Steph Routh, a well-known figure in local cycling and transportation advocacy circles, is among the first candidates for Portland’s expanded slate of city council seats.
The Independent Charter Commission voted to adopt the new district map on Monday and Routh has put her hat in the ring to represent District #1. The district spans to the northern and southern boundaries of Portland roughly between Parkrose and Lents and includes all neighborhoods east of I-205 and 82nd (south of Division).
On her campaign website, Routh says east Portland is, “the home of my birth and the home of my heart.”
“I grew up in Parkrose and have memories of East County becoming part of Portland. We heard a lot of promises then, of services on par with the rest of the city,” Routh writes. “I’m running for City Council to make sure the city keeps its promises, that government is accountable to the people of East Portland, and that all of our neighbors can build a life of belonging and purpose here.”
Routh has a long history in local community organizing and transportation reform activism. In 2008 she was on the organizing committee that brought the international Towards Carfree Cities Conference to Portland. She was also a founding board member for Umbrella, a nonprofit that supports numerous events and organizations in the bike scene including, Pedalpalooza, Breakfast on the Bridges, the Ladds 500, World Naked Bike Ride, and more. In 2009 she became the first full-time staffer for Oregon Walks, a pedestrian advocacy group. Since then she’s held positions with the Community Cycling Center, the Portland Bureau of Transportation, Portland Underground Grad School, Sightline Institute, and others. Routh is also one of eight members of the Portland Planning Commission.
In 2017, Routh contributed a series of interviews to BikePortland for Women Bike Month.
Routh says she’s running for city council to represent people who are fighting against the odds:
“I have seen a lot of students, neighbors, and coworkers struggle to just get by through a housing crisis, a climate crisis, a pandemic, and a growing wealth gap. I’ve been there, too. We’ve beaten the odds. I’m running for City Council to change the odds. Because the odds are getting tougher to beat, and it just shouldn’t be this hard.”
Routh, whose great aunt is former Oregon Governor Barbara Roberts, is the only person running for District #1 so far. Other candidates that have filed as of today include Mingus Mapps (Mayor), Sandeep Bali (District #2), and Chris Flanary (District #3).
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Good to have a transportation-forward candidate on the ballot. I have a feeling that she’ll have a hard time winning that part of town if part of her platform isn’t “more cops” though.
One of the benefits of STV is that she can still end up representing the district if a significant minority of her constituents support her (directly or via transferred votes). She might serving alongside two less-transit-oriented councilors but she’ll still be on the council.
I’m in District 4 (westside + Sellwood and Eastmoreland). Anyone have a sense of how that district will vote regarding cycling and transit policy?
I’ve been in East Portland for 6 years and increasingly we’ve seen younger, hipper folks move out here. For better or worse depending on your view (better imo). As inner Portland is increasingly expensive and only Californians can buy/pay those rents, and everyone else is seemingly Boomers that bought in the 90s, that sorta just leaves East Portland as your only option if you’re not willing to live in Vancouver or Beaverton or wherever. But what this means for how East Portland will vote and be represented, dang, no idea. The n’hood meetings we’ve attended were equal parts younger, “normal” folks I related to and dinosaurs that just wanted to rant about everything and everyone that scared and upset them.
Tons of young folks are completely ignorant when it comes to sustainable and equitable transportation. I’m 29 and most of the millennials I work and hang with are lukewarm at best, and, at worst actively hostile toward bike infrastructure.
Ignorant, or have a different opinion?
That depends on whether their opinions are based on facts or on ignorance of said facts…
Let’s see, there’s 12 seats now, plus the mayor, so with an average of 20 candidates per position, that will be 13×20=260 candidates to choose from.
except no one will be choosing for all 12 seats. every Portlander will be voting for their top three favorites in their district. Even if each district draws 20 candidates (a number that I think is very high), Portlanders will be choosing their top 3, along with Mayor.
I get that, but we both know that the easier the process is and the more wide-open a position is (and the lower the threshold is to enter any important race, as opposed to school board or soil conservation district positions), the more likely you will get a lot of “keep Portland weird” candidates for high office. I’ve seen as many as 20 for certain open elections in Portland, those without an incumbent. And so yes, I fully expect 40-60 candidates per district by the filing deadline.
“every Portlander will be voting for their top three favorites in their district.”
It’s disturbing that someone who actually worked on the campaign for this voting system does not know the details.
https://www.portland.gov/transition/portland-transition-election-code/ranked-choice-voting#toc-portland-will-use-two-ranked-choice-voting-methods-depending-on-the-type-of-contest-city-council-mayor-auditor
Oh, I think we can assume Aaron knows how the voting system works. But, just to be super-duper clear, voters may rank up to six candidates, but they can also rank fewer—including just ranking one candidate, or even skipping that race altogether and ranking 0, I suppose.
It’s worth noting that by only allowing six instead of all, they fix the exponential/Sudoku ballot challenge, while amplifying ranked choice’s mathematical pitfalls, the spoiler effect, and exhausted ballots. The alternative discussed in the commission, STAR voting, would’ve neatly solved for all of these (without running afoul of Oregon election law, which our new chosen voting system does – I’ve not seen anyone in power grapple with that, so I’m wondering if folks are just hoping nobody brings up a legal challenge and sneaks it by).
