Revolutionary cooperativism 101

Exploring the potentials of alternative economic vision

Ayame Ulrich

Capitalism is a tough economy.

Contrary to multiple centuries of propaganda and academic posturing, the central components of the capitalist system - market allocation, private property and a political state to maintain the requisite conditions - don’t actually work as we are so often told.

They don’t operate impartially, they don’t allocate efficiently, they don’t create fair prices, they don’t inspire innovation, and they certainly don’t maximize freedom.

This is no revelation; it is long held common knowledge. 

To invoke an appropriately abused quote on capitalism (that most first-year economics students should be familiar with), “It is not intelligent. It is not beautiful. It is not just. It is not virtuous. And it doesn’t deliver the goods. In short we dislike it, and we are beginning to despise it. But when we wonder what to put in its place, we are extremely perplexed.”

Now, in the 21st century, we’re still perplexed, but much less so.

You may have heard that 2012 is the International Year of the Cooperative.

Fancy.

Since the days of Keynes, for various reasons (insert more than 5,000 books and at least a century of experience and experiment), cooperatives are now widely accepted as a revolutionary vehicle to a post-capitalist economy - that is, if used properly, and if applied with tenacious persistence over a lifetime, if not several generations.

“Properly?” you ask.

First off, let’s outline the improper.

Cooperatives become an end in themselves - a dead end - if envisioned as just a better business/workplace structure in the current economy.

But if cooperatives (co-ops, independent producers and artists who hire no employees) unite into a federation, voluntarily pool their surplus, practice mutual exchange to reduce costs among each other, develop and collectivize resources and capital, and then use this collective capital to fund and nurture other new cooperative ventures with the vision of expanding the cooperative sector, then… what?

Well, probably nothing.

Nothing revolutionary will happen if this newly expanded cooperative sector doesn’t also develop and maintain an active political element. This is crucial. 

Back up. So, a market economy of cooperatives competing against each other is not the answer.

An expansive, united cooperative sector alone will not emerge as a lasting alternative to market production.

Why not? Because capitalism is a tough economy! Damn tough.

It could very well be said that business and ethics pose a conflict of interest. 

Any enterprise that purchases responsibly, organizes labour equitably and prices fairly will be harshly penalized by the market - they will likely soon be out-competed into nonexistence by other businesses that don’t practice these principles. 

Also - and even more critical to the revolutionary vision - almost without exception the longer an activist participates in the market enterprise, the further their personal economic ethics can be eroded and corrupted.

Sad but true.

It’s the perverse nature of market economy.

Crucial point: an expanding, revolutionary cooperative sector must maintain its politics. 

In 1930s Spain, for example - one of history’s most inspiring revolutionary experiments in anti-capitalism - the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT, National Confederation of Labour) was structurally accompanied by another group, the Federación Anarquista Ibérica (FAI, Iberian Anarchist Federation), a parallel organization specifically designed to maintain within the CNT the revolutionary vision and energy which defined it, and forged its revolutionary potential. 

In any cooperative striving toward revolutionary goals, a perpetual balancing act is necessarily tread between commercial and cooperative principals.

Stray too far towards one extreme and the organization may soon be indistinguishable from a typical private business.

Lean too far to the other, and it may very well no longer exist at all (did I mention capitalism is a tough economy?).

Energy is limited, time is short, conditions are ruthless.

Let us identify the whole function of the economic dimension of this “cooperative process” as the forging of an autonomous sector within the capitalist economy - creating a portion of the economy no longer fully dependent on exchange through the market.

This autonomous sector must become the material foundation upon which a political movement can mobilize - one that can then begin operating independent of certain external conditions, both state-political and market-economic.

It can begin ignoring these external factors (taxes, police, etc.) more and more confidently as it grows stronger and solidifies, and soon it becomes a functioning decentralized self-determined system of administration, separate and independent from the mandates of the political state, and self-sufficient enough not to be any longer dependent on - or at the mercy of - products from private producers (a.k.a. the market economy).

So there you go - simple, huh?

Actually, quite.

Difficult? 

Painfully. Dauntingly.

It will take generations, at least your own lifespan, but carrying a vision that something can work means holding the hope that it will if only the effort is applied. 

Be that effort. 

Charley Justice is a dashing revolutionary supervillain, occasionally spotted (deeply engaged in potentially subversive activity) at the Autonomous Zone on Albert Street.

Published in Volume 67, Number 12 of The Uniter (November 21, 2012)

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