Episode 256 of RevolutionZ features Emily Kawano from Solidarity Economy to discuss Solidarity economy's origins, range, and definition including its guiding values and its approach to ownership, equity, markets, and pluralism, all in pursuit of post capitalist practice in the present.
Episode 256 of RevolutionZ features Emily Kawano from Solidarity Economy to discuss Solidarity economy's origins, range, and definition including its guiding values and its approach to ownership, equity, markets, and pluralism, all in pursuit of post capitalist practice in the present.
Hello, my name is Michael Albert and I am the host of the podcast that's titled Revolution Z. This is our 256th consecutive episode and this time our guest is Emily Kiwano. Emily is a founder and co -coordinator of the US Solidarity Economy Network and co-director of Wellspring Cooperative, a nonprofit working to build solidarity economy initiatives and a network of worker-owned businesses in underserved communities of Springfield, massachusetts. She has a PhD in economics from UMass Amherst. She served as director of the Center for Popular Economics, worked on economic justice issues at the American Friends Service Committee and founded a popular economics program in Belfast with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. So, emily, welcome to Revolution Z.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much. It's great to be here.
Speaker 1:How about if we start with solidarity economy Before getting into precisely what it is and sort of to motivate listeners paying very serious attention to that? Can you give us an idea of its presence? Where is it? How large is it?
Speaker 2:Great question. So solidarity economy as a framework has been around. It's relatively new, so I would say maybe 20 years or something. It emerged both simultaneously out of Europe France in particular and Latin America, but in the United States it was virtually an unheard of term until 2007, where we at the Center for Popular Economics helped to pull together a solidarity economy track at the US social forum in Atlanta and out of that track and some meetings also that took place there, there was a decision to form the US solidarity economy network. So that was the first real official appearance of solidarity economy in the United States and, as I said, virtually unheard of.
Speaker 2:I would say. We've made gradual progress over the past what? 13 years or so, 17. Thank you for my math. Yeah, so now I would say it is pretty widely known. At least the term is known in many circles, that many of which surprised me. But in the progressive left, social movements absolutely is known and is increasingly embraced, as well as philanthropy, its gaining traction in the academy, although it could use a lot more support. But in the United States I would say we went from basically zero to being pretty well known in that amount of time.
Speaker 1:And more so in Latin America and parts of Europe right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely Very strong, very strong in those places, but at the same time it has emerged in all throughout the world. So it is a global movement and there are networks of solidarity, economy, practitioners and scholars, etc. Etc. Etc. All throughout the world.
Speaker 1:Okay, so it really is quite substantial. But now, what is it? What makes each component of solidarity economy, each project, each advocate, a part of the whole? I guess put that differently. For an economic undertaking to call itself a part of solidarity economy, what characteristics does it need to have?
Speaker 2:Right. So let me lay out the definition. This definition comes both from the US solidarity economy network as well as RAPES. So RAPES is the international solidarity economy network, and it in turn is comprised of solidarity economy networks on every continent on the planet except for Antarctica, and so we embarked on a two year global consultation to build a foundation of agreed upon definitions. And so here's just a bit. Number one it is a framework. So number one, it's a framework. It is a framework that connects solidarity economy practices and, of course, the practitioners, and those practice practices and practitioners align around solidarity economy values.
Speaker 2:Now, those values will be articulated slightly different in different places of the world and in different contexts, but the US solidarity economy network uses five. So one is solidarity, so solidarity, cooperation, mutualism, etc. That's one. Number two is democracy, so we talk about participatory democracy, certainly beyond the electoral sphere. Number three is equity. We talk about equity in all dimensions race, class, gender, etc. Number four is sustainability, environmentally. And the fifth value is pluralism, which means it is not a one size fits all model. We believe that there are many paths to the same goal of creating an economy and, ultimately, a world that serves people and planet and not private profits and blind growth, and so all of this. The last point that I'll say is all of this articulates a post capitalist world. So solidarity economy. Is very clear that we do not believe that one of those paths is through reforming capitalism. We believe that capitalism is going to kill us and we have to be thinking beyond capitalism.
Speaker 1:And yet, at the same time, we live now, and so solidarity economy includes lots of projects and well, I guess really projects is the right word that are within the existing economy, in some cases are owned, in other cases certainly are functioning within the market, etc. Etc. But if I'm hearing you right, the thing as a whole is aimed toward generating a post capitalist system.
