Cooperativization on the Mondragón Model
As Alternative to Globalizing Capitalism

Betsy Bowman and Bob Stone

1 Cf. David Korten's address in 1994 at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, where the instruments of globalization had been initiated in 1944. (Cited in Eizaguirre & Christensen) BACK

2 Useful accounts of globalization include: Petras & Veltmeyer, Brenner, and Harvey. BACK

3 Korten (1995), Ch. 6; Korten (1999), Ch. 8; Bello, p. 113; Fisher & Ponniah, Ch. 7; Cavanagh & Mander, Ch. 5; Schweickart 2002, Ch. 3; Greider 2003, Ch. 3. BACK

4 Readers will also recognize elements of the "public goods perspective" of Anton, et al. BACK

5 For similar results, see also: U. S. Dept. of Health Education and Welfare p. 112. Worker ownership of same-firm stock, unaccompanied by other elements of worker self-management listed above cannot be shown conclusively to improve a corporation's growth. (Melman, p. 487) Worker ownership with self-management, however, as in Mondragón, does boost productivity and profitability. (Melman p. 250-253) BACK

6 However, MCC's report for 2002 states: "The Eroski group [MCC's largest and fastest growing business] operates in Spain and the south of France and has 29,013 workers, of which 13,079 are worker-owners." That's less than half. Even then, the report does not say these "worker-owners" are voting members. Eroski admits to grades of "ownership participation." BACK

7 To this day, one can read on the MCC website under the heading of "1982" in La Experiencia Cooperativista de Mondragón: 1956-2002: "In these few years during which the Basque Country began its political life, it was said that the co-operative movement could not be catalogued under any specific political tendency, as this would be against its own constitution. However, it would make sense to situate it in a socialist environment in the widest and noblest sense of the term 'socialist': the socialization of resources and the democratization of management, ownership and knowledge." BACK

8 So concludes Derek C. Jones on reviewing Potter's cases. He attributes her skewed findings to her prejudice against producer co-operatives as "un-moral." (Jones 1975, pp. 58, 56). BACK

9 A large array of unlinked worker co-ops has arisen in Quebec. (Labelle, p. 1, 17) BACK

10 There are 140 million members of co-operatives of all kinds in 37 European countries, according to the International Co-operative Alliance www.ica.co-op The National Co-operative Business Association reports that U.S. co-ops of all kinds serve some 120 million members, or 4 in 10 Americans, including: 10,000 credit unions, 1000 rural electric co-ops, 1000 mutual insurance companies, 6,400 housing co-ops, 3,400 farmer co-ops, 270 telephone co-ops, and about 300 worker co-ops. BACK

11 "Leaving capitalism" is J. K. Gibson-Graham's phrase. She reminds us that we "leave capitalism" daily when we return home, and sometimes even at work. (p. 245) BACK

12 Zellig Harris saw in ESOPs harbingers of a successor-system since: "they do not have to maximize profit; they do not have to accumulate wealth beyond the needs of reinvestment; they have no necessary conflict of interest between owners and workers (so long as they do not employ non-owning workers); their business decisions remain close to their production decisions; and they may be less susceptible to the vagaries of the stock market, depressions, and other features of capitalist conditions." (p. 5) But these insights apply to co-ops, not ESOPs. BACK

13 "Marketplace," National Public Radio, aired April 7, 1995. BACK

14 While Hardt and Negri miss this point, they insightfully observe that today "co-operation is completely immanent to the laboring activity itself." (p. 294) BACK

15 It may be asked: why workers would want to buy GE, given United Airlines' recent bankruptcy? This presumes UAL's ESOP, started in 1994, caused the filing. In fact the wage concessions of 2000 that accelerated a downturn were typical of the industry and could not be blamed on excessive union strength in the ESOP, as did the press. The limited-life ESOP ended in 2000. UAL labor and management, historically in deep struggle, had both only reluctantly undertaken it and worker decision-making never developed. So there was not too much but too little ESOP. Corey Rosen (2002), director of the National Center for Employee Ownership, notes that Southwest Airlines, 10% employee-owned and with much greater teamwork autonomy, shows "employee ownership can and does work in the airline industry. It just failed at United." BACK

16 The last three proposals come from the Capital Ownership Group, http://cog.kent.edu BACK

17 David Ellerman calls a Mondragón-like co-op a created "space" for collective action. Unlike ESOPs "…[a co-op] is not even 'socially owned' -- since it is not a piece of property to be owned at all. It is a democratic social institution." (Ellerman 1984, p. 267) In "democratic social institutions" such as learned or academic societies -- which rarely own anything -- social property is incidental. But a Mondragón-like co-op is a pooling of living labors to meet material needs, so it requires tools and a place to work on materials. So until property regimes are altered (e.g. after successful cooperativization), co-ops will need the protections of social property -- such as they are -- to operate within the dominant regime of exclusive private property. BACK

18 Marx mistakenly granted to traditional political economy that it was. BACK

19 Albert and Hahnel's model is not problem-free. It calls for computers in every family and universal computer literacy. But that presumes attainment of major goals of "participatory planning," like global abolition of hunger. The need for wider, ultimately global, circles of planning and distribution will be felt as cooperativization permeates nat ions and regions. BACK

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