Selucia's Co-op EconomySelucia embraces cooperativesMembers of the co-op movement campaigning for the Republican PartyJanuary 4387 - As a result of a series of bills, most of them sponsored by the small yet surprisingly influential Republican Party, Selucia has adopted a largely distributist economy, an economic system based on the idea that ownership of the means of production and productive capital should be as widespread as possible. After years of providing tax incentives to cooperatives, the Senate recently privatized most State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) by selling them to their current employees, while at the same time requiring that every business be organized as a cooperative. As a result, credit unions have largely replaced banks, workers' cooperatives have replaced enterprises, mutual insurance is now the main form of health and other types of insurance, and consumer cooperatives now control most food retail, financial services, legal services, manufacturing, insurance services, and legal services. With membership in cooperative management open to almost every member, the Republicans can now claim, following lengthy but selective cooperation with both left-wing and right-wing parties, that they have achieved their goal of eliminating government monopoly and implementing their particular brand of "Republican liberty". Republican liberty, defined as non-domination or independence from arbitrary power and thus incompatible with the Liberal understanding of liberty as non-interference, is the core concept of the ancient ideology of Classical Republicanism, which the Republican Party's platform has universalized to encompass most citizens, and not just male land-owning citizen-soldiers as in ancient times.
A distributist economy has been the Republican Party's vision from its very inception, and over its relatively long stay in government its long-term goal of implementing an economic system based on its view of universalized Republican liberty was gradually implemented with a series of bills. The first of these, the
Salonian Law on Workers' Control passed in 4372 granted tax-exempt status for cooperatives, beginning the gradual cooperatisation of Selucian economy. The
Drusan Law on Opportunity of 4376 established the Opportunitas Program, a conditional direct cash payment to all households with children, paving the way for the future adoption of a Universal Basic Income. The failed
Laelian Law on Workers' Councils introduced in 4380 aimed to drastically increase taxes on businesses other than cooperatives but was rejected by the Senate as too radical, but the following year the
Clodian Law on Salaries succeeded in introducing a maximum wage of 11 times the lowest salary paid within the same company, with an increase for each additional employee, aiming to reduce wage disparity and eliminate inflation. And finally the
Clodian Law on Cooperatives passed in 4383 sold most State-Owned Enterprises to their employees, effectively privatizing SOEs under cooperative control, and introduced the requirement that every business must be a cooperative, while the
Nymphidian Law on Universal Income introduced a Universal Basic Income, financed by the dismantling or scaling back of several welfare benefits.
All these legislative initiatives were introduced with the stated goal of turning all or most citizens from employees to owners, granting them financial independence from both monopoly capitalism and state ownership, and promoting civic virtue. Due to the Republican Party's particular views on Republican liberty and civic virtue, it claims that its policies aim to foster a community where the citizens are all committed to the Republilcan ideal and everyone is willing to do their part in establishing it through active participation in the political process and through self-determination. The small party's reasoning has been that in unrestrained capitalism monopolies are natural and unavoidable, forcing workers into leonine contracts where the only alternative is starvation, but dependence on government welfare is no less restricting of Republican liberty, as it forces workers into the welfare trap, keeps them dependent on benefits, and discourages financial independence, or so the Party's propaganda claims.
Members of the Societas Cooperativa "Negotium Novum" voting on its corporate policy for 4386-4390Philosophical grandstanding aside, three years after the introduction of the Republican-initiated reforms their economic and social consequences are mixed. It is certainly far too soon to properly evaluate the long-term economic consequences of a distributist economy, but some of the first effects are showing. Many of the first co-ops were unsuccessful and declared bankruptcy months after founding, owing largely to a lack of initial capital but also caused by systemic mismanagement. However the failure rate of cooperatives has been much lower than for traditional companies, owing partly to the large number of people involved in starting a cooperative and the relatively high level of popular and community support, and more importantly strong government backing. Credit unions have been approving a larger amount of mortgages for low-income households and faced fewer loan delinquencies, while food cooperatives have been noticed to spend more revenues locally. Overall cooperatives seem to have a number of advantages over the old State-Owned Enterprises, their greatest advantage lying in their enjoying a shorter link between management and customers. In SOEs customers cannot actually influence management decisions other than through purchasing behavior, unless one votes and campaigns to influence elected politicians who ultimately impact SOE managers. In cooperatives customer-owners or worker-owners have direct influence over management, eliminating the government and bureaucrats as intermediaries.
However the impact of consumers and workers over the management of cooperatives may have been overstated, as they suffer from similar problems as all forms of collective action. The benefit any individual member can gain from reform tends to be a lot smaller than the resources and effort required from gaining information and influencing other members, and because the benefits of reform are shared equally there is an incentive for many members to free-ride on the efforts of others. There is thus the fear that cooperatives, while marginally better than State-Owned Enterprises, will have difficulty innovating and keeping afloat with global and national challenges and opportunities. Because of their members' inexperience, free-riding problems, and lacking a long and established history, cooperatives are at a distinct disadvantage against more established, mature, and wealthier conventional companies abroad. This may perhaps explain why the Republican Party has been keen to promote isolationism, including by joining the successful referendum campaign in favor of Selucia's withdrawal from the Majatran Alliance.
Republican Senators Rebecca Clodia Pastor and Adeodatus Nymphidius who authored the most important pro-co-op bills managed to hold on to their Senate seatsIn spite of the Republican Party's continued domination of Senatorial policy, they have been unable to turn legislative victories into electoral triumphs. The elections in November did not result in any significant vote change for the small party, leaving them unable to capitalize on the relative popularity of pro-cooperative policies, but the governing coalition retained its Senatorial majority, allowing them to continue down the current economic path. Lacking the Legion's advantage of a charismatic leader, the Republicans are thus forced to continue their cooperation with a party many of their own voters view with significant suspicion.