Reddit mentions of Humanizing the Economy: Co-operatives in the Age of Capital

Fiction:

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin is a great start (good critique of anarchist philosophy).

The Red Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson actually cites Mondragon and discusses cooperative economics in detail.

After The Deluge (of Critical Mass fame) by Chris Carlsson is a novel about a post-capitalist San Francisco.

Non-fiction:

After Capitalism by Seymor Melman.

America Beyond Capitalism by Gar Alperovitz.

Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism by Richard Wolff.

Capitalism's Crisis Deepens: Essays on the Global Economic Meltdown by Richard Wolff.

After Capitalism by David Schweickart.

Against Capitalism by David Schweickart.

Capitalism or Worker Control by David Schweickart

Putting Democracy to Work by Frank T Adams.

Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice by Jessica Gordon Nembhard.

Humanizing the Economy: Co-operatives in the Age of Capital by John Restakis.

Owning Our Future: The Emerging Ownership Revolution by Marjorie Kelly.

For All the People: Uncovering the Hidden History of Cooperation, Cooperative Movements, and Communalism in America by John Curl.

Governing The Firm

Cooperatives and Local Development

Humanizing the Economy

The Cooperative Workplace

The above books are useful if you are looking for a wide range of opinions and solid information on cooperatives. Some of them are more of "yay, cooperatives!" Whereas others are more academic discourses on cooperatives and their challenges.

Hope this is helpful.

I just bought a book about cooperatives. I haven't read it yet, but it's got good reviews on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Humanizing-Economy-Co-operatives-Age-Capital/dp/086571651X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1409343161&sr=8-1&keywords=cooperatives

You could always speak with an attorney who specializes in business law. Tell them your intentions and ask them for a report on any legal possibilities available in your area.

My point was that there are plenty of people who are thinking about what we'd transition to. For instance Gar Alperovitz's Pluralist Commonwealth, or the transition towns movement, or the various organisations, peer reviewed journals, and books researching and promoting co-operatives. And there are thousands more authors, thinkers, activists, and professionals doing the same thing. Brand's strength is in highlighting the problems and sharing that with a wide audience. In his book he does tackle what would come next (in broad strokes) but that's not his role. For that try A. Sen, Andrew Jackson, and Proudhon etc.; lessons learned from the Paris Commune and the Spanish Revolution (and Greece now); and experiences of people today setting up credit unions, co-ops, non-profits, and open-source enterprises.

edit: Also its not true that capitalism has been here for all of time. Charles Eisenstein discusses evidence for the gift society (start from "Let us begin by better understanding the dynamics of the gift...") in early civilisations. And capitalism didn't really start until after the beginning of the industrial revolution when people had large amount of capital not tied to land. People were still exploited obviously. The point is the system changed, so can change again!

John Curl's Humanizing the Economy is solid, and the beginning and final chapters get into some interesting theoretical territory.

Pretty much anything by Brett Fairbairn, but this essay is a good place to start.

Though he passed on a few years ago, I believe Ian MacPherson was one of the 20th century's greatest scholars of cooperativism. Start with this collection of essays that he curated.

Finally, if you're interested in credit unions, here's a list of book reviews I wrote while in grad school.

Oh so you’re not even aware of the history of the term you claim to know anything about.

Sure, you can start here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.

Let me know when you finish.