Speaker 2:Correct.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So the practices for instance, cooperatives, community land, trust, participatory governance or budgeting, local currency, social currencies, etc. Etc. Etc. Right, they are one, they hopefully adhere to the whole range of value, sustainability and equity. But what is one thing that is really important, that demarcates these practices, is that they are collectively owned, where there is ownership, owned and governed. So that's really important. So, for example, for cooperative businesses, they are collectively owned and governed, right, so clearly fall, clearly are non capitalist enterprises or entities and fit within solidarity economy. Regardless of whether the individuals know about or particularly embrace solidarity economy as a framework, we would still say this form right, this form fits. Now, an individual instance could be something that we would consider abhorrent, because maybe they are sexist or they are not sustainable or something like that.
Speaker 2:But yeah, so we're really looking at practices that are not. They are not capitalist in terms of having an owner who owns and controls and then workers right, that class distinction does not exist.
Speaker 1:So what do advocates of solidarity economy see first, let's say, as obstacles to displaying, embodying solidarity and really all five values in our current economy? So what are the features of capitalism, of our current economy, that are seen by solidarity economy as the problem in economics?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 2:Well, the mainstream dominant capitalist paradigm encourages a certain way of being, and it's grounded in this character homo economicus, right literally economic man, who's the main protagonist in this story, right about the economy.
Speaker 2:And homo economicus is presumed to be calculating, self interested, rational, always trying to get the biggest bang for the buck for the for them cells. And so it's kind of problematic to assume that this is human nature and then to build an economic system around that. And that's what capitalism does, and it can entirely abstracts from or excludes another side of human nature, which is about solidarity and cooperation and altruism and care and and and compassion and love. Right, surely, we have both of these sides to to our natures, and then economic system needs to take us as our whole cells, and so capitalism does promote that self serving behavior, that competitive and acquisitive and self interested behavior. I will say, though, despite that, despite all the efforts of capitalism to promote that right, the other side of human nature persists. It persists, the solidarity and the cooperation and the care and the compassion persists, and so there's always something to build on there.
Speaker 1:It's actually a very strong argument. I think exactly what you said when you, when you recognize, okay, all the institutions around us, all the economic institutions until a considerable extent other institutions also promote the vile outcome. Let's call it the the anti humane, anti solidarity, etc. Etc. Outcome almost nothing promotes the good side that you talked about.
Speaker 1:That's rather an obstacle to it, and yet it's there so one has this tremendous power to it to, and the other is continually reinforced. Okay, so so am I right, then, that solidarity economy is is basically saying I look, we got to get rid of those institutions. For that reason, they make us the worst we could be, and we should have institutions which, for example, promote solidarity, promote equity and so on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right. I think we would go a little bit further and saying institutions and policies matter a lot, but it is also about culture. It is challenging, it's the whole shebang right like, and the economy is about institutions and policies, but it is also a framework, kind of almost a. It is a story, right, and it has a set of beliefs and and and values that go along with it, and we need to change that story into something that does make room for our, our better angels.
Speaker 1:So for me and the audience does solidarity economy mean that to be fully solidarities not just a practice now moving that way, but to be fully solidarities and economy needs to be classless, without economic constituencies that basically benefit from one another's loss, that dominate one another and so on?
Speaker 2:I would agree with that absolutely. I would say you know, can I imagine? Just like capitalism exists, I accept it as the dominant economic paradigm. At the same time, there are instances of of enterprises and practices that are not capitalist. So cooperatives are, are not a capitalist enterprise and yet exist within capitalism. So could I imagine a future where it's flipped and solidarity economy is the dominant economic system, and there might be, you know, there might still be some small vestige of something that is capitalist. Yeah, I could imagine that, right, like but. But the important thing is that the dominant, the dominant economic system and value and framework, and that philosophy and culture is is changed, right?
Speaker 1:Okay, let me go ahead with this.
Speaker 2:I guess I'm a little cautious about being absolutist, like we're gonna hunt down everybody who's in the clientele.
Speaker 1:Kill em.
Speaker 2:You know, I just don't want to get into that, you know.
Speaker 1:Right, I understand in the same way. Does what you're saying imply, or is it even stated, that to be a fully solidaritist, an economy would have to be something like what we call maybe use the word into communalist, without racial and cultural hierarchies?
Speaker 2:Certainly that would be one of the values absolutely.