…it won’t help in the near-term for Portland unless a challenge does get brought and STV struck down, but if anyone is out and about at, say, the Hawthorne Street fair this weekend, find someone gathering signatures for STAR and sign the petition!
I’ve not heard this charge before. Why does the new system violate election law?
Oregon requires that votes have to be tallied by county – ranked-choice isn’t precinct-summable, meaning all the votes have to first be centralized and then counted. Portland spans three counties. When this got brought up during the commission process, I saw it mostly get dismissed because the Clackamas and Washington county portions of Portland voters total maybe a couple thousand (out of 600,000+), but I don’t think that really matters as far as the law is concerned.
The Oregon legislature did pass a bill putting state-wide RCV on the voter ballot in 2024, which I believe includes changing this portion of Oregon election law (so that votes no longer need to be tallied by county). I think that’ll be the same ballot as the first Portland STV election, though, so even if that passes there will be some missing overlap.
Actually, I have heard this concern. I agree that dismissing it because it affects a small number of voters is bogus.
But given that it serves no constructive purpose in this case (that I am aware of), it seems likely that if challenged, the state would respond by modifying the law to make it not apply to Portland somehow (unless it’s in the constitution, which makes that approach more challenging… but the courts seem willing to let other constitutional provisions slide where they think they contradict the will of the people, such as the question of whether those who walked out of the legislature can run again).
Are you referring to the requirement to tally votes in respective counties with this “it”? I agree that for Portland’s purposes, the numbers are so small that there’s not a real pragmatic purpose there.
State-wide, it’s an election integrity/trust issue – the farther ballots have to travel (physically) and the more centralized they are, the greater the chances for accidents/screw-ups/whatever along the way. Never mind how Oregon’s red counties will feel when they’re told all their ballots will go to Salem to be counted for a governor’s race, for example (the scenario if the RCV ballot measure passes next year, obviously not directly relevant to Portland’s new system). Though I also believe that RCV ballot excluded certain races – I don’t remember offhand which, but I think it was just the federal ones.
If RCV was the best option on the table, I’d think this would be worth overcoming – taking whatever measures and making whatever campaigns necessary to ensure integrity and trust. But it’s not – research shows methods like Approval or STAR performing better with less complications and do not need to be centrally tabulated. The only advantage RCV appears to have is a dogmatic multi-million dollar lobbing group behind it.
Yes. It seemed less ambiguous when I wrote it. I agree that in the statewide context it may have value. All of those “its” refer to the text I quoted above.
I understand the mathematical superiority of STAR (or “the HotOrNot Method” as I prefer), but I think it feels so disconnected from “regular voting” that people won’t trust it, especially in these superpartisan times.
If STAR prevails statewide, we might be using up to 4 different methods on a single ballot. Bring on the chaos!
There won’t be 60-person races in each district. Campaigning takes a lot of work, serious candidates won’t jump into a race where the odds of winning are less than 10%. Regarding non-serious candidates: I just checked and there’s no word yet on the fees required to file. But the signature requirement is 500 signatures from the district that a candidate is running in. Collecting those signatures is a lot of work and should weed out non-serious candidates. And if they don’t, the problem is easily fixed by raising the signatures-required threshold.
I’d expect 15-20 candidates per district. This equates to 5-7 per seat, which is normal. STV is used in national elections in Ireland and Australia and seems to work. It’d be interesting to see how many candidates those races usually draw.
Could you not have the same 500 people sign off on all 260 candidates?
I bet someone could set up a nice tidy little business, getting the same set of people to sign off on each candidate.
If we can get 500 potential candidates together, they could all sign each other’s forms, and make a bunch of $5 donations.
Democracy in action.
We absolutely need to end the practice of allowing people to be paid to gather signatures.
We didn’t vote in standard RCV. We voted in multi member RCV with STV. This voting scheme is not used in Ireland or Australia.
That’s not how any of this works
So good to see Steph running! It was great to talk to her recently while we were both volunteering for Sunday Parkways! ️☑️
Sandeep Bali is running in district 3.
https://www.portland.gov/smalldonorelections/everything-about-2024-election
Wasn’t candidate Jesse Cornett once a member of the Lents Neighborhood Association?
Steph’s participating in the Open and Accountable Elections Program – which means that once she’s received 250 donations from Portland residents, the city will match donations of $20 at a 9-1 rate.
That means that giving $20 to Steph is essentially giving her campaign $200 (!!!!).
Steph’s already at 100 donations – if you have even a couple bucks to chip in, honestly, getting to 250 is enormously important for the campaign. Hell, even giving $3 makes a difference:
Update – I have since learned that the minimum donation to qualify for OAE is $5. So please give $5!
Looks like Routh will definitely get the YIMBY vote in district 1.
Given her track record of support for real estate speculators and her employment by MAGA-billionaire-funded Sightline, I very much hope that someone who better represents the interests of low-income people runs in district 1.
