Monday, September 26, 2005

Cooperation, our best friend

That headline was originally going to be the title of this blog, but I found I was writing loads of stuff that wasn't about cooperation or cooperatives, so I changed the title to something more apt. Looking back I find that haven't actually written anything about cooperatives, which is surprising. So here goes:

I've spent the last 17 years working in or for cooperatives. Why? Cooperative structures offer a clear and viable alternative to the non-functional hierarchical pyramids of traditional business (anyone who works in a hierarchical business structure will know what I mean). Why is it that we in the west espouse democracy, to the point that we are willing to go to war to defend it, but when it comes to business, the concept of a democratic approach simply does not get any airplay? I find this dichotomy pretty weird. In fact it's often worse than this. It's not just that cooperatives don't get coverage, it is often the case that on the rare occasions when cooperatives get into the news, they are actively denigrated by the media. What are they afraid of?

Cooperatives are radical organisations. They could be considered anti-capitalist, even revolutionary. They turn the norms of business and commerce on their heads, and yet they go almost un-noticed. Why is that?

There is clearly increasing unease with the way conventional business does its thing. A growing awareness that if we support a model of business that places the creation of profit (shareholder value) above all else, we reap the rewards from that in terms of the social and environmental damage that such a single minded approach causes.

At the same time issues of sustainability, social responsibility, and ethics are increasingly at the forefront of the minds of consumers. We hear more and more about fair trade, trade justice, global poverty, climate change, and the need to radically change how we do most things in the west if we are not to destroy the very things that we rely on for our existence.

Cooperative enterprise joins up all this single-issue thinking into a sensible coherent whole. And yet most people simply don't get it (or or don't appear to). Some of the most socially and politically aware types appear to miss the point about how the systems and structures we use to trade with others are fundamentally important.
If my business is owned by a bunch of investors who want solely to maximise their return, then how can I, as a business person, be socially and environmnetally responsible about how I operate. It's difficult, if not impossible, to justify any investyment I might want to make in those areas to my shareholders.

The answer is clear: choose to operate under a different structure, where the return-hungry investor is not even in the picture.

You want to invest in a cooperative business? Sure, just sign here. But please note that it's a democratic organisation. If it's worker owned the chances are that as an investor you won't get any say whatever. In other forms of cooperative investors do get a say, but it's unlikely their voice will be in proportion to the size of their investment, rather a more straightforward one person one vote approach. Cooperatives are about social justice, giving interested parties a fair shake regardless of their economic power.

Perhaps it is simply human greed that drives conventional business forward, to the detriment of pretty much everything, and which forces more sensible business models to the margins.
There is a real sense now that co-operative ways forward are coming to the fore as we increasingly look for something with some depth, some humanity, something offering broader benefits than simply hard cash. Money is important, but on its own it's of limited benefit.

Many people wrongly characterise co-operatives as 'not-for-profit' (or non-profit, depending on where you are from). This is not the case. Cooperatives are "more than profit" businesses. Making money is just a part of the picture. Doing business as if people, and the planet, matter. That's what it is about. That's what it has been about for the last 160 or so years.

And now, as we plough as recklessly as ever into the 21st century in amongst devastating political and climatic change. caused largely by our own huge errors over the last 50 or 100 years, perhaps it is time to take stock and look for a different way, rather than just contiunue to repeat the gross mistakes of our forebears.

More on this subject later, no doubt...

Meanwhile, check out http://www.ica.coop for more information and contacts about the global cooperative movement.