Crisis, Recovery, and the Transitional Economy: The Struggle for Cooperative Ownership in Greensboro, North Carolina

There is much to ponder as the patchwork of American society continues to unravel from the effects of a new type of capitalist depression. Millions have seemingly resigned themselves to both high and chronic underemployment, an odious condition expressed in phrases like "the new normal" that calls on people to accept what is as opposed to consciously deciding what ought to be. Meanwhile, the only people who can speak of recovery since the onset of the current crisis in December 2007 are the owners and controllers of capital. It is, as Paul Krugman declared in the New York Times last fall, a "Rich Man's Recovery". Through all of this the Left has failed to muster and sustain a mass movement in response to the crisis. The rise and fall of the Occupy movement attests to this. Meanwhile, the city continues to experience hard times, though it is not always clear to the public thanks to the shallow and often self-serving efforts of local corporate media.