You consistently shit on everything it’s hard to know when your gripes are legit or just more default griping. And anyway, you don’t vote so why even chime in??
they’re an energy vampire
i honestly think its performance art at this point
Nah, I think it’s a chatbot.
Man, it would be crazy if we learned Pierre is some twee inner Eastside white dude with a PhD who works for some company that destroyed a Portland neighborhood (like, say, Legacy) and gives all his spare money to a charity run by a bunch of private equity dorks, crypto bros, and an Edmund Burke acolyte. Crazy I tell you.
Maybe Mitt Romney decided to bring that handle back. Maybe the honourable gentleman from Utah has incredibly passionate opinions of Portland cycling infrastructure.
Would explain why he doesn’t vote here too.
Is there a “Comment of the Year” option?
I’m chiming in because I will definitely donate to someone who is opposing Routh and less right-wing/libertarian.
The thing about STV, if I’m not mistaken, is you (or maybe not you personally) don’t really vote (or support someone) against a candidate, because as a voter one ranks the candidates and the top 3 are elected (sort of).
You’ll have to run yourself to find someone who agrees with you enough to satisfy your purity tests.
LOL. You’ll make financial contributions to political campaigns but won’t vote. Right.
Hey dude, you should run for city council.
There’s a good chance I would vote for him too. Wet blanket aside, at least I agree with the fundamentals.
I feel I should say that the idea that my employer (and Steph’s former employer) is funded by a MAGA billionaire is a myth that I think evolved from a photo of my boss speaking on the same panel one time with a MAGA billionaire.
YIMBYtown, a conference that was a major focus of your
think tankreal-estate lobbying firm, was partially sponsored (e.g. funded) by that same MAGA billionaire’s real estate promotion org.(Checking sponsors page…) You’re right! Up for Growth was apparently a sponsor of the conference we helped put on last year. I have no reason to think they were in for more than like $200, but I don’t know. WTF I love Trump now.
Hot new political strategy: political organizations sowing distrust and discord in their ideological opponents by placing small sponsorships in esoteric and relatively unknown conferences so that years later people on the internet can argue about whether a participant in one of those conferences is or is not a political ally of that political organization. I’m sure it’ll be a super effective way to achieve goals!
Hilarious comment from the person who, for years, has posted the most small-C conservative opinions on here
I guess supporting low-income housing abundance, real rent control, good cause, and TOPA is the new “small-C-conservative” opinion while supporting deregulation that further increased the profits of real estate barrons is the new small-L leftism. (At least according to commentators who paycheck comes from gazillionaire developers.)
Means testing is an extremely “small-C-conservative” neoliberal policy, and TOPA only creates more homeloaners. But tell us, who does your paycheck come from? Certainly not an organization directly involved in “urban renewal” in Albina, right?
Why am I not surprised that a YIMBY objects to tenants having the housing security that small home and duplex condo owners expect in this society:
https://ota.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/ota/publication/attachments/TOPA%20-%205%20or%20More%20Units%20%28FINAL%29.pdf
The entire model of TOPA is for tenants to have housing security via a limited-equity coop (my preference) or via housing owned by a non-profit. More small-C conservatism….right!?!
Yes. That is absolutely a small-C conservative position. Nothing wrong with that. Sometimes it’s a good position to take, but it’s conservative non the less.
Doesn’t seem conservative to me, care to elaborate? Anything that gives tenants more rights and security (especially via coops) seems pretty lefty in my book, but maybe I’m missing something.
Private home ownership is an inherently conservative form of tenure. It doesn’t matter if it’s a co-op, a condo, a corporation, an individual household, or a non-profit. The progressive form of tenure would be for land and housing to be owned by the government and leased.
Pierre elides that in DC, TOPA conversions allow the purchasing party (which is usually not the tenants, but a third-party developer the tenants transfer their TOPA rights to) to charge whatever they please for any vacant homes within the building, as stipulations in Voluntary Agreements between tenants and the developer are excluded from DC’s rent control laws. They can also buy out existing tenants and then upcharge on the now vacant home. The existing tenants might have their rents frozen, but any newcomer to the building will be paying much more.
That’s true, I agree. I just don’t think there is any absolute definition of “conservative”, it’s always in relation to something, and getting more people in homes is “left-er” than where we are now. And cooperative ownership of land is inherently lefty, in that the bigger the cooperative, the closer it gets to truly public ownership. It’s another approach to public ownership (similar to (real) coop businesses).
I admit I don’t know anything about TOPA though, so they may be problematic.
Thanks for the info.
A TOPA process doesn’t get more people in homes, it keeps the same people in the same homes and changes ownership from one private party to another. A large co-op is superficially similar to public ownership, but unless it is continually creating new homes for outsiders to move into it’s a very conservative public body – a walled city.
