SHC URBAN PLAN
THE URBAN PLAN
- To start a self help corporation in an urban setting, you would begin in the place where the poorest of the poor live. That is the shantytowns surrounding the city occupied by people who left the countryside for lack of opportunity. Many residents of the shantytowns will have few skills and only sporadic employment. When these poor people do not have other work, a self-help corporation would seek to employ them to provide goods and services for themselves.
- The first basic facility that a self-help corporation should acquire is a place to prepare food. It would not have to be fancy but it would have to be clean. In addition to those employed preparing the food, I would employ people to wash all surfaces and utensils with soapy water and bleach after dinner every day. The meals served should be based on foods that can be purchased in bulk for reasonable prices such as rice, millet or beans. The food need not be fancy but it does have to provide a complete balanced diet. For each meal a self-help corporation would need to prepare enough to feed those preparing the food and doing the cleaning and any one who wants to buy a meal. Because there is no cash cost for labor, and because the ingredients are purchased wholesale, a meal prepared by a self-help corporation should cost less than the customer would spend to purchase and prepare their own food. Therefore, a self-help corporation will be able to attract customers and turn a small profit on each meal sold, the goal being to cover the cost of the food served in exchange for shares.
- If sanitation is a problem, as it is in many shantytowns around the world, a self-help corporation could build outhouses designed to allow for the collection of human waste. The corporation would employ additional people to clean and empty the outhouses every day. The waste would be hauled to a methane digester. See: [ Methane Project ]. By having clean outhouses and processing the waste, the community would see benefits in health due to improved sanitation and the self-help corporation would have a source of energy for preparing food and hot water. The cost of the improved sanitation and the power would be the cost of feeding the people who clean the outhouses and collect the waste.
- The next project might be acquiring facilities to provide housing. The corporation would look for the cheapest building it could find that was structurally sound. Ideally, the building would be converted to small sleeping rooms with common toilet and shower facilities, a laundry facility and a restaurant. The shareholders would use some of the capacity and some of the capacity would be available to serve paying customers. The facility need not be fancy but is should be clean. In some circumstances the corporation may need to provide security so that the facility is also safe. The corporation can then employ cooks, cleaning staff, security staff and laundry staff for the cost of feeding and housing them.
- If the corporation then obtained a telephone line, it could offer a temporary labor service. People looking for work could come by for breakfast and see what was available. Those who were regulars and good workers would get first choice. If the corporation could supply enough jobs, the regular workers might choose to live in the corporation's facilities. The workers might also elect to take at least part of their pay in shares. The corporation could then use the cash generated by the labor to expand the corporation's facilities or its services.
- If the corporation is providing quality service in its businesses, it will have the opportunity to grow. Growth will require the acquisition or construction of additional facilities. Whether existing buildings are purchased or rented or, new facilities are constructed, the corporation will want shareholders to do as much of the work as possible. The corporation may also wish to produce its own building materials by manufacturing cinder blocks, roofing tile and ceramic tiles. (cleanliness will be enhanced by tiling surfaces in the facilities).
- In most poor communities, the staple diet is not a balanced diet and therefore people are malnourished and susceptible to disease. For each potential area where a self help corporation might commence, there is a research challenge to determine what nutrients the people lack and what foods would provide those nutrients. For example, some populations suffer from vitamin A deficiency, which leads to blindness. The solution to vitamin A deficiency is to eat green leafy vegetables. Green leafy vegetables can be grown in any space available including containers. Whatever deficiencies may exist, a self-help corporation should arrange to produce foods containing the required nutrients and include them in the meals served shareholders and the public.
- Once a self-help corporation has the necessary facilities, it may be able to attract teachers and health care professionals to become shareholders. If not, effort could be made to arrange for education and health service in exchange for labor from shareholders. The corporation could arrange to provide services such as house cleaning, yard care or washing clothes.
- In the urban setting, it makes sense for a self-help corporation to go into the landscaping and lawn care business. The organic materials can be gathered and combined with the effluent from the methane generator to make compost. The compost will facilitate growing nutrient rich foods as discussed above.
- In the United States, a barter transaction is taxable and the tax must be paid in dollars. However, to the extent labor is contributed for shares, it is the value of the shares that is taxable. Further, if the shares are only redeemable for items produced by the corporation, the value of the shares is the cost to produce the items distributed in exchange for the shares. We need not explore the tax code in detail to understand that there will be complications from dealing with the applicable government(s). It may be possible to negotiate with the government to pay taxes by providing services. Caring for the highway rights of way would be a mutually beneficial solution. The corporation could plant the rights of way to flowering plants and harvest the seeds and fruits and the government would save the maintenance expense. See [ Biological Potential Project ]
- For each of the projects discussed so far, there will be a component of expense that will require purchase of resources from the outside economy. The corporation should only undertake a project if a profit can be made both in terms of the cash cost and the overall cost including the value of the shares distributed. However, where a certain percentage of transactions occur in shares, cash will accumulate and be available for the purchase of facilities and equipment. The corporation should re-invest this cash to expand those divisions that are most profitable and to start new businesses that will support or compliment existing business by making services available for shares instead of cash. If new businesses can also offer services to the outside economy for a profit, so much the better.
- In the [ Rural Plan ] I describe a self help corporation that starts in a rural setting. The urban plan has the advantage of access to people and businesses willing to pay cash in exchange for labor but the full potential of the corporation, to employ people to provide for themselves, is not realized until the corporation can produce a substantial portion of its own food. Therefore, one goal of a self help corporation is to acquire control of land for that purpose.
- I know of no limit to what a self help corporation might do once the basic structure is in place.
Back to SHC Home Page
Back to Introduction
Back to Table of Contents
