EU Extra: Kali Akuno

Summary

Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff

Episode: EU Extra: Kali Akuno
Date: December 20, 2018
Guest: Kali Akuno (Cooperation Jackson, Jackson, Mississippi)

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Overview of the Episode

This Economic Update Extra episode is a candid, deeper dive into the work of Cooperation Jackson, focusing on how they set up worker co-ops and democratic workplaces amid considerable economic and structural challenges. Host Richard D. Wolff converses with Kali Akuno about the nuts and bolts of building a solidarity economy in Jackson, Mississippi, and the lessons drawn from their grassroots organizing.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Structure and Setup of Worker Co-ops

[01:04–05:11]

• Unique Model: Cooperation Jackson’s approach is adapted for people with limited or negative credit history. Akuno stresses the need to avoid external loans and instead pool resources internally.
  • Quote: “Most of the workers that we were going to encounter do not have a deep credit history other than a negative one… so there's hardly any credit.” (Kali Akuno, 01:08)
• Resource Pooling & Internal Support: Cooperation Jackson serves as a central entity offering training, incubation, and small loans. Startups receive stipends for participants and startup capital, allowing experimentation without outside debt.
• Example Co-ops:
  • Freedom Farms received ~$20k in startup funds
  • The Green Team received ~$30k
• Revolving Fund: Once these co-ops generate returns, they pay funds back into an internal revolving fund to help launch future initiatives.
• Timeframe & Reality Check: Original ambitious goals ("30 co-ops in five years") have been slowed by real-life constraints: diverse skills, family demands, and the challenge of learning democracy at work.

2. Building Democratic Workplaces

[05:11–07:56]

• Democratic Learning Curve: For many, democratic work is unfamiliar, as workers are used to hierarchical structures.
  • Quote: “How are we going to make decisions? Are we going to make decisions by majority vote, by consensus, or…some combination?...People have to figure all that out.” (Kali Akuno, 01:48)
• Responsibility and Ownership: Members must understand that their outcomes depend on collective effort and individual responsibility.
  • Quote: “You’re the ones who are going to be getting up 6 o’clock in the morning…you have to figure out how to make that work for yourself.” (Kali Akuno, 05:36)
• Participatory Decision-Making: Even when Akuno or others make suggestions, the collective has the final say to truly foster democracy.
  • Quote: “We should come with our best ideas, put them forward, and people can accept them or reject them if you're building a democratic culture and not imposing.” (Kali Akuno, 06:31)
• Testing the System: Team members sometimes challenge suggestions to ensure the democratic process is genuine.
  • Quote: “People sometimes want to test, like, how democratic—like, okay, you the one doing it. This. Just suggesting you’re doing.” (Kali Akuno, 07:35)

3. Collective Economic Decisions & Solidarity

[07:56–10:56]

• Setting Pay Collectively: Worker-owners decide their own pay and how resources are allocated.
  • Quote: “That’s all on them.” (Kali Akuno, 08:08)
• Personal Sacrifice for the Collective: Akuno shares his own story of choosing collective strategic priorities over immediate personal financial needs (prioritizing land purchase over back pay—even as personal bills stacked up).
  • Quote: “Are we going to take some of this and, like, pay ourselves…or are we going to utilize these resources for something more strategic?” (Kali Akuno, 09:06)
• Social Safety Net: Collective solutions extend beyond economics—helping each other with child care, job search, and basic survival during lean times.
  • Quote: “We found ways democratically and collectively to help each other. And that's ultimately what I think we are trying to build. That's the solidarity component…” (Kali Akuno, 10:41)

4. The Broader Social Impact & Remedying Isolation

[10:56–12:57]

• Loneliness & Neoliberalism: Wolff describes rising social isolation among workers due to gig work and neoliberal economic policy.
  • Quote: “I sometimes think that what will get this worker co-op idea to become a prairie fire is when people realize that's really a better way to live.” (Wolff, 11:24)
• Solidarity as Resistance: Akuno argues that neoliberalism intentionally fragments solidarity to prevent working-class power—co-ops can rebuild that consciousness and collective future.
  • Quote: “I think I've got a deeper understanding of it [neoliberalism] as a political project which is about breaking all the social solidarity amongst us.” (Kali Akuno, 11:57)
  • Quote: “If we don't have it, we'll all be stuck in front of our own individual TVs and our smartphone. Yeah. Suffering, stupid. Suffering in silence. And there's a better way to do it.” (Kali Akuno, 12:39)

5. How to Get Involved or Learn More

[12:57–14:21]