One of the primary rationales for TOPA was to allow tenants and communities (COPA) to organize and block displacement. It’s enfuriating that this person is falsely describing an anti-displacement policy developed by black community orgs in DC as private “home-loanership”. Many of the 100+ limited-equity coops in DC were created using a TOPA mechanism:
Moreover, the vast majority of TOPA projects used DC public funding and were therefore required to maintain affordability even after a tenant moves out.
https://shelterforce.org/2020/11/23/the-keys-to-the-tenant-opportunity-to-purchase/
The funny thing is that I was actually referring to the TOPA propoal in Portland which was restricted to limited-equity coops or subsidized nonprofit housing.
(One of the things I have learned from interacting with YIMBYs is that they often act in bad faith and almost always resort to ad hominems when challenged.)
Who a policy comes from is fundamentally immaterial to whether it is a conservative policy or not. TOPA (and if you meant to refer to a Portland specific policy, directly linking to DC’s was an odd choice), is fundamentally about preserving *some* incumbent city residents in their pre-existing homes at their pre-existing rents. That’s definitionally conservative. That there is an option to limit the profits that the new homeowners might enjoy from their tenure is fine, good even, but it doesn’t change the fact that it is still private ownership. The program would be improved if the city itself exercised right of first refusal and purchased the buildings to that renters could remain in place. That policy would still have fundamentally conservative elements – but it would progress things on the ownership front.
But more to the point, I think you’ve made an error in ascribing ‘goodness’ or ‘badness’ to the conservativeness of a policy (small c, of course) as opposed to the material benefits of that policy’s outcomes. Rent control, means-tested NGO provided housing, TOPA – they’re all about preserving things as they are for some people. They’re conservative policies. They usually lead to improved material outcomes for the people they serve (good!), but they do so through conservative means.
You’ve seemingly given up on change – it happens to the best of us – so you’ve retreated to defensive (conservative) policies. It is what it is. That you feel attacked when someone points this out to you feels like a you thing.
So according to your YIMBY logic, it’s “immaterial” and “conservative with a small-C” for those who are dehumanized by racialized capitalism to organize for housing security (a basic human right). Using this same logic it’s also “immaterial” and conservative with a small-C for workers to organize for labor rights. Apart from harm reduction, the “goodness” you poo-poo, another reason to fight for labor and human rights is that it’s difficult for workers or tenants to overthrow capitalism when they are under the thumb of bosses and landlords/developers.
Once again, I hope people notice how dismissive this fervent supporter of Steph Routh is of black and low-income people in DC organizing against displacement and for housing (a fundamental human right). YIMBYs like Ms. Routh love to rightly talk about how zoning is racist but when it comes to the intrinsic inequity of our capitalist housing system they are at best silent or at worst supporters/believers in this predatory “free” market system.
You accidentally missed the rest of the quote.
People
are absolutely capable of advancing both small-c and large-C conservative policies – in housing and in many other areas. Their victimization doesn’t preclude that.
I haven’t made a comment one way or another on the candidate. I’m not in her district, and I don’t intend to donate money outside of my own district. Not having seen any firm policies from her, I’m agnostic towards her candidacy.
Arguing that low-income black people who seek protection against eviction (via non-capitalist housing) are “conservative” is both classist and racist.
I truly hope that you find the basic moral compass that you, apparently, disdain.
We live in a dehumanizing system where public housing is essentially illegal in the USA. Limited-equity co-ops, limited-equity CLTs, and subsidized non-profit housing allow the creation of permanent* housing for low income people without violating the terms of the Faircloth amendement.
Not a “co-op” as in million dollar apartments in NYC but a limited equity coop.
It’s also utterly absurd to claim that subsidized non-profit housing is not progressive when it’s the only significant alternative to the private market in our crony-capitalist housing system. I may be a socialist but I also recognize that limited equity coops, limited equity community land trusts, and subsidized nonprofit housing are both essential harm reduction and the only major alternative to the glorious private market YIMBYs like Ms. Routh worship.
* unfortunately some nonprofit subsidized housing expires in as little as a decade which is an outrage.
It’s simply not progressive. It may be a practicable and humane way of keeping some people stably housed, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a conservative reaction to a Conservative political system. It’s the 21st Century update of the Catholic Church’s alms for the poor, complete with the requisite moralizing and shame. And, of course, in making the status quo more tolerable for those more harmed by it, the status quo is further entrenched – a fundamentally conservative outcome.
I just want everyone reading this to see that a fervent supporter of Ms. Routh views subsidized nonprofit housing as shameful. This is why I do not support YIMBYs.
I don’t really care what is and isn’t progressive — that’s you doing you.
I care about empowerment, emancipation, and the revolution it can inspire.
As a union organizer, I wonder what your comrades would think of discourse describing One DC/Cooperation DC as small C conservative (one of the black community orgs that have made use of TOPA in their radical organizing).
https://www.onedconline.org/cooperation_dc_basic
Is cooperation jackson also small C conservative?
https://cooperationjackson.org/intro
It’s interesting how you have spent — what — over a dozen comments very rudely belittling libertarian socialism and its theory of change seemingly due to some weird personal fixation with me. In your rhetoric here I sense the insularity of someone who wraps themselves in a protective cocoon of theory and semantics.
Please touch grass.
