Where have you been?
We stopped taxing investments in worker-owned cooperatives
decades ago.
They all have missions to do one or two of two possible things,
To recycle matter to highest use
with least carbon-based effort/loss of reinvestment values,
And to repurpose creatures, great and small,
to highest and deepest multiculturally heathy purposefulness,
rooted in our mutually-held
co-empathic trust
and faith in regenerate, co-redemptive, health.

Oh.
Where was I when all this happened?

That was when you were helping convert
both non- and for-profit corporations,
and most of Earth’s governors
and political and economic scientists
to worker-consumer-resident-owned cooperatives.

Anyway,
consumers and residents oversee their budgets
including third-party payers
but the front-line staff workers and caregivers
are in political charge of administration
within boundaries ecologically supported
by consumers/residents.

I’m confused.
How do consumers exercise responsibility for
a cooperative’s budget development,
much less oversight of implementation?

Well, it varies between active through one-time-exchange,
depending on what type of collective budgeting we speak of.
For example,
Ballots for elected government positions
are written for economic empowerment decision-making,
showing a range of proposed expenditure budgets
with line items showing intended categorical outcomes.

Wait,
I have one right here.
There’s education,
security,
transportation,
utilities,
health and nutrition,
recreation/therapeutic mindbody treatments.

Oops.
Wait a minute,
that’s my household budget.
Well, close enough for government work.

Are you telling me your ballot looks like four budgets,
one for each active political party?

Essentially, yes.
Then, once results are tabulated,
the political party nominees “owning” the most preferred economic/ecological plan
become the elected public office-holders.
Their job is to balance the diverse ranges of support found
within their consumer/resident market populations
through their diverse economic co-investment ballot choices,
expressing their highest and best ecotherapeutic values
for themselves and their families
and all of Earth’s Tribes.

How do they have time to do that
and still figure out how best to deliver services?

Well, the elected positions
are supported by political policy analysts
decomposing the ratios of annual categorical expenditures
to total corporate expenditures,
including labor and carbon investment.
These ratios are then compared to the combined budget election ratios,
and either reported as up or down from prior precedent.

Reports, as I said,
go to… well, everybody,
but the elected reps and the non-elected civil executors of this public budgeting process
are the only ones who actually study them.
But then there are the academic researchers,
and the independent reporters.

The elected legislators and administrators
either adopt by implementing any therapeutic adjustments expected
or explain to future consumers/residents
why they think they know better
how they can be of service
than we might have gratefully intended
and thanked them for
by voting for our cooperative economic-political stability
and long-term health outcomes.

Oh.
Where do you live again?

You ask me that every time we talk.
You’re getting old.
I will live in The Promised Land’s EcoTribe
with you.