[p2p-research] thinking about leapfrogging

[M. Fioretti]

On Sun, Oct 05, 2008 00:36:55 AM -0500, Kevin Carson wrote:
> On 10/5/08, M. Fioretti <mfioretti at nexaima.net> wrote:
> > On Sat, Oct 04, 2008 01:59:40 AM -0500, Kevin Carson wrote:
> >
> >  > 4) Robert Williams, "Bologna and Emilia Romagna: A Model of
> >  > Economic Democracy," paper presented to the annual meeting of
> >  > the Canadian
> It's preserved by the Internet Archive:
> 
> http://web.archive.org/web/20061003134745/http://www.bcca.coop/pdfs/BolognaandEmilia.pdf

Thanks.

Bologna and Emilia Romagna are indeed among the places in Italy where
quality of life is higher and public administrations and services work
better.

However, the reality of the Emilia Romagna cooperatives is a bit less
idyllic, shall we say, than it looks from reports like those.

Searching on italian web pages would yeld you several reports of those
coops doing as well as they do because of unfair fiscal privileges
(*), "more-equal-than-others" treatment and coop-only
express-tender-approval-procedures by leftist local administrations
even when non-leftish cooperatives had better treatments, practices
and partners just like those of multinationals and so on.

"Coop rosse" by R. Ridolfi is a book which denounces just that. I
haven't read the book itself, but I've read or read enough stories of
the same kind to suggest taking that Williams report with a big grain
of salt.

(*) like independent, small scale entrepreneurs complaining because
they, who incidentally are much closer to the p2p model, lose business
simply because they must pay more taxes than a coop which is much
closer in structure, size and behavior to a Wall-Street style
corporation.

				Marco

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