Speaker 1:And likewise then without gender kinship and sexual hierarchies.
Speaker 2:Correct yeah, okay that would be part of the equity right, equity in all dimensions, right. So it's really anti oppression and anti hierarchy. Now does I mean the hierarchy right, like? Does that mean you couldn't have somebody who is, you know, the manager in a particular situation? There will be a particular situation, but not permanently. Exactly yes.
Speaker 1:Right, okay, I think it follows that you're gonna answer. I mean, I know the answers are gonna be could, could an economic process, economic institutions? Well, let me make it a little bit less less evident what the answer would be could a solidarity economy have private ownership? You've already said no right, no, no, no. Private ownership of business, of business. You have a shirt of business.
Speaker 2:So on the one hand right. So say you have a worker co-op, those workers own the business. Is that private right in the same?
Speaker 1:you know it's collectively owned, it could be collectively owned by as few as two or three. In a solidarity economy, that's a good question. In a solidarity economy, do workers own a business, by which let's let's have it mean that that business competes on a market and the workers try to enhance their own circumstances, irrespective of impact on others. It's the opposite of solidarity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, hard to control for. Is there a culture among worker co-ops that discourages that and encourage is concerned for community and cooperation among cooperatives? Yes, is a track record so far that they absolutely tend to reflect the values of like the whole right all the worker owners? The answer is yes. Do they tend to be good citizens and care about the community, partly because the workers who own the business live in the community? The answer is yes. So be hard to really legislate this right, but it is certainly a cultural value in the worker co-op Fear.
Speaker 1:But what we said, or what you said earlier, I think, was you want to get rid of, replace with something better, institutions which which advance the worst side of humanity, which actually compel, almost make us behave in those worst ways. Okay, so is the market such an institution?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know you and I have had this conversation many years ago and I will say what I said.
Speaker 1:As we discussed. I don't.
Speaker 2:I will say what I said then. Which is one thing that I love about solidarity economy is it is is this commitment to pluralism right? So I know that there are people like yourself, as I understand it, who really believe that markets are untameable and the very existence and use of markets will lead to this kind of competitive and somewhat destructive dynamic. Me personally, I am not absolutely convinced that's just me personally convinced that markets are not tameable and that we cannot regulate them in such a way as to be useful. What I love about solidarity economy is it is not going to take sides. It's going to say okay, let's try. You know, some places might choose to eliminate markets and have some kind of a planned economy. Let's see how that works. And other places might use a market, but really try to regulate it. So it does encourage good outcomes. Let's try and let's. Rather than trying to tear each other down with with arguments and accusations about who's right, who's wrong, let's have an open mind. Let's see what works.
Speaker 2:And that's nice thing about solidarity economy.
Speaker 1:And they abstract. I agree the attitude that we don't know everything and that in the future, future experience will lead to solutions that we don't foresee, etc. Okay, we agree on that. So we're not generating a blueprint. We're generating some core notions, some core commitments. But now the question is, what's in that core set of commitments? So you wouldn't say I anticipate that in a solidarity economy we'll experiment with slavery.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Right, okay, and you wouldn't say that in a solidarity economy, we'll experiment with, I think you wouldn't say central planning or authoritarian planning.
Speaker 2:Authoritarian for sure. Yeah, to what extent is central planning that has information from decentralized sources and it kind of boggles my mind to think about? Maybe there is some kind of capacity, using computerized information technology, really to coordinate those micro local level decisions to really get some accurate read on the input output. I mean, maybe that's possible, I don't know.
Speaker 1:But authoritarian. I would call that participatory planning and I would say I hope to hell it's possible, Because if it isn't possible in my reading, then we've got a real problem because the allocation institution is going to regenerate and continually generate anti solidarity hierarchy etc. So we have to figure out that question.
Speaker 2:Isn't it? Yeah, I mean that's, and let me just say one last thing.
Speaker 1:Although we have to figure out that question, it doesn't mean that every aspect of it I mean, look, even capitalism right in one country and another country. There are differences In one part of a country and another part of a country. There are different. There's no single capitalist picture in which everything is fine, is finely tuned, that private ownership, markets plus central planning. You know Amazon is centrally planned, so, but it has these core institutions private ownership Am I off the wall in saying that if solidarity economy wants to be not just and there's nothing minimal about this but not just a sort of set of possibilities and commitments for the present, leading in a good direction, so that's good. But if it also wants to be an alternative to capitalism, right, something that is expressing it, that this is an alternative to capitalism still doesn't need to be a blueprint, but doesn't it have to offer answers to certain questions you know, like how do decisions get made in the workplace, for it to be a saw there, and so on?
