Worker-owned co-ops, on their own, floating in the market, tend to replicate the behavior of worker-owned capitalists in some circumstances. They sometimes develop positive participatory schemes, sometimes not. We know from the studies of worker-owned plywood companies in the US, they can tend to develop conservative attitudes, not socialist attitudes. So even though I'm an advocate of further democratization of the workplace, we also need to be building larger structures.

If you don't have a way to speak to ordinary Americans, you're not in the game.

The federalism term is a good term, but it's just below the surface; it's just about to come up into wider public understanding that these practices are happening and are politically viable.

Internationally, there are countries going well beyond the course, with airlines, transportation. There are systems around the world that have explored mining, rail transport, television, communication, Internet service - there very common examples around the world that we can draw examples from.

In America, we need to go forward in nationalizing several large corporations: I think that's possible; we nationalized General Motors; we nationalized several of the big banks, de facto; we nationalized Chrysler; we nationalized AIG. I think there will be more crises, and at some point, rather than being bailed out by the government, the public may keep the corporations it has to rescue.

The top 400 people own more wealth now than the bottom 185 million Americans taken together. That is a medieval structure.

Parecon is a very tough-minded economic vision and model, and it sets a standard for us to look at.