Sara Horowitz

This book is a compelling overview of the age-old social, political, and economic movement of "mutualism." In it's pages, you'll hear a history of unions in the United States, and the stories from Horowitz's and her families contributions to the evolution of mutualism during this period.

If you're reading the introduction to this book and feel like, "I already know all this stuff," keep going; there will be new material for you. Horowitz does begin with somewhat generic language, but quickly gets into fascinating living examples.

I am left wondering: what is the Venn diagram of commoning and mutualism? Horowitz has a segment where she sketches out the spheres of the market and the state. I assumed she was going to next say, "and then there's commoning," but she points to mutualism instead. Although I'm familiar with co-operatives and unions, I've never heard someone use the word "mutualism" in the way in which she does, and I'm curious why she has differentiated mutualism from commoning (the latter of which has a which has an extensive body of research behind it).

I hear that Horowitz served on the New York Federal Reserve Board; this is the part of her career that fascinates me most, and I wish we'd gotten to hear more about it in the book!

If you're looking for a book about the future of unions, cooperativism, and social structures beyond the market and the state, this is a great place to look!… (mehr)

Extreme right wingers are more varied, sometimes it's about god, sometimes it's about freedom to shoot the burglar. With left wingers it's always the same - it's always unions. Whatever the book is about, the solution is unions. You know, the ones hiring gangsters and beating up strike breakers and forcing everyone to pay their dues or else. Those guys. Because the solution to exploitation by the employer is not legislation but a protection racket.

The book itself is biographical self-aggrandising drivel.

The author is very proud of starting some freelancer union, she repeats it more than a dozen times. Her union is special and it really listens to it's victims. It provides appropriate health cover for them, like acupuncture. She doesn't mention homeopathy but I'm sure there's cover for that too.… (mehr)