Speaker 2:Agreed. I wouldn't go so far as to say that markets is one of those done deals.
Speaker 1:All right, so that's it.
Speaker 2:Yes, right, in terms of equity and anti-oppression, clearly, clearly so obviously. Markets a little less so. But certainly welcoming the debate. Right, certainly make your make your case about why, why, why a market is impossible. Right for the economy and relationships and culture to be embedded in markets, right. So once upon a time, markets were places where people did have relationships, right, they knew, they knew they were buying from, etc. And there was solidarity between people in the marketplace and one seller will help out another, so right there was much more cooperation the way you're asking the question, I'd agree with you.
Speaker 1:Right, you're a solidarist and you're operating within a market, right You're? I mean sure, but as an institution governing allocation, it's going to produce, I think, a class division, all sorts of problems.
Speaker 2:But anyway, set that aside for a minute.
Speaker 1:Given your your description of what constitutes a solidarity economy member, so to speak, a workplace organized in accord with participatory economics would also be a solidarity economy. A workplace, you know that's. You know that's. That much is clear, yes. But let me ask you another question, because you use the word equity a few times, and that that was one of the values you mentioned. I think so what is it?
Speaker 2:Equity as opposed to equality.
Speaker 2:You know you've probably seen that one depiction of it is equality is if there's there are people in there trying to see over a fence, everybody gets a football a pie box, and equity would mean if there are somebody shorter, they might get a three foot box and somebody who's taller might get a one foot box, etc. So equity means that everybody gets sort of equal access according to what they need. So when we talk about equity, that's what we're talking about, whether whether it's a long dimensions of gender or sex or sexual orientation or sexual identity or gender identity or race or religion, etc. Right that?
Speaker 1:right, so none of those things should affect equity, I mean should affect income, so to speak, right?
Speaker 2:Right, exactly. Or opportunities or education, etc.
Speaker 1:But now I'm wondering should how long you work affect what your income is?
Speaker 2:Good question, you know again right, there will be different answers. So I can answer personally but I can't answer for for solidarity economy in general. And always it's one thing that solidarity economy I think always encourages is let's have that conversation right. Let's have that conversation and maybe there's never any right answer, ultimately right, objective answer, but people will be persuaded one way or another. So always welcoming of the dialogue.
Speaker 1:Okay, let me try it a slightly different way. You're in a workplace and, as I don't know, 100 work doesn't matter. There's some number of workers, it's not just you and one thing that you might be saying is that the workers are going to decide how to allocate the income that the workplace has allocated to it. In other words, the workplace as a whole has a certain amount of claim on output, a certain amount of income allowed it to it. Then the workers are going to collectively decide how much each one gets. So far we're agreed, right, yep, okay. So now I have two questions. One is what determined how much the workplace got? And the second question is inside the workplace, what if the workers? One hopes this wouldn't happen, but is there anything institutionally needed? So should it be that the workers can decide that the person who's the biggest and most physically strong in the workplace, who's a friggin' bully, gets more than everybody else? I mean, are there any norms that apply?
Speaker 1:That's inside the workplace. But the bigger question is arguably what determines how much the workplace has to disperse among the workers.
Speaker 2:Right, so it would be called the surplus. I mean, I actually just call it profit, because actually it's the same Right after you've taken your revenue and then you subtract out all your expenses, whatever is left over the surplus or the profits, and then that is what workers get to decide.
Speaker 2:Are we going to plow it all back into the business? Are we going to do profit sharing? Are we going to give some back to the community? Some worker co-ops have written into their bylaws A minimum of this amount must go here and a minimum of that amount must go there. Nice, so, yeah, this is decided by the workers. Yeah, so that's the first question.
Speaker 2:The second one is can workers decide if somebody gets paid a whole lot more for some reason? Right, the answer is yeah. I mean, ultimately workers can make that decision, although there are very, very, very many structures within co-ops. Some are completely horizontal, completely horizontal, so those are collectives, and others have some kind of a hierarchy and some of them have quite a steep hierarchy where there is a manager. The workers get to vote on the board. The board in turn appoints the director or the CEO or whatever you call them, right, so they don't directly make the kind of appointment, they don't directly choose the manager, right, so there's so much diversity is kind of hard to answer that question. I would say. In our co-ops and WellSprings co-ops, people have input into those kind of pay structures.