Government owning all housing sounds very interesting. I experienced that a bit with barracks life while in the military and it was a constant “Tragedy of the Commons” situation. I’m curious at what level government would you like to have ownership of everyone’s property. I’m throwing in the caveat of honestly curious as I actually am. City, county, state or federal? All have pretty bad histories of discrimination against pretty much most everyone at one time.
Is it a good idea for the power that controls the police to also absolutely control who lives where?
I doubt you will get a reply because their discourse was more about owning the “socialist” than any kind of authentic exchange of ideas.
Having actually lived in municipally-owned public housing, this is the model that I would support. I have far fonder memories of living in public housing than in the unsafe and barely habitable apartments I’ve lived in for my entire adult life.
For the record, not everyone’s property, just housing and land. I’d like to see it at the city level. County level makes sense in more rural counties, or in counties without a large city. For those areas the State should also be providing financial and logistical support. And the idea isn’t that the government says “you go here, and you go here”, it’s that the government says “you’ve expressed an interest for x-type of housing within y-distance of [work, church, parks etc], here’s what we currently have available that fit (or approximately fit) those criteria, here’s what the cost-rents are for those locations. Do you need additional housing support to meet those rents?”
That’s not progressive because it enables commodification/hoarding of property by rentiers. The system you propose is a conservative reaction to a Conservative political system. It’s the 21st Century update of the Catholic Church’s alms for the poor, complete with the requisite moralizing and shame.
PS: I don’t believe this but it’s amusing how theoretical and detached from the grim reality of tenant/working-class struggle their proposal is.
I am a tenant and a member of the working class, have for years been a member of unions/ involved in unionization campaigns, and am one of those lucky people who’s had to move 3+ times in a year to find adequate housing. But you do you.
Considering that you described tenant union organizing as moralizing and shameful, I really hope you reconsider and stop doing whatever it is that you are doing here.
I appreciate the solid response, but I’m a little surprised that you think cities should be in charge of a crucial part of life such as housing.
For one this makes it sound like anyone can live wherever they want and it’s up to the state acting through the city to provide whatever funding the individual needs to do so. Since housing is most definitely a finite resource let alone housing in desirable areas, how could this be sorted out in a fair manner?
Two, everyone on this site laments the incompetence of PBOT and PPB, most understand that the Parks Bureau isn’t doing so well (Willamette Week seems to have a steady stream of articles showcasing Parks and other bureaus incompetence and outright graft) and I’m not even singling out Portland as especially bad or corrupt, most governments seem to like their own decision makers more than the people they are there to ostensibly serve.
How do you argue that any part of Portland’s government that can’t even keep parks open or people off the streets will suddenly be able to be in charge of where any of us live?
The current homebuyer system is obscene and with credit scores, constantly changing interest rates, taxes paid on current value (shockingly decided on by the government that receives the tax money) rather than paid value on what is ostensibly personal property and the various banks involvement it is not sustainable in its current form.
Still, I think it would be easier to clean all that up then to clean up city (or county or state or federal) government which definitely seems to be over represented by a leisure class of individuals who seem to have nothing better to do than run for office and have little concept of what working on a schedule means.
Basically a government paid apartment broker.
I think that’s a good description of their theoretical proposal. It’s incredibly naive to believe that non-housing property rights would be maintained in a system where all housing property is expropriated by the state. I’ve always been transparent that my goal is the abolition of all private property rights but this confused person clearly isn’t willing to go all the way while claiming to be the one-true-progressive*. Then again everything they have written here is consistent with Portland progressive politics — one foot in the neoliberal pond (their friends!) but afraid to jump in the pond of anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist socialism.
* I am not and have never been a “progressive”.
Coops are great, but are more fundamentally capitalistic than I’d expect from you.
Not really, they’re a fundamentally socialist form of organization that can exist within a capitalist system. They’re a backdoor to socialism. They are literally worker owned means of production.
Hovering somewhere between a family-owned corporation and a publicly traded corporation, coops are for-profit shareholder businesses like any other. Many (most?) co-ops are consumer-owned (REI), not owned by employees, and there are many non-coop businesses that are owned by their employees (Bi-Mart)
That’s the beauty of capitalism: we can create a wide range of corporate structures to suit a variety of needs. As you point out, we can even use capitalism to create and sustain socialism, and perhaps in some ways we can think of socialism as a specific form of capitalism.
The rarity of true worker-owned collectives (outside of partnerships and sole proprietorships, which are also worker-owned means of production) may speak to the practical difficulties of sustaining a larger socialist enterprise.
To me, economic freedom is what sets capitalism apart from socialism at the state level. America has a long history of “socialist” corporations, but “capitalist” organizations have generally been illegal in socialist countries.
(Note that throughout I have followed your lead and used the word socialism, but worker-owned means of production is probably better described as communism.)
No, they are not like any other, not at all. You’re talking about what I call fake co-ops like REI which are not co-ops at all (see: their evil union-busting leadership), they’re just clubs and they’re trying to cynically profit from the word co-op. They trick people into thinking it’s something good. They tricked me for years until I realized the word is used falsely to make people think they’re shopping somewhere better than they are. Like green-washing but for labor.