• Engagement Opportunities:
  • Visitors are welcome in Jackson to tour, but even more, to work alongside the co-ops
  • Online: cooperationjackson.org, Facebook (Cooperation Jackson), Twitter (@CooperationJXN)
  • Email: [e-mail]
  • Quote: “Come and work. Come and engage in some solidarity with us…and, you know, go out with green team or come do some new work at our developing community production center or go put some time in one of the farm plots.” (Kali Akuno, 13:23)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Credit and Access: “Most of the workers that we were going to encounter do not have a deep credit history other than a negative one…so there's hardly any credit.” (Kali Akuno, 01:08)
• On Democratic Process: “How are we going to make decisions? Are we going to make decisions by majority vote…People have to figure all that out.” (Kali Akuno, 01:48)
• On Participatory Culture: “We should come with our best ideas, put them forward, and people can accept them or reject them if you're building a democratic culture and not imposing.” (Kali Akuno, 06:31)
• On True Solidarity: “We found ways democratically and collectively to help each other. And that's ultimately what I think we are trying to build. That's the solidarity component…” (Kali Akuno, 10:41)
• On Loneliness & Systemic Change: “I sometimes think that what will get this worker co-op idea to become a prairie fire is when people realize that's really a better way to live.” (Richard D. Wolff, 11:24)
• On Neoliberalism: “Neoliberalism…is about breaking all the social solidarity amongst us.” (Kali Akuno, 11:57)
• On Involvement: “Show and tell, but we prefer come and work. Yes, even better.” (Kali Akuno, 13:19)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:04–05:11: How Cooperation Jackson structures worker co-ops, internal finance, examples of Freedom Farms and Green Team
• 05:12–07:56: Learning and applying democracy in everyday work, handling responsibility
• 07:56–10:56: Collective decision-making; Akuno’s personal choice of collective over personal gain
• 10:56–12:57: Addressing worker loneliness and social fragmentation; how solidarity economies offer a remedy
• 12:57–14:21: Ways to visit, participate, or connect with Cooperation Jackson

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Conclusion

This episode provides a practical and inspiring insight into building cooperative economics from the ground up, including the obstacles, the evolving process of genuine democracy at work, and how solidarity and mutual aid are fundamental responses to both economic austerity and social isolation. Kali Akuno and the model at Cooperation Jackson offer a vision of workplace democracy rooted in solidarity—one aiming not just at economic survival, but at the transformation of society itself.

Transcript

[Richard D. Wolff]

Welcome Patreon friends to Economic Update Extra. Here is where we continue the interviews from the regular part of the show or the major discussions I sometimes lead myself in order to give you some of the extras that we enjoy as a kind of return to you for the support you have provided to us. So on the program, the regular program, I was discussing with my guest Kalia Kuno from Jackson, Mississippi's Cooperation Jackson, the economic development program they're engaged in, with its special focus on worker co ops as a kind of core institution.

[Interviewer/Host]

And I wanted to continue the conversation by asking you to give us some flavor, if you could, of what it means to set up an enterprise as a worker co op for people who have a vague idea but would like to know, since there are variations, of course, how are you doing it? What kinds of democratic workplaces are you setting up? How do they work?

[Kalia Kuno]

Our model, I would say, is a bit unique and let me describe kind of why. So in our case, we started off, you know, a mere four years ago knowing that most of the workers that we were going to encounter do not have a deep credit history other than a negative one, you know, in many cases. So there's hardly any credit. Now, why is that important? We knew that in the traditional sense of bringing folks together and trying to secure loans and resources, that our folks are going to be at a major disadvantage. So we tried to set up our model in such a way that we could kind of pool some resources together, like as a central entity and then have that entity, which is the Cooperation Jackson main body, serve as both kind of a training hub and incubator, but also kind of a small loan provider. Right. And so in our case, what we've done over the course of this couple of four years, we bring folks on to work with stipends, right? Like minimal stipends, to be able to buy some of their time so that they can learn, set up their, you know, do the bylaws, do the internal operating agreements, the things that you need to do your basic operation, and then determine, well, what is the share going to be? Like, how much can you contribute? How much can I contribute? You know, what are going to be, you know, like the parameters of the work, who's going to fall into doing this division of labor, that division of labor, how often are we going to meet, right? How are we going to make decisions? Are we going to make decisions by majority vote, we're going to make decisions by consensus, or are we going to do some combination of that? People have to figure all that out Right. And so we've kind of bought some of the time with these stipends to bring people on. Then the other unique feature about our pieces of what we've been able to do, you know, gracefully and thankfully at this point is to provide all of the startup groups with a bit of startup capital. And this is important in our case because you don't. We've set it up so that they don't have to start off going for kind of external loans. And it gives people some time and some flexibility to kind of experiment and tweak and get it right without necessarily having to completely fail and fall flat on your face, which is in the normal market, a normal business happens all the time. That happens all the time. And you have to do that. So we tried to take that experience, you know, many of us, a few of us in the original corps, having run some businesses and run some, well, and lost some, try to take that and say, how do we build a foundation that will be able to last? And so we've been able to provide Freedom Farms, which is one of the main co ops, the green team, we've been able to provide them with Freedom Farms is a range of. I think we've given them $20,000 that can start up and they've taken that and run with it. The green team, I think, has been more about like $30,000 over the course of the last two years. They've both grown to a place now where they're paying that money back into kind of our own internal revolving fund so that we can now start some other endeavors and initiatives and they would have those resources available to them to be able to grow. Now we've just kind of gotten to this point with those two, which is why I'm citing. We've just kind of gotten to those two points, but this was always a part of our program and design. But it takes time. I mean, I was one who thought initially we'd have like 30 co ops in five years. Takes a little bit more time than that, in part because you're dealing with so many uneven aspects of individual development amongst the folks that you're working with. People coming in with different variances of skills, different demands on their time between family, sometimes other jobs, you know, trying to make ends meet. So it takes some time. And then there's learning how to be democratic.

