Yay debating

One of my favourite profs made a desperate plea for more facebook friends in class today, and via his facebook page comes this video of a Japanese girl at a piano recital. Everything about it is awesome, especially the boa and the fact that she's pretty much recreated all the parts of the song.

For reference:



Whatever happened to all that hair?

Our debate on the merits of a Mondragon style model for cooperatively run businesses was today. I don't really like the formal black and whiteness of debates. On the one hand I like the idea of worker control and ownership of production and a more equitable distribution of wealth, as well as collectively owned and run healthcare, education and other services. It works especially well in communities where the market fails to provide basic necessities and services for people.

On the other hand, there's a problem of scale which occurs with any sort of democratic institution. The more people you have, the more distanced any one person becomes from the decision making, and for a cooperative that has tens of thousands of worker-owners on three continents there just isn't a mechanism to allow everyone the feeling as if their input is meaningful and valued.

I have other stuff to say but I have to go to bed.