Capitol Hill is over, man. Sold out. (damn, I’d move back in a heartbeat if we could afford a house over there)
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My apartment in 1993 had paper thin walls, roaches, and was above a sex toy shop. I froze all winter. $425 / month.
Well, look at that. There’s still a photo of my old apt on the Wiki page for Capitol Hill.
It was a lot more than $425 (and it wasn’t 1993) but I wasn’t paying for it, so that was okay.
The point is to reintroduce mutualism which is now lost and requires new organisations of members. If no groups such as guilds or unions suggest themselves then people will invent their own groups. As mutuals grew they combined and gave up mutualism in favour of shareholding and lost
much of their original purpose.
The problem isn’t creating such groups. The problem is convincing the general public to join them and that they are necessary.
We’ve gone down the route of believing that they are not necessary. As mutual societies helped in the development of the Welfare State they seemed to lose their raison d’être and sought funding from the stock market to remain viable.
Both governments and large financial institutions are failing.
When of if we start believing again I don’t know. We’re not there yet.
Well, they also grew up in an era when 50% of the male population was in a fraternal or social order, people hung out in clubs, and we had no television or Internet.
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I don’t know about the US but here all you have to do to become a member of a mutual society is pay a one off fee of £1.00. Thereafter any participation need be restricted to only the minimum necessary. For financial services you would employ staff, for housing services you may help to maintain property but this would be reflected in lower rents, for commercial services you would again employ staff. You would be paying for services on a non-profit basis, that is the fundamental difference. You would have no more stuff to do than any normal householder.
I know of no such things here.
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