[Interviewer/Host]

Exactly right.

[Kalia Kuno]

That is not in a hierarchy, not.

[Interviewer/Host]

With the boss telling you what to do, but to discover that you're part of the boss yourself.

[Kalia Kuno]

And what that means.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yes.

[Kalia Kuno]

What the responsibility, the Good news about it and the hard news. That's right. And what that means in its entirety. And that is a challenge. And one of the things that we've seen in almost every single endeavor is there kind of comes to a particular point of folks kind of getting their stuff off the ground, getting the operations off the ground, but then they're still kind of, well, tell us what to do, tell us what to do, tell us what to do. And so I am, from one, I think I always say, hey, we should come with our best ideas, put them forward, and people can't accept them or reject them if you're building a democratic culture and not imposing. And so that's what we try to do. Say, look, this is what we would advise. But you have to figure out how that's going to actually work for you and your unit, because you guys are the ones that live with it. You got to live with it. But you're the ones who are going to be getting up 6 o' clock in the morning to beat the sun, to get out there and then farm you. You're the ones who's going to have to be getting up early in the morning, regardless of the conditions. If you have to cut a lawn or somebody wants something chopped down, you're the guys who got to do that. I'm not the one in this case doing it. So you have to figure out how to make that work for yourself. And that's the critical piece, I think, to the onus of it is growing to develop, taking that responsibility forward and accepting that, hey, if I don't do it, it's not going to get done. And if I don't do it, that means I don't really, I don't eat, I don't make the income I need.

[Interviewer/Host]

And I'm letting down these other people.

[Kalia Kuno]

And I'm letting down my.

[Interviewer/Host]

Who are making the same decision regarding me.

[Kalia Kuno]

Right. So, you know, there's beauty in it.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yes.

[Kalia Kuno]

I mean, there must be moments where.

[Interviewer/Host]

Individuals kind of get it for the first time.

[Kalia Kuno]

Yes.

[Interviewer/Host]

And they rise to the kind of situation.

[Kalia Kuno]

And to me, it's always remarkable, at least within my role, to sit back and see when the lights turn on. Right. Like, oh, okay, all right. And the moments of, you know, pushback, you know, and there's been moments where, you know, like, I'd offer a suggestion and somebody was like, well, no, we're not gonna do that. I'm like, okay, you know, and it's. But it's, but it's. What I love about that is People sometimes want to test, like, how democratic. Like, okay, you the one doing it. This. Just suggesting you're doing.

[Interviewer/Host]

Is it real or is it bs?

[Kalia Kuno]

Yeah, that's right. And so that's a. That's also a part, you know, kind of the to grow, love, learn. But, you know, these are the. These are the details of it, you know.

[Interviewer/Host]

Let me ask you a question. Do the workers themselves in the Freedom Farms and the Green Team, so on, do they collectively decide how much they get paid? Do they work that hard?

[Kalia Kuno]

That's all on them. That's all on them.

[Interviewer/Host]

How do they handle? I mean, that's got to be a new experience. I've lived all my life in the United States.

