing fuelwood trees on Third World hilltops, this study from Worldwatch Institute examines the prospects for a renewable energy future. Authors Deudney and Flavin, both senior researchers at Worldwatch, take a cautiously optimistic approach, emphasizing both the encouraging movement toward conservation and renewables during the past decade and the still formidable institutional barriers that may impede continued progress during the coming years. They devote separate chapters to the worldwide prospects for particular forms of renewable energy (solar, wood, other forms of biomass, hydropower, and geothermal), then discuss the potential for these resources to meet the varied needs of different localities. They see the likelihood of a very diverse and productive renewable energy future that will "form a strong base to support societies around the world." The authors' prescriptions for removing institutional barriers to renewable energy development are likely to have a very familiar ring to many of RAIN's readers, and the same holds true for their points about the potential social advantages of a decentralized, solar-based future. Nonetheless, their book provides us with an excellent global overview of renewable energy technologies and the policy issues that surround them. —JF The County Energy Production Handbook, by Annette Woolson, 1981, 96 pp., $11.50 ppd. from; National Association of Counties Research Foundation 440 1st Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20001 We live with a diversified economy. Goods are produced in a given location and exchanged for money. That money is traded in turn for goods produced elsewhere. An area is economically sound if the cash influx exceeds the cash outflow, and if money passes through many local hands before leaving the region. For many communities, energy is the major resource that cannot be locally produced. In the last 10 years, local governments have explored different means of decreasing this cash drain by decreasing energy
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