The title and formatting are a bit off…

On Co-ops, though, it’s been argued by a number of leftists as the way towards a ‘socialist market economy’ or simply a method of ameliorating the excesses of capitalism. Is Press reform not just the tip of the iceberg?

One of neo-liberalism’s greatest tricks has been to persuade the world that the politics of ownership don’t exist, drawing a veil over how power flows from control
This is a mess btw.

That is of course precisely why the BBC cannot be neutral, it is paid for by the state and its preference for high taxes is in its DNA. The danger of funding defining content is over-powering where there are no contrary discipline.The BBC does not have to be profitable and even popularity is not required provided it can kill of competition by its monopolistic ability to sell product for nothing.( Hence its followership on Breakfast TV , 24 hour News , Pop Radio , on line content et al)
On the other hand there is nothing to stop any mutual being formed or any private Company adopting a leftish ,line if they think people will buy it . So provided there is reasonable entry into the market, and there is, there is no reason to think that private ownership will of itself warp the media.

Look at what is happening to the Guardian now. It is plainly considering going to a pay wall model for its on line content which as a free loss leader is a patently an absurd model so who was it that made this innovation ?
Murdoch of course who was also the man that made the vibrant Press possible by beating the Unions and who the Guardian follow like a little dog once again. The Guardian remember is not really financing it is subsidised by pointless Public Sector Job ads by which the State`s media arm extracts tax payers money to persuade them they should hand more of it over .

As for Co-ops …start one, no-one is stopping you, they work at a low level and it is possible in very stable conditions with along established brand . In a changing Economy however the Co-op problem is this :

Why would anyone start a Company and pour his ideas money and time into so as to give the winnings away should he be lucky enough to establish a New Company ? No reason .. no co-ops then ,left ish people who have no experience of how business is actually conducted always make this static state mistake

…and that is the end of that

“One of neo-liberalism’s greatest tricks has been to persuade the world that the politics of ownership don’t exist, drawing a veil over how power flows from control. ”

What ghastly nonsense is this?

Neo-liberalism is just fine with any form of ownership that people wish to use. I know, I am a neo-liberal.

“Customers own the Co-operative, whilst employees own the John Lewis Partnership.”

Super, excellent, partners own partnerships too. Use whatever structure you desire to run an organisation.

We neo-liberals really, honestly, don’t give a shit what ownership structure is used at any one particular organisation or even in an entire sector of the economy.

All we desire is that there is a market in forms of ownership so that over time the best forms of ownership for any specific organisation or sector of the economy emerges.

You know, like maybe mutuals, cooperatives, partnerships, for profit corporations, government departments, which of these might be the best way of delivering health care?

You really are sickeningly naive Tim. You must realise that even if a ‘market’ does produce ‘the best forms of ownership’, we have to ask the best for who? The best for oligarchs? The best for shareholders? The best for those who wish to use their economic power to corrupt democratic processes? The best for consumers? The best for society as a whole? There is no such thing as a ‘free’ market, so we have to decide on the boundaries of said market. That brings us back to the beginning again. We have a market today that favours the first few of those. I suggest we look at creating a ‘market’ that makes the latter few more likely to benefit.

@2

“Its preference for high taxes is in its DNA”.

That is one heck of a pile of fresh and steaming horseshit. Fortunately it alerts anyone looking in to disregard the rest of the comment.

Paul Newman: “That is of course precisely why the BBC cannot be neutral, it is paid for by the state and its preference for high taxes is in its DNA.”

It’s a good point on one level: but you could say exactly the same in reverse about any commercially-run media organisation. They are pretty much uniformly to the right of opinion polls at least on economic issues – I suspect because they, being (international) profit-oriented organisations, much prefer lower taxes (and unregulated international trade).

In addition, many organisations are very hierarchical. To express a controversial opinion in most organisations without getting into trouble you need to be senior. Naturally, output will tend to reflect the views of the top brass – who being wealthy in most cases, tend to be more hostile than average to left wing ideas which frequently involve decreasing their power/wages or increasing their taxes (this applies equally to the BBC, of course).

In their defence, the BBC has extensive and serious controls in place to try to preserve editorial independence; most commercial organisations simply don’t, or have controls everyone knows are a joke (see, for example, how outlets Murdoch officially doesn’t editorially control virtually always have startlingly similar opinions on big issues to the ones that he does).

I think having media run by co-operatives is an excellent idea. However, there are obstacles, which is why they don’t dominate already: a co-operative will find it hard to compete. Basically, you need to find the start-up capital from somewhere – and then you’re constrained by the collective morality of your workforce/members; it’s a sad fact that in an unregulated marketplace you will be outcompeted for a large slice of the advertising market by ruthlessly commercial papers prepared to publish basically fabricated stories about celebrities and ethnic bogeymen (etc) which sell papers. Which is precisely why we want the co-operatives in the first place, of course…

“It’s a good point on one level: but you could say exactly the same in reverse about any commercially-run media organisation. They are pretty much uniformly to the right of opinion polls at least on economic issues”

So are economists…..

I think issues of ownership are very important and apply to media organisations as much as to any other employer. Many of the problems in our society can be traced to a large swathe of the population not owning very much. As a consequence, they do not have much sense of having a stake in society. A relatively small group owning most of the country’s assets and income stream was not sustainable in the feudal era and it is not sustainable now. Warren Buffett, one of the richest men in the world says it is not sustainable and he is right.

For far too many it makes little difference whether the economy is doing well or badly because they do feel as if they gain anything. Arguing over how we got here is pretty pointless. What do we do about it is the real issue. We need to figure out ways for those who have no share of the country’s assets to build up their stake. Except in limited natural monopolies state ownership is not the way forward. We tried statism and it did not work. Handouts just create dependency and free-riding problems that result in resentment.

More localised co-ownership models is one way to build up the assets of the have nots. It would not be too difficult through the tax system to encourage a mutual model in media ownership. Although, ownership of assets is not directly related to media plurality. Similarities around this issue are at the heart of so many of our societal problems.

Chris Cook has some interesting ideas about new partnership-based enterprise models.

http://p2pfoundation.net/Chris_Cook

http://www.metamute.org/en/beyond_public_and_private

http://www.policyinnovations.org/ideas/innovations/data/000085

http://theconnectedrepublic.org/posts/327

http://www.co-opnet.coop/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=829#p2825

We could mutualise the BBC Trust to provide genuine accountability to licence payers

There are 12 trustees. They could be directly elected by license fee payers. Then, any outside restrictions on the BBC’s remit could be relaxed — so it could move into music, software, websites, magazines etc, if its trustees/license-payers wanted.

hopefully text after here will no longer annoyingly be in italics.

Phil … along with shrinking the BBC so as to stop it interfering with nacent media industries that is a good idea . We should also politicise the appointment of judges now they are lawmakers themselves as in the States
The problem with the BBC is its recruitment it has an institutional bias just as the Met had and it is only on the same level it can be addressed . I think you would be amazed at how much resistance the the BBC would put up to genuine accountability

why did my comment about the BBC being overrun with tories get deleted?