Speaker 1:All right. So here's where we start to part ways. The idea that the workplace generates a surplus and that the surplus generates the bundle, so to speak. To be for the workforce to then apportion among itself to me creates a situation highly akin to market pursuit of profits. I mean, it is the same as profits, it's just being decided among the workplace and that yields the possibility of the motivation of people being to be in the profitable workplace, to be more profitable to dump stuff on the neighborhood because it'll make us more, and on and on and on.
Speaker 1:And I never understood this at the beginning of the emergence of solidarity economy as much as I like lots of it, I never understood the reticence and I'm going to ask you a question that might not feel great. The reticence extend those values further.
Speaker 2:So public ownership basically.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well and or a productive commons, and you know, participatory planning a norm for equity, which doesn't relate equity to surplus, it doesn't even relate equity to output, other than that the output is desired. But equity is this thing that people should get for what they should get for, which is how long they work and how hard they work and how onerous the conditions of work are. But if they happen to do something that's highly valued, they don't get more, etc. Etc. And I always felt and if this isn't fair, tell me, but I always felt that the logic of the choice of solidarity economy, economics was keep it as open, which you've described a few times, and there's a virtuous part of that as we possibly can, so as not to preclude anybody who wants to say, oh, I like the solidarity economics, we'll have a reason not to say it, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:And it has felt like that's the motivation and I like the motivation in one sense, but it holds back actually getting into what are the institutions that make solidarity economics economics? You know under which it's? Is that fair or unfair?
Speaker 2:or what? No, that is entirely fair. And so what you described, right, a model that you would support, would certainly be something that solidarity economy would embrace, as it's what possibility, and certainly would encourage you. As we have right, let's have those debates, let's have those discussions convince me that what I described that there could be enterprises, there could be cooperative businesses, for example yes, they are competing, and is there another way to ensure that they are serving the greater good and not just pursuing their own selfish ends? Is there an alternative?
Speaker 1:And to get stuff made and to get stuff made Right.
Speaker 2:So is there an alternative? Let's have that debate. So what I think solidarity economy is really? Yes, it wants to create a big tent so that people won't say you know it's too restrictive. But also it is more than that. It's not just wanting to get the greatest number of adherents, it's also wanting to say we really don't know like you argue your piece. There are a bunch of things that, right, I've read Paris Con and I've taught Paris Con and it's interesting and we've had discussions and arguments and there are lots of things there I totally don't agree with. And there are other things that I have question marks about and other things I'd like history maybe we'll tell let's experiment, right, and so what solidarity economy does? It holds out the space for that dialogue. I am not convinced that anything that you just said is so like. It's not like slavery. Right is not crystal clear that there are not other alternatives that might be preferable, right, and so I want to hold out those possibilities.
Speaker 1:Okay, I mean, I don't have any problem with holding out the possibilities, but I do think the discussion is needed and I do think that there are some things that we, that a discussion can lead to agreement about, like no slavery, et cetera. I mean, there obviously are lots of things right, and you think that doesn't include, for example, replacing markets with participatory planning, because markets are grotesque. You don't think it means that we would agree on that, and I think we might Well.
Speaker 2:Markets have been around for an awfully long time way, predating capitalism, and there was a time when it was just a place where people could exchange goods and services.
Speaker 1:But that exists in participatory economics too. That's not what I mean by markets. And I know that's what you mean by markets, Okay so then maybe we have to be, defining what we mean by a market.
Speaker 2:Sure, because market has almost become synonymous with capitalism, which I completely think is problematic for people to think. Oh, any market, any kind of market, is just evil in and of itself because it's capitalism. There's been this kind of conflation.
Speaker 1:I would not argue that I think it's really bad.
Speaker 2:Really, yeah, really bad.
Speaker 1:I would not argue that for a minute, as evidenced by the fact that I think markets plus public ownership, plus state ownership, plus this, that and the other thing, are still abhorrent. So I think, in other words, markets are intrinsically. You don't need private ownership for them to be horrible. Now, maybe I'm wrong, but that is our difference in some sense, all right. Well, you mentioned that solidarity economics would like to have these kinds of debates. I think advocates of participatory economics and probably other things would like to have them too.
