The concept of mutual (member-owned and run) companies and societies is at the core of The Slog’s ideas about how to produce a fairer, more open and ethical capitalism. All posts relating to this are listed here for you to peruse at your leisure.
MUTUALITY GETS HALF A CHANCE AT HINCHINGBROOKE
Circle takes a step into the unknown in new hospital deal The news that Circle, a partially listed company, has been invited to sort out the financial mess at Hinchingbrooke NHS hospital will doubtless please the remaining Thatcherites among us. … Continue reading →
Filed under Mutuality in the NHS
Tagged as Adnrew Lansley, Ali Parsal, £40M debt, Circle, Hinchingbrooke hospital, John Lewis-style
At the End of the Day
In search of socio-economic logic in the Lot Today we drove the ninety minutes or so down to the Cahors wine region in order to have lunch with good friends Carol and Hugh – or hue and cry as they … Continue reading →
STATE STUPIDITY: Thin air in Edinburgh, Unfair & Square in the British Council.
A big fan of the British Council, and Australian hackers Camerlot’s cuts seem to have missed a lot of monopoly and waste in government Last night, The One Show for once raised its game and ran an expose of the … Continue reading →
ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Lots of brave faces, but no brave ideas.
The global economic stalemate cries out for fresh ideas Portuguese leader Jose Socrates made the least surprising announcement of the year to date yesterday, when he proclaimed his country to be broke, and in need of an EU bailout. The … Continue reading →
Filed under Economic reality, Uncategorized
Tagged as Barrosso, failure of Friedmanite economics., Jean-Claude Trichet, Joe Stiglitz, Portuguese default, Vanity Fair
Bank of America demo signals broader alliance against banks
Big is bad. Small is fighting back. Mutual is the answer. Banks…..George Osborne has caught the public mood says Treasury source In the US late yesterday afternoon, an organised demonstration took place in the lobby of Bank of America. The … Continue reading →
Filed under Uncategorized
David Cameron’s Big Society is really another big sell-off.
We need a more mutual society, not a big one In July 2010, The Slog took Andrew Lansley’s NHS proposals apart, adding that they only made sense as a form of creeping privatisation. Today, David Cameron writes in the Daily … Continue reading →
Filed under Healthcare
Tagged as Andrew Lansley, Big Society, Cameron, NHS, old ideas., the Mutual Society
Big Society? All I want is my building society back.
The mutual element is the Elephant in David Cameron’s Big Society. OK, so we have a Big Society Bank. But this idea is a bit of an add-on, when really it should’ve been the core of Cameron’s concept from Day … Continue reading →
Filed under Big Society
Tagged as Big Society, Building Society, no such thing as, there is an alternative
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You might find it interesting to do a little research into that curious, and highly sucessful, group of true mutuals called the P&I Clubs, of which you will not have heard because they are the specialist insurers, on a true mutual basis, of the third party risks of ships and shipowners. Being business to business mutuals with well over 80% of the global market for their product they see no need to raise their profile. They have been at it for about a century and a half so far.
I forgot to mentiion that with the exception of one Japanese, two Norwegian, one Swedish and one American example, with a Chinese wannbe, the P&I Clubs are British and based in London.
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I find the most interesting application of mutuality ‘mutual credit’: the basis of creating a ‘private’ currency by doing things for each other – at mutually agreed prices. LETS (Local Exchange Trading System) teaches these principles. In the former DDR, the best means of payment practising this was a little ‘passbook’ in which traders record their transactions and countersign each others’ books that are, at the same time, used to keep track of the account.
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