[Kalia Kuno]

No one ever put me in that position. Well, I mean, but see, this is something. We started practicing this overall. So when we first came into being, we started Mayday 2014. And that was intentional and deliberate on our part. We were first kind of granted some resources by some major artists in particular, who knew some of us supported our work, wanted to see it get off the ground. And then we had to make that initial quarrel. We had to make a hardcore choice, myself included. I'll just start with that personal story. So this is, you know, May, and the resources didn't really come into June, so I lost my job basically in March when Choke died because I was working for the city. So March, April, May, June come around. You know, I'm scrounging around for, like, for four months, but some resources come in. Now my bills are stacking up. Yes. And I have to work and look with a collective and look at folks and say, you know, our number one priority strategically is acquiring, like, land so that we can do farming. We have some other capital assets to build upon. But there was a group of us, all of us, we hadn't worked for four months to be like, well, are we going to take some of this and, like, pay ourselves? Because the folks were fine with that, or are we going to utilize these resources for something more strategic? And we sat and deliberated for about two weeks. That's tough. Ultimately came out and be like, stick with the strategy. Let's stick with the priority. We made that decision collectively and we put that towards buying the first set of properties in our community landscape.

[Interviewer/Host]

And still looking at the bills.

[Kalia Kuno]

And still looking at the bills. But then came up with some collective solutions of how we're going to help each other with childcare, how we're going to help each other with job searches in that time period. But those are the democratic choices. That you can make working in the collective, working towards a set of goals that and aims and stick with people and figure out, because it's not just making a choice to do that. It was the other, the back end choice of how we gonna support each other through this. Like that was the critical piece that enabled that to happen. And that's where I think the beauty of it is that we didn't all have to go running our own separate ways, you know, cause times were tight. We found ways democratically and collectively to help each other. And that's ultimately what I think we are trying to build. That's the solidarity component of when we say the solidarity economy. That is a critical component that you have to build, I think ultimately to make this work.

[Interviewer/Host]

In the first half of this program that we're continuing now, I did a little segment on loneliness because there are now studies all over Western Europe, North America, Japan, that workers, as they cobble together jobs, none of which pay very well, don't have the benefits they once had. They have no time for themselves, no time to take care of their basic life needs. And they feel isolated and they feel alone. I sometimes think that what will get this worker co op idea to become a prairie fire is when people realize that's really a better way to live. To help each other is a lot better and more secure than anything this larger economy offers us. It's been a hustle all along and kind of we see through it. I could see you becoming really very influential with that part of your story.

[Kalia Kuno]

Hopefully, I mean, hopefully that's the intent. I think we want to draw people into our experience to see how do you overcome certain challenges and how you have to pull stuff together to do that. You know, in a large part of. To me, you know, I've lived experience fighting against what we would call neoliberalism. But it's been just within this last four years. I think I've got a deeper understanding of it as a political project which is about breaking all the social solidarity amongst us. So that there is no kind of collective working class consciousness that emerges. And we see ourselves not only having common interest, but a common future that we can build together. And I think co ops could be a great remedy, as you say, in terms of recreating that solidarity which is intentionally being fragmented and broken. But it's necessary if we're going to really transform this society to have it's fundamental. If we don't have it, we'll all be stuck in front of our own individual TVs and our smartphone. Yeah. Suffering, stupid. Suffering in silence. And there's a better way to do it. There's a better way to live.

[Interviewer/Host]

What's the best way for people interested in all of this to connect with you, to learn more about it?

[Kalia Kuno]

What.

[Interviewer/Host]

What advice would you give to listeners, to viewers, about that?

[Kalia Kuno]

Well, you can always come down to Jackson. That's number one. We welcome that. And for those of you in the.

[Interviewer/Host]

Audience, by the way, do you show people? Can people come and.

[Kalia Kuno]

Yeah, they. People come all the time.

[Interviewer/Host]

Get a. Get a show and tell kind of going.

[Kalia Kuno]

Show and tell, but we prefer come and work. Yes, even better. You know, come and work. Come and engage in some solidarity with us and, you know, go out with green team or come do some new work at our developing community production center or go put some time in one of the farm plots. You can do that. But the easiest way is, of course, in this day and age, go to our website, cooperationjackson.org or you can look us up on Facebook and Twitter. We're there. Twitter. It's cooperation. CooperationJXN. And Facebook is just cooperation, Jackson. Those are the easiest way. You can also email [e-mail] to get in direct contact with us.

[Interviewer/Host]

All right, Kali, as usual, thank you very much.

[Kalia Kuno]

Thank you.

[Richard D. Wolff]

And just remember that this program and.

[Interviewer/Host]

The people who watch it are cheerleading for you to succeed and learning from you at the same time. So. And I hope to be doing that with you soon, even down there.

[Kalia Kuno]

Yeah, we come. We hope to see you soon.

[Richard D. Wolff]

All right, thank you all for joining us. Thank you again, Patreon Community, for your support and your solidarity with everything we try to do. And I look forward to speaking with you again next week.