 Hi, this is Professor Gerald Friedman, Department of Economics at the University of Massachusetts. Welcome to our class on worker cooperatives. And I'd like to talk a little bit about why a course in worker cooperatives and what is this all about. And the simple answer is that worker cooperatives, worker cooperation, worker run, worker managed businesses is about democracy, about the idea that your participatory rights, your right to participate in matters that affect you, extends beyond the public realm, what we see as the public realm, to encompass all aspects of your life. So when we vote, we all claim a right to vote in deciding whether the town library should be expanded. We should also have a right to vote, to participate in making decisions about whether our business will expand, whether the place where we work will expand. And this goes back to the rise of capitalism. Capitalism as a social system is relatively new in the world. We think of it as, oh, it's the way things are, and yes they are, it is the way things are all over the world at this point. But that's recent. Capitalism is a new social form. In the 14th, 15th centuries, there was no place in the world where you could identify as capitalism, capitalist. Capitalism arose out of feudalism, out of slavery, and involved two signal changes. Involved the production for sale of commodities. Under capitalism, wage workers, second piece, work under the supervision of a capitalist who controls access to the production place, to the means of production. And the workers produce commodities that are sold. Because workers are working under supervision, they're working in a fundamentally undemocratic way. When you go to work, you follow orders. When you're home, when you're at the public sphere, when you're discussing whether you like Sarah Palin or Barack Obama, when you have those types of discussions, when you're discussing whether to expand the town library, you're a citizen. When you go to work, you check those citizenship rights at the door, and you work under somebody's supervision, and you do what you're told. Worker cooperatives do not necessarily challenge the production of commodities. Worker cooperatives can produce commodities and sell them. But they challenge the idea that workers should be wage slaves while they're at work. Cooperation can involve changes in what you produce, maybe. But what it definitely involves is a change in the way production is controlled. Instead of being a wage slave, you'll be a free citizen at work. Now, this sounds kind of utopian. But from my perspective, it seems very attainable. Many economists have studied worker cooperatives. They found that very productive, generally more productive than capitalist firms. Where I live in Amherst, Massachusetts, we have a whole range of cooperatives. We have a cooperative photocopy place. We have a cooperative car repair place. Cooperatives sold the voltaic production facilities, and they all work at cooperatives all over the place. At the University of Massachusetts, where I teach, there's, I believe, 16 student-run businesses all operating on a cooperative basis. So cooperation can work. It can work very well. And it seems like a good goal for society. If we want to be a democratic society, we should be a democratic society at work. So that's what we'll be talking about. And I might add one final note. This course was designed by a cooperative. We had graduate students, faculty, members of the community all working together discussing, debating, and designing this course. And now we have a videographer helping out. And he took this class. So that's a recommendation. You should take it, too, and enjoy. Thank you very much. Bye-bye.