Speaker 1:One of the things that ZNet which is no longer me, in other words, I don't know whether you're aware, but ZNet has now a staff of seven. I sort of passed on and now I'm half emeritus. They call me, which means nothing, which means a good close friend, but they wanna initiate I think I have this right a program of debates, a program of conversations, of alternative ideas, trying to pursue a degree of unity, and maybe one could be set up, if I'm right about that, maybe one could be set up between not as adversarial, but just trying to explore and arrive at insights solidarity economy, people, participatory economy, people, whatever. I think that would be great.
Speaker 2:I think the dialogue, the debate, the exploring these ideas is great and very important. I do wanna mention that there is a difference. Unfortunately, it's kind of confusing between solidarity economics and solidarity economy. There are some folks Manuel Pastor and his colleague who have developed the program around solidarity economics, and it is more like high road, high road capitalism, if you're familiar with that. So it's like looking at what is a high road strategy for corporations, ones that respect labor rights and don't pollute the environment, blah, blah, blah, blah blah, but they're still capitalists.
Speaker 2:So, and I understand that they do it for political reasons. It's strategic right Not to alienate people who might be open to more progressive left ideas. And so we've had conversations, very friendly conversations, recognizing the difference. That solidarity economy is very clearly post-capital, solidarity economics is not so clearly. It's not clearly post-capitalist, although it's straddle like the whole spectrum.
Speaker 1:Am. I right, then, that they'll take the same list of values, like Bill Clinton would take your list of values and he would say, sure, I'm for all of it. And he would do it eloquently also because he's eloquent but it doesn't mean anything, I think. Well, it means a tiny bit, but it doesn't mean much, because he's also for institutions that put the lie to those values.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so a lot of it does really come down to how you're defining, how you're looking at democracy right and participants are looking at the same thing democracy right and participatory democracy and I suppose you could say a team production kind of model in corporate America's democracy right, where the teams of workers get to have some voice. So we would say we would answer that that might be, might be democratic, who knows? But it's also that sort of by the benevolence of the owning class, workers are given some voice and it can legally. They have the right and ability to withdraw that anytime. So we wanna see that democratic voice baked into the structure, which is why a capitalist enterprise is problematic.
Speaker 2:So you're right, like these values, you do have to parse them. You have to take them apart to really look at what it means in practice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the old adage power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. It's true. I think I actually think it's true for your human nature reasons at the outset. In other words, if I have power over you, how do I explain that to myself? I could say I took it tough shit, or I could say I deserve it in my own self-conception. If I deserve it, you don't, and therefore you are in some sense not as whole as I am, and that's what happens. And then that enlarges until the person who became a lawyer to help humanity is a schmuck, and so institutions have these kinds of effects.
Speaker 1:And now the problem is pinpointing which institutions have these kinds of effects, which ones we really can't have because they would fuck up what we're trying to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess I do wanna come back to culture. There are some of these things that I think, regardless of how you structure an institution and no matter what policies you have, without changing the culture, so that people are really cognizant of whether they are acquiring an exercising power, it has to be part of the culture, Otherwise you're litigating every twist and turn.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in other words, it's part of not just the institutions but our consciousness and our values and our yeah, exactly, and that's partly the answer to say a cooperative behaving in a way that is antisocial.
Speaker 2:It is partly about our culture and reinforcing that within Everybody. All the worker owners are saying, hey, we don't wanna dump in our own neighborhood, nor do we wanna dump in our neighbor's environment, like recognizing our final.
Speaker 1:But if you give them an incentive to do that and it's a big incentive, because if they don't do it, somebody else will do it and they'll get outcompeted- I mean that argument works when we're talking about capitalism. Yeah, yeah, it should also work when it anyway, we'll see yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I do have to jump.
Speaker 1:I know.
Speaker 2:That's why I was trying to move along too because you've got another call coming in. So thank you very much. It's been great and I certainly welcome future conversations and debate and let's say I will tell.
Speaker 1:Zina, that they should think about and pursue something along the lines of what we said. But it wouldn't be. I guess it would be written. I don't know what it would be.
Speaker 2:Anyway, we can talk about that later. Yeah, yeah, yeah, great to see you again. Take care.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much for being on. It was really good, and I guess that said this is Mike Albert signing off until next time for a revolution Z.