to me, a collective is two or more people working together to accomplish something positive and constructive, often working against the grain of capitalist power structures. a collective’s main goal is to support the collective; in other words, a collective is about people and not about the bottom line, the shareholders, or other intangible things. visit a collective and you can touch, smell, hear, see, and very often taste what the collective is about. meet the workers and members, each having an equal ownership of the collective organization.
currently, this website is a journal to post research, notes, interview transcripts, and any other information gathered on collectives & cooperatives in the united states. this project began in september 2005 and continues in order to document collectives and cooperatives and to produce resources for future sprouting collective organizations. a documentary about community bicycle projects is currently in production (17 hours of footage so far) and slated to be complete by 2007. a story project about the volunteers and residents working together in New Orleans is also currently in production and should also be complete in 2007. these documentaries will be available for free public viewing and to help plant the seeds for future collectives.
if you would like to get involved, lend a hand, provide advise, be interviewed, or donate finacial support, please contact: un
okcancel.org.
wikipedia.org definitions:
- A collective is a group of people who share or are motivated by at least one common issue or interest, or work together on a specific project(s) to achieve a common objective. Collectives are also characterised by attempts to share and exercise political and social power and to make decisions on a consensus-driven and egalitarian basis. Collectives differ from cooperatives in that they are not necessarily focused upon an economic benefit or saving (but can be that as well).
- A cooperative: (also co-operative or co-op) is an association of persons who join together to carry on an economic activity of mutual benefit.
The term may be used loosely to signify its members’ ideology (as in ‘jazz coop’) but a mainstream cooperative comprises a legal entity owned and democratically controlled by its members, with no passive shareholders, unless they hold non-voting shares. It thus combines the equal control characteristic of many partnerships with the legal personality conferred on corporations. Membership is open, meaning that anyone who satisfies certain non-discriminatory conditions may join. Unlike a union, in some jurisdictions a cooperative may assign different numbers of votes to different members. However most cooperatives are governed on a strict “one member, one vote” basis, to avoid the concentration of control in an elite. Economic benefits are distributed proportionally according to each member’s level of economic interest in the cooperative, for instance by a dividend on sales or purchases. Cooperatives may be generally classified as either consumer or producer cooperatives, depending largely on their membership. Classification is also often based on their function or trade sector.
In the United States most cooperatives are corporations or limited liability companies (LLCs) but other legal entities may also be used. Cooperatives may be for-profit or non-profit. In for-profit cooperatives any surplus may be returned to members by way of a rebate or bonus on their activity with the cooperative, or a dividend on their shareholding in the cooperative.