Worker owned co-ops are what I’m talking about, and they’re the only ones worth taking seriously. They are one possible avenue to worker control of the means of production that can happen gradually within (and despite) capitalism, at least that’s the hope. Some people are skeptical of incremental approaches like that. I’m not sure it’s possible, but they are at least worth trying since people alive now have to live somehow.
You say this like capitalism is just this nice passive natural way of being. Our structures actively make real co-ops harder than they need to be. While it’s trivially easy to set up an LLC, making a true worker-owned co-op is a labyrinth of DIY lawyering and you need to find information on how to navigate this maze from places like Democracy at Work.
I just don’t see capitalism as “economic freedom”. It’s inherently unfree, unfair, and coercive. There is nothing free about being born into a place that says sell your labor or die. It’s a false choice, people do it out of necessity, and you get to pretend like you decided all along. Freedom would be if you could vote your boss out of their position and vote yourself in. That’s freedom. That can happen in worker co-ops as well as state socialism.
Note, socialism definitely describes what I’m talking about, it’s not just my definition.
And then (emphasis mine)
But I agree, since Socialism is nearly indistinguishable from Communism, it’s just “more”.
REI is not a “fake co-op”; it is a consumer-owned co-op, like People’s, Alberta Co-op, and Food Front (may God rest its soul). Most co-ops follow this model, and have been a tool of economic empowerment across the world.
Worker owned co-ops do not happen “despite capitalism”; they are capitalism, and I totally support them (long time Citybikes and former Bike Repair Collective customer).
I see capitalism a co-equal partner with liberalism and democracy. Not necessarily “natural”, but definitely better than the alternatives. There aren’t many socialist countries left, and those that are don’t look so great. I don’t know of even a single liberal democratic socialist country in the world’s history (at least not one that lasted longer than a couple of years). Liberal democratic capitalist countries are everywhere.
That issue is independent of capitalism or socialism. We have staunchly capitalist countries with very generous social safety systems, and socialist countries that are hellholes where basic survival is a daily struggle.
Not everyone would like that, but clearly you would, so you can start your own company based on these principles and see how it works. That’s the freedom capitalism offers you. I’d strongly recommend skipping the DIY lawyering, and do what everyone else who’s starting a company does: hire an attorney that knows what they’re doing.
To avoid an endless fight over terminology, I’ll accept any definition from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative
Well, agree to disagree. Worker-owned co-ops should not even share the name with any of the other forms, they’re not similar and shouldn’t even be discussed as the same topic. They’re more like homonyms than actually sharing any meaningful definition.
From my view, if every worker worked in an employee owned coop, that would be nearly indistinguishable from socialism. Each co-op is itself a mini socialist state, and the bigger they are, the more power and the more actual democracy they represent. Ideally, they would join into increasingly larger co-ops until voile, socialist utopia. Soon to be followed by the withering away of the state and then you know what. That’s the hopeful way, but it’s a long way off.
Co-ops only “are capitalism” in the same way any socialist state is capitalist in a world that still has other capitalist states.
Everyone who works there does, and that’s what matters.
That’s exactly what a worker-owned coop is. That’s why they’re good. And they have been very successful.
It is not, it’s a fortunate loophole that is difficult to close, in the same way unions would be banned if not for their inherent power that can’t be stopped by legislation.
I share your vision, comrade.
This is a reply to you, Watts and John, but doesn’t anybody read “Animal Farm” these days??
Also, the state is going to be withering away rather drastically once the coming climate crisis fully manifests itself. Something we can all look forward to.
Animal Farm was a work of propaganda written by a rabid anti-communist to try and instill red scare into younger kids. It worked, unfortunately, for at least some generations.
But I agree, the state will wither away on its own unless we do something drastic to keep it together. It’s my view that a shift away from such a worship of capitalism and the profit motive is the only kind of shift that can do that, except maybe fascism in the short term. Socialism or barbarism, as they say, and I know which one I prefer.
Whoa, that’s my hero George Orwell you’re talking about. “Politics and the English Language” is one of the best essays of the 20th-century and a terrific style guide. Next you’re gonna say something bad about Camus.
My mistake, that was off the cuff and I think I confused him with someone else. I admit I don’t know his politics all that deeply (he was a lefty but in my opinion, seems to have confused some leftist ideas with the particular problems in the USSR). While Animal Farm was actually about totalitarianism – fine as it goes – it and 1984 seem to have been coopted by the right to use as general purpose anti-communist (and everything they think that word means) propaganda. But, I don’t think that was the point of it, so apologies for my comment 🙂
Whew. I feared Strunk and White were next up! 🙂
Whoops, the rest of the edit didn’t make it.
Also, the state is withering away regardless of whether it is organized as capitalist, socialist, communist (or whatever) once the coming climate crisis fully manifests itself and the leisure class suddenly find themselves with no one to do the work for them. Something we can all look forward to!
Call them a “worker collective”. That’s one form of a co-op, which is one form of a corporation. But Peoples and Alberta Co-op, for example, are “fake coops” that also have collective management (but the employees are not necessarily owners). In other words, management style is independent of ownership. Trying to create a neat taxonomy is bound to fail.
