Thanks for these excellent interviews. It is interesting that Kali Akuno of Cooperation Jackson Mississippi took your inquiry re opposition to cooperative economic initiatives as an opportunity to speak of it as a plus. The opposition to the Basque economic initiatives (that occurred at the foundation of Mondragon) by Franco turned out to be a major reason that they created their bank and, and this fact is really most important, their social insurance program administered by the bank. Franco, following Spanish law on co-ops and not willing to change it for the Basques, prevented State pensions and insurance to be administered for those involved with cooperative enterprises.

The Mondragon fund created by the pension/insurance withheld from the co-op members paypacket helped considerably to amass a fortune for their bank to use to finance further expansion of the enterprises. Don’t forget those who began Mondragon had twenty or more years of productive years before they would draw on those pensions/insurance.

One can only imagine if a system like that where adopted as a national economic policy as the basis for an industrial financing policy/program. Something like that could be accomplished IF today’s multi-billion dollars (0r is it Trillion dollar?) where invested directly into local economies on a state level. Food for thought.