Inspiration can come from many places, the inspiration for what GrubClub could become came from a podcast interview between Mark Thomas and Gerry Gold.
The interview explains it better than I can, but the important bit is that they discussed how vast transnational corporations are directly responsible for inequalities within and between countries. These inequalities impact on both physical and mental health; and the corporations are responsible for climate change: not good stuff, but, but despite their negative impact on the way we live, there are things from within these corporations that are quire useful, including the idea that:
“the ability to communicate instantly throughout the world and a vast array of management processes which enable trade throughout the world is not such a bad thing”. Gerry Gold
Burning the banks and destroying everything that went before for a clean slate is not the solution, but instead, composting capitalism might be. To resolve inequality we need to promote greater participation in industry and workplaces.
For example:
In Park Slope, in Brooklyn, they have a food coop. Everybody in the coop has to do three hours a month. You have to stack it, you have to label, work the tills, work in the ordering department, what have you. They employ a couple of people to keep track of what they’ve got and need. They cut deals with local farmers just outside New York and give above-supermarket rates, and because they’re not interested in making a profit, they manage to reduce the prices on everything. I went in there thinking yeah yeah yeah food coop it’ll just be a couple of manky apples, an organic thing, so it looks ugly. You get there, and it’s the most remarkable thing I’ve seen, and they do it using all the technologies [Gerry] is describing. Mark Thomas
The above, which is a fairly faithful quote left me thinking “Wow. Why is there no food coop near me? Maybe there is a food coop and I don’t know about it. How would I set up a food coop? What’s involved? What are the key roles? How do I find other people who’d want to help? What knowledge do you need to run one efficiently? How do you start approaching producers? Are there any resources on the web that answer these questions? How do I find them and if they don’t exist, what do I need to do to create them so others can do it too?
Whilst I’ve got the technical know how to find some of the knowledge that’s out there, and to create some services, it could be so much more if I could create a site that others can help with. Right now I don’t know how far it will go, or what needs to be achieved.
So if there’s a gap in the market, lets see how big it is and fill it with something that promotes increased equality through participation and benefits everyone by improving local trade.
- The Park Slope Food Coop has a website.
- The Mark Thomas interview with Gerry Gold is available through iTunes or can be downloaded (as mp3) from Mark’s site.