A worker-collective fits that definition exactly. Private ownership (the members of the collective own the corporation), operating at a profit (like any system, inflow must balance outflow or the system collapses). You can say it is also socialist, but it is very clearly capitalist.
Capitalism is an open system that supports many different types of organizations. Oregon (and, I’m guessing, every state) has laws specifically governing co-ops (alongside other types of corporation), so it’s only a loophole in the sense that, say, an LLC is.
There’s not some sinister cabal out there trying to get rid of co-ops or collectives. I hope that doesn’t make the whole idea seem less fun.
Again, not interested in playing the definition game, so I’ll accept definitions from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism
Yeah yeah yeah, and co-op style video games are played collectively with a friend, but that doesn’t make them co-ops. They’re hardly similar, just because they have that word, but I’ve been adding the clarifying words for you.
That’s according to a facile reading of the words. The members of a classless communist utopia all collectively “privately own” the means of production. And if you had two big coops that ran all business in a country, it wouldn’t be suddenly capitalist, it would be two huge socialist organizations. In my view, it’s a continuum between many tiny cooperatively owned companies and fully collective (i.e. cooperatively owned) means of production.
Yes I understand we live in a capitalist system so anything you can legally do here is capitalist in a superficial way, but a worker owned cooperative is fundamentally a socialist organizational structure. It does not matter that on a larger scale, they have to interact with the outside world. The USSR traded with capitalist countries at some points, that doesn’t make it capitalist. And the Socialist Alternative political group isn’t a bunch of capitalists just because they live in the USA.
I don’t think so. It is an algorithm that supports one particular type of organization and even with nobody consciously doing it, it always leans the same way. It does one thing and that’s grow and gobble up resources. The fact that we have laws in our country that allow for alternative forms (as well as beliefs that disagree) is a feature of our government not capitalism.
I deleted all my responses to the stupid definitional questions. They don’t matter.
“a worker owned cooperative is fundamentally a socialist organizational structure”
Ok. Then we’re both happy with worker owned collectives. You see them as socialist, and I see them as a very pure form of capitalism. We both get a trophy.
It is true that corporations tend to be organized in a similar way, but this is not because of “capitalism”; it’s because some types of organization are more efficient than others. For all their merits, collectives are not efficient; they burn a lot of calories on process, which is fine, but that distracts from whatever it is that the organization was built to do. But capitalism gives you the freedom to do what you want, if you can make it work.
Our laws don’t “allow” “alternative” forms of corporations, they fall out of the basic capitalist framework. You can prove me wrong by explaining how, absent special laws, a corporation owned by the workers would be disallowed.
… within capitalism. This is exactly the point. Capitalism isn’t some secretive cabal, like your caricature of (a claim I didn’t make). It’s a system that encourages certain behavior. It is not natural, it is not neutral. It drives certain behavior and not others. So if someone wants to organize their workplace in a way that “burns a lot of calories on process” in order to get a more equitable and democratic workplace, they simply can’t. Or, they can but under capitalism, the odds are stacked against them. This is the kind of system (mis)understanding a lot of people just can’t wrap their minds around. Things like systemic racism or whatever. It’s not that anyone explicitly wants to give certain people a disadvantage, it’s that the overall system does. In this case, the overall system of capitalism discourages democracy and equity in the workplace in favor of the tyranny of a few shareholders because that small efficiency increase is enough to mean that systemically, most alternatives fail.
And that’s the thing. We don’t need that efficiency. It has long long long since become unnecessary for us to eek out every ounce of productivity. The productivity we do output mostly gets wasted on paying bonuses to those same tyrants who own the company and profit from nothing or selling doodads that nobody needs and reinventing the wheel like that stupid street sweeper in another article, instead of giving people shorter work days/weeks, more vacation to spend with their family, better healthcare, etc etc. At the rate our productivity has increased, we should be able to have people working 16 hour weeks and supporting a family on one income. Instead people are working harder than ever for less pay, and that is all thanks to the kind of organizational structure that capitalism ensures we’re stuck with. What a failure.
Edit quickly to add – there are laws that can be added to improve democracy in the workplace. It’s on that continuum between capitalism and socialism, but definitely something obviously pushed by the communists and socialists. That is, in Germany (I don’t have the exact details), companies above a certain size I believe, are required to have a certain percentage of the voting shares owned by employees. That is a bit of an enforced cooperative. Not fully of course, but enough that the workers get some democracy. And there’s no reason to stop there.
Edit edit (and I’m done): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitbestimmungsgesetz
My comment about the “secretive cabal” was a response to your assertion that collectives are a “loophole” that would be stopped if they could. A collective is just a lefty-sounding name for a partnership. No one wants to get rid of them.
You blame a lot of things on capitalism, such as the 40 hour work week, but there is no evidence whatsoever that a socialist society could get its work done in 16 hours, and there is nothing stopping a capitalist society from limiting the work week to 16 hours if it wanted to (just as we limited it to 48 hours, then 40 hours). Capitalist countries can offer excellent healthcare and other social benefits (as many do).
