On the role of cooperatives

Hey Jeremy. Very interesting questions.

What's wrong with water finding its own level? Of cooperatives serving up quality goods and services, doing good things for the community, encouraging participation, and acting cooperatively, with no agenda with regards to their size in the overall economy?

Should the cooperative movement set goals for the cooperative sector or just encourage them to do well?

And is it a movement, or just a loose affiliation of like-minded organizations?

More please!

Good points! It's tricky, I like the water finding its own levy approach, but personally tend to think that we could use more cooperatives in our economy.

But at the same time I neither want too many cooperatives (communism), nor to force cooperatives onto people who don't care about them like I do.

I tend to feel an aversion for viewpoints that are ideologically pro-cooperative. As though coops are the right model for everything, and other forms of institutions are NEVER in the public interest.

I feel the same way about buy local ideology. It just isn't that simple - that we can make one decision the same all the time, and expect positive outcomes. Though I'd love it if life were that simple!

But back to coops - it's funny but through my work at the car coop, one thing many of us tend to agree on is that branding as a coop is a great way to alienate a large portion of a potential market.

Coops tend to have a stigma outside of a small segment of the population. They are seen as an ultra left wing, communist-socialist, hippy, granola thing by many.

But why does institutionalized cooperation have to sit on the political spectrum? Isn't it an idea that everyone can get behind?

Which makes me think the coop movement needs a rebranding.

Why? To scale up? To fulfill its potential. To come out of the fringes into the mainstream of the economy?

But I'm not sure.

Thoughts?

Hello,

Great topic, and one that I have given a lot of thought too.

I would like to address your comment about the stigma coops have at large.

People for many years who considered themselves very environmentally conscious were also thought of as the labels you use above to describe the stigma of coops .

Now we see Shell touting all the good moral bearings of the typical 'treehugger'.

I think that coops have to be a 'movement' for two reasons (probably more), but for the sake of brevity I will list the first two I consider the greatest importance.

1) Because they are in essence championing democracy in a way which threatens many modern day institutions. Each coop devises its own system of governance which requires a fair degree of accountability. While some economists would flinch at the inefficiencies that could arise, there would exist a structure that allows for the empowerment of people who are not endowed with financial wealth.

2) The idea of Cooperating is harder than one may think. To be successful at cooperating, there needs to be a facility for learning about the dynamics of cooperating with people who do not appear to share similar interest or values. I see this in the housing coop I live in. Language barriers, household size, income level, are a few of the things that interact and impede cooperating.

As people move through the school system in their youth and through High School, there is not a focus on cooperating, there is a focus getting a job. And the market is competitive, therefore you must prepare to have a competitive advantage. In most cases, that means being the best at a hard skill. (though I found good interpersonal skills will also take you far). But what does High School prepare you for? College? University?

I enjoy coops because the allow for the richness of diversity to be an integral part of operating.

But that may seem like a wing-nut idea when you think of the opportunity cost in spending time on 'cooperating' vs. making profit and vacationing in Hawaii.

Co-ops are for the collective good

I think that the structure of a co-operative allows it to be a positive response to members' needs. I don't feel that this makes a co-op 'against' anything. If members are 'against' something, then that is reflected in the decisions made within the co-op by way of the democratic process.

Co-ops are not communist. They exist and thrive alongside other businesses within a market economy. They are non-threatening. Although the idea of them is revolutionary to some, this is a non-violent revolution.

Of course there are many, myself included, who hope for a more co-operative economy where co-ops make up a larger percentage of the businesses out there. However, for this to happen it would require more individuals making the choice to do their business co-operatively for their personal and collective well-being.

I don't feel as though co-operatives are an 'us' and 'them' game. I think it's more about 'us' and 'us'. Even people who are not members of co-ops benefit from the work that co-ops do. Co-ops are for the collective good.

Thanks for the comments everyone - well put; very succinct and thoughtful.