Cooperatives are business enterprises that are owned and managed by a group of people who work for mutual benefit. The International Cooperative Alliance defines them as an independent group of people who collectively own and democratically control an organization that will meet the social, cultural and economic needs shared by all members. Cooperatives are owned and operated by the people who work there or by those who use the company’s services. These organizations are what the academic study of cooperative economics is all about.
Cooperation, sharing of resources and organizing work for mutual return is nothing new for human beings, however cooperatives (also known as cooperatives or cooperatives) go one step further by organizing all goals and efforts. shared by its members and defining the company itself. For example, when looking at the history of cooperatives, Europe appears as the site of the first cooperatives to exist in the context of industry.
Cooperative Development
Robert Owen (1771-1858) lived as a social activist and leader of the cooperative movement.
The Fenwick Weavers Society was created to provide local workers with reduced price oats in 1761. The group, formed in Fenwick, East Ayrshire, Scotland, eventually began offering savings and loans, education, and emigration services.
In 1810, Robert Own and his partners bought the New Lanark factory and instituted better labor standards and quality of life, including the transfer of profits to employees through a discount store. Following his success in New Lanark, Owen proceeded to share his concepts and experience by writing, lecturing, and creating cooperative communities in Hampshire, Indiana, and Glasgow. Although these attempts were not all successful, their ideas were passed on, thanks in part to The Cooperator, a newspaper formed by William King in 1828 to enact the concept of the cooperative.
The Rochdale Fair Pioneers Society, a group of weavers and craftsmen in Rochdale, England, founded a cooperative that is often considered the first successful business of its kind. It was from this success that the “Rochdale Principles” were created and used to guide the creation of more cooperatives, including many modern cooperatives. After the success in Rochdale, more than 1,000 cooperatives were formed across the UK.
The Tolpuddle Martyrs (created in 1832) and other friendly societies also contributed to the advancement of labor and consumer groups.
Cooperatives in the late 20th century began to use the multi-stakeholder paradigm and, from 1994 to 2009, the EU revised its accounting systems in order to recognize the growing economic importance of cooperatives. The history of the cooperative has shown an enormous amount of change in the cooperative, leaving the basic themes intact.
The cooperative cause has its roots in multiple influences and locations around the world. The Western world has seen profit-sharing systems in use since 1795. One of the key ideas behind the Friendly Societies based on reciprocity and self-help has been the rejection of the distinctions between the ‘deserving’ and the ‘unworthy’ poor that were defined in both religious welfare institutions and after radical revisions of the British Poor Laws in 1834.
Rather than adhere to the belief that an individual had to own property to have a say in decision-making, the Friendly Societies adhered to the one member, one vote principle. In fact, since the mid-19th century, universal suffrage and the advancement of democracy have been a central focus of many cooperative organizations. Before the rise of industrial factories and unions, consumer cooperatives and Friendly Societies were the most common organizing institutions, with more than 80% of British workers and 90% of Australian workers being members of at least one Friendly Society. .
The concept of mutual operation and ownership of a company or association has been adopted in various economic companies since the mid-19th century. From merchants to cooperative shops to financial and educational institutions, common property has been the mutual property of those served by the association or company, with the surpluses shared based on the cooperative cooperation of the members rather than their investment of capital. This is an important distinction, because in many other organizations, investment equates to power and control. In asking the question, what is a cooperative ?, you see a decided preference for reward for effort rather than investment.
Globally, economic democracy has been the driving force behind the cooperative movement. A socio-economic philosophy that has been inspired and influenced by many different approaches to promote democratic principles, economic democracy proposes shifting decision-making power from the few to the many, from corporate shareholders to public stakeholders. Marxism, Leninism, Anarchism, and Socialism are all tied to the basic principle of economic democracy, namely, the expansion of responsibility and decision-making power to all those who contribute to an economic organization. Although the decline of the USSR helped enact socialist strategies, advocates of economic democracy have yet to establish a basic challenge to the hegemony of global neoliberal capitalism.
