ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION



Alternatives to 'Corrective Capitalism': Collective Ownership and the Possibility of

Local Autonomy in Community Development

By JAMES DEFILIPPIS

Dissertation Director:



Robert W. Lake



The increasing mobility of capital and globalization of economic relations have fundamentally transformed local politics in the last twenty-five years. In the midst of this new economic landscape, a 'New Urban Polities' of local economic development has become the dominant framework for local politics in the United States. This dissertation argues against the political economy of capital mobility, and examines alternative avenues for local economic development. In particular it theorizes that capital mobility can be mitigated, and localities can realize autonomy, by creating forms of collective ownership. It then discusses the history of efforts of collective ownership and local control in the United States. Moving from the general to the particular, it then presents three current examples of collective ownership in the United States. These are: Marland Mold, Inc., a worker-owned factory in Pittsfield, Massachusetts; The Mutual Housing Association of Southwestern Connecticut, a collectively-owned housing development in Stamford, Connecticut; and Bethex Federal Credit Union, a cooperative financial institution in the Bronx, New York. It concludes that these forms of collective ownership offer a useful model for sheltering the people and places involved from the vagaries of the market and capital mobility. These forms of ownership are also successful in their efforts to improve the lives of the people involved. They are not able to build upon these successes, however, and realize local autonomy. Finally, while they potentially can be used as a component of a larger political movement to directly confront and challenge the hegemonic regime of capital accumulation, they are currently disconnected from such radical political projects.