How we organize ourselves is critically important.
If we organize ourselves around cooperative principles, we will mostly act cooperatively.
However, if we organize ourselves around competitive principles, competition will ensue.
Now, at a societal level, western society as a whole is organized based on competition, and particularly, war as the ultimate competition.
Our task is to reorganize our local communities along cooperative principles so as to become more resilient in a world gone mad facing unstoppable climate change. However, we must be clear in our minds about this: we cannot recreate more resilient local communities using the same competitive principles that created the mess we're in:

The corporation has no place in the human future: it is a sociopathic invention by pathologically greedy people to rob society blind.

Co-ops are the primary vehicle for weaning a local community off of corporations. The only legal forms of conducting in towns should be single-owner, partnership, and co-op. More below.

The corporation is the form of organization for business that dominates the world of commerce and finance. Over the last 100 years it has evolved into a highly competitive form of organization that externalizes risks and consequences to such an extent that is cannot be held responsible for anything.
In the U.S. and consequently everywhere else, the conservative Supreme Court has used a series (over 150 years or so) of flimflammery to pronounce the corporation as a legal person, such that its directors and managers face very little personal risk for any of their corporate decisions.

The devastation of the biosphere is a direct result of this legal fiction. IF individuals were held legally responsible for their corporate decision, environmental destruction would miraculously cease.

In 2003, a Canadian documentary film called The Corporation was released, written by Joel Bakan, and directed by Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott. The film won multiple awards and became justly famous. Bakan wrote the book, The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, during the filming of the documentary.

It documented the development of the corporation to become a legal person and examined its behaviour as a psychiatrist would, using the DSM diagnostic guide used in the psychological profession.
It asked the question: "If a corporation is a person, what kind of person would it be?"
The answer is that, as a person, the corporation is a psychopath.

Below is an 22-min extract from the film: Part 5/23 - Case Histories. It describes cases of corporate behaviour and measures it against the DSM diagnostic model.
https://youtu.be/H3m5lq9FHDo

Below is the full documentary of those who would like to see it in its entirety.
https://youtu.be/xHrhqtY2khc

When we work at rebuilding our local communities, we should be very careful about how we organize ourselves and not continue forms of economic organization that enable psychopathic behaviour that have devastating consequences for the environment and society.
In the place of corporations, we should rather employ the co-operative model of organization, which leads to worker participation and ownership, and harmonious, cooperative behaviour in our local communities.

Communities that work to remodel themselves should look at banning the corporation as an economic organizational form within their jurisdiction.
Parents should teach their children about pathological versus healthy forms of organization.
Schools should teach the beneficial results of the co-operative.
Activists should continually point out the pathological behaviour of corporations and broadcast through all forms of media the alternative model of the co-operative.

How do we accomplish this herculean task of changing our local societies over from competitiveness to cooperation? This has two components: the positive and the negative.

The positive is the model of the Transition Network, begun in Totnes, England. No one expects NYC to disconnect from global corporatism. But rural towns could rejuvenate themselves with cooperative ventures using renewable energies, as Totnes did in England and Wilpoldsried did in Bavaria.

The Resilience Group Essay Queue is full of essays and links on Totnes, Transition Towns, cooperatives, and democratic-socialism.

The negative is by-laws and enforcement. We need local ordinances to reflect the cooperative nature of local society instead of promoting franchizes of corporations to vacuum money out of local communities to faraway financial centres while providing poor working conditions and externalizing costs onto local and provincial governments.

Now, the first question is about municipal powers. I'm Canadian, so I've started to ask about our municipal laws. I emailed the Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing. My question is this:

Does a municipality have the right to ban the corporation as a legal form of conducting business within its jurisdiction?

It is a simple question, isn't it? Simple like a meat cleaver.

I received a clever non-answer from a bureaucrat with magnificent bureaucratic potential within the Ministry on whether local municipalities have the legal right to ban corporations within their jurisdiction:

Municipalities have the authority to regulate business activities within their jurisdiction. For example, the Municipal Act, 2001 authorizes a municipality to adopt by-laws to establish a system of business licensing, including conditions with which businesses must comply in order to receive a license to operate in that municipality.

Nifty, eh? He's not touching this with a barge pole. In my view (as The Man tends to say :=) any Canadian municipality with the balls to do it, could regulate the corporation out of its jurisdiction. All hell would break loose, naturally. But if the town has done its Transition work first, this should be fairly doable. For as long as local support remains solid, the town would win. Let the province or the feds try to change their laws to prohibit it after the fact. Can you say cause célèbre? Can you say lawsuit? Can you say more new business?

The key to transforming local communities from the corporatist competitive model to the cooperative model is jobs. A town must go through the Transition steps as Totnes had done, so that the jobs-producing cooperative economy helps give citizens (not consumers) a solid stake in the Transition. Then we can chase the moneychangers out of our temples.

Your comments and ideas are welcome.

Peace be with us, if we work to transition our local communities to a cooperative, renewable culture,
gerrit