In the real world, some things just work better than other things. It seems pretty clear that capitalism is one of those things. If socialism really worked better, I’d expect to see at least one socialist society thriving at some point in history. Instead, socialism seems to lead directly to impoverished totalitarian regimes. And you think capitalism is full of tyrants?
Anyway, I hope you enjoy your weekend.
Most of those safety nets were fought for and won by socialists. Yes, history, society, and economic systems can be complex with opposing political currents.
This might well be true, and it underscores my point that capitalism is not incompatible with a rich system of social benefits (or other pro-social policies like John’s 16 hour work week).
So…..limited equity coops are the new small-C conservative while million dollar YIMBY duplex condos are the new small-L leftistm.
And it’s absolutely hilarious that you described my support for abundant low-income housing as “means-testing”. Do you really believe there is a shortage of housing for the rich people you carry water for?
You hide your conservatism under a theoretical progressivism. In any proposal that’s actually being actively discussed you express a preference for the status quo, while saying that in theory that you would support something else (but in the absence of that, would prefer nothing).
Real rent control (with vacancy control) and good cause eviction is the status quo? Wowowoww.
And, BTW, I don’t think anyone has ever accused me of preferring the status quo before so kudos for your ad hominem “creativity”.
If “theoretical progressivism” is championing progressive ideas that have no possibility of being enacted, leaving inaction in their wake, that would apply to a great many of the folks here.
Nonsense, this is true status-quo bias. By this view, the only things we can hope for are whatever tiny nonsense the current government would enact. It doesn’t leave open any possibility of replacing leaders, changing government, etc, etc. By that view, gay marriage was theoretical progressivism as recently as the 90s.
I didn’t coin the term, and I don’t particularly like it. I was just trying to understand what it means from how it was applied.
The LAST thing we need in Portland government is another “advocate”. Haven’t we learned our lessons from the dismal performances of Hardesty, Eudaly and Rubio?
We need a return to PRAGMATIC progressivism something which made Portland a draw from all over the US and even the world. The election of ideologues has not served us well. We need to vote differently (not more of the same ) if we want to get Portland back on track.
Hey, maybe you could run for city council. Hit the streets in your neighborhood and get some signatures homie
Count me a very satisfied constituent of Hardesty and Eudaly. They had some gaffes, with a few disappointing leadership moments, but were both extremely effective at accomplishing some major legislative achievements in only a single term on council. They would have been much better served to be legislators on the new council vs legislators/city managers in the old council.
Yeah, I don’t think there is any chance they would have lost their elections in the new system, they each have pretty strong bases of people who didn’t just swallow the right wing
liesnarratives about them.Lol. Right wing lies? . Lol. Anything right of Pol Pot is considered “right wing”?
Her aunt is former Governor Barbara Roberts. Not sure why that’s not mentioned. Is there something wrong with mentioning the family relationship to politics?
It’s kind of wild that I knew Steph pretty well for 12 years before finally learning this fact about her last year.
Woah, I either forgot or never knew that.
the only way I can think that is is relevant (barely) is that Ms. Roberts is extremely active in getting women elected in Oregon and does a lot of fundraising and attends events that uplift women candidates so we might be seeing/hearing more from her this election cycle if her niece is running… but I thought this was more just kind of an interesting tidbit to throw in to round out the piece.
Go, Steph, go!
Routh seems very qualified and just like the kind of person I’d want serving on city council! unfortunately I’m two blocks outside of that district. I’ll be sending her money
I met Barbara Roberts at a campaign event for the excellent Nick Fish; she was pleasant and seemed competent.
As for governors and governance in Oregon, however, male Republicans have a far better record than male Democrats: Tom McCall, Mark Hatfield, Vic Atiyeh versus Neil Goldschmidt, Ted Kulongski, John Kitzhaber.
Kitzhaber’s stupidity led us straight to Kate Brown, who presided over our state’s descent into governmental disability; now we are ranked among our nation’s worst, if not the worst. She was more concerned with flaunting her bisexuality after her election, appearing at inauguration with her with her husband and his boyfriend on the side, and her girlfriend on the side.
Tina Kotek has the intelligence and political skills to be a fine governor, if she can lose her ideology. So far that is not happening.
Portland has had excellent women as mayors and councilors—find another Vera Katz and Margaret Strachan. If you can.
I seem to be in District 3. November 2024 will be fun to watch!
My dad worked directly with Atiyeh, Goldschmidt, Roberts and Kitzhaber (first edition) and retired at 58 and stopped answering his phone when Kulongoski came in.
My step mom stayed the course to finish what she set out to do in her department before retiring – but I think may have had homicidal thoughts w/regard to Ted.
I got a lot of inside poop when I was growing up.
BTW – Neil holds the distinction of having hit on both my mom and my step mom – the guy was a serious creep.
One thing I learned – the best people aren’t always the most effective leaders. Very disheartening.
So excited! I trust Steph Routh with our transportation future, and know she’s the best person for the job.
Go Routh Go!…to win!!