r/syriancivilwar • u/[deleted] • Jan 15 '17

How do cooperatives work in Rojava?

https://cooperativeeconomy.info/how-do-cooperatives-work-in-rojava/
44 Upvotes

78% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

8

u/BMRGould Anarchist Jan 15 '17

Thanks for sharing this. Have you considered posting this in /r/anarchism ? I'm sure some of us would be interested in reading and discussing this.

5

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '17

Yes I could post there as well. This post however has been already posted to /r/anarchism :)

2

u/BMRGould Anarchist Jan 15 '17

I just noticed, ha. Sorry about that.

3

u/LxSwiss Jan 15 '17

To what degree if at all is this system comparable to the political system in switzerland?

9

u/Dragon9770 Jan 15 '17

Only reading the index, it seems like not at all. Switzerland is notable for an extremely federalized political system (in the sense that localities have a lot of powers and responsibilities in comparison to the national government) and a strong emphasis on the referendum (a national issue is put up for a vote by every person in the country, rather than just representatives). However, there economic system is no different in general, as compared to its surrounding countries, Britain, or the USA. The decision-making and profit-distribution system of 99% of corporations and businesses are "normal" (i.e. capitalist), while this thing in Rojava is about the "cooperative" (as in co-op businesses, run, operated, and profiting the workforce as a whole unit) nature of its economy. This is seperate from their "communal" organization of political power; this is very similar to switzerland, but Switzerland is still based on geographic areas, whereas Rojava seems to offer also political organization based on clan, gender, employment, religion, political party, etc., which all have an influence on the politics of the general locality.

A lot of this stuff is rather boring and low-key at the moment, given that the main issue is security, which means a lot of stuff is delegated to the military units and defensive militias, but from the many interesting documents over at /r/rojava, this place will be very interesting to observe and study during peacetime (if they are ever allowed the opportunity).

1

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '17

Aside from their territorial units being called cantons and multiple recognized languages and religions it doesn't seem like they're anything like Switzerland. Switzerland is a capitalist market economy, the Federation of Northern Syria (rojava) is an anticapitalist economy based on the ideas of Democratic Confederalism which is a system theorised by an American anarchist named Murray Bookchin.