James Loewen, in his critique of American history textbooks, Lies My Teacher Told Me, accuses publishers and textbook acceptance boards of promoting a kind of nationalistic piety that does not accord with the facts of the American past and present. This boosterish approach to American history states that America is exceptional and on a continual upward arc of progress, has found a balance between political democracy and economic capitalism, and has prospered because of individualistic entrepreneurial vigor and the rigors of the free market.
One need not go along with the corrective histories he presents in his chapters to agree with his point that the way our society portrays itself in these textbooks obscures, if not obliterates, the many alternative paths Americans have created for themselves as they've struggled to protect the inclusive dictates of democracy against the exclusive Darwinism of the capitalist system.
One such tradition is the rich history of coöperative associations in the United States, which include, to name a few, the somewhat staid farming and utilities co-ops, the more experimental, and sometimes outlandish, communes of the 19th and 20th centuries, and even the Amish and the Quakers. Despite this fertile diversity of approaches, all modern co-operative arrangements have shared one specific principle: that the depredations visited upon common people by the capitalist economic system can only be blunted by uniting their strengths in what Ann Hoyt of the University of Wisconsin Center for Cooperatives calls "a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise." In other words, co-ops depend upon what many believe constitutes the best part of the American character: democratic activity in service to the common good.
But do co-ops really work? In the United States, the co-op movement, despite playing a relatively small role in the economy, still include tens of thousands of food and housing and other kinds of co-ops. Co-op America is one example of a broadly based organization that promotes investment in "green" businesses and runs a wide-ranging education effort to teach people how to reduce their consumption and invest money in sustainable community development. And believe it or not, communes still exist in the United States, like Packers Corners Farm in Vermont, featured recently in the Sunday Boston Globe. Despite amazing pressures to the contrary, the co-op spirit endures here.
In other parts of the world, that spirit is much stronger, and co-operative arrangements are quite economically successful. The Mecca of all co-ops is Mondragon, located in the Basque provinces of Spain and France. As Roy Morrison explains in his history of Mondragon, We Build The Road As We Travel, the 170 worker-owned co-operatives, which range from industrial enterprises making high-tech goods to a chain of department stores, employ close to 20,000 people. Moreover, because of the way Mondragon finances itself, through equity participation of its members, a worker-controlled bank, and a division dedicated to helping the enterprises create strategies for success, it has been able to weather the downturns in the global economy without many of the painful contractions faced by other organizations. As its leaders are quick to point out, Mondragon does not solve the crisis of industrial capitalism; at best, it mitigates the process and makes it less destructive to the people and the planet. But it does demonstrate the kind of economic power that can be wielded by ordinary people acting in democratic ways for their own common good.
The modern co-op movement traces its lineage from the Rochdale Equitable Pioneers Society, which opened a co-op at Toad Lane, Rochdale, Lancashire, on December 21, 1844. (People interested in Rochdale can go to http://www.u-net.com/manchester/tourist/rochdale.) From that small group in England have evolved a set of seven principles to which co-ops, in one manner or another, subscribe: keep membership open and voluntary; use democratic process; participate economically; maintain an autonomous self-help focus; provide education and training for members; co-operate with other co-ops; and work for the sustainable development of the community. Compare these principles to the guidelines of the modern corporation, and one can readily see that co-ops are more people-centered, community-centered, and planet-centered than any member of the Fortune 500 could ever be.
Co-ops re-capture a part of American history that, as Loewen points out, has been lost in the patriotic glow of most American textbooks, that part which emphasizes the power of common people to direct their own lives and apply their labor to something other than avid consumption. Co-ops embody this country's belief in democratic principle, and they celebrate that same energy of voluntary association which so impressed De Toqueville. And, most of all, they provide an antidote to the numbing, dumbing, relentless assault of corporate America on our lives. That in itself may be worth the price of your first equity contribution at your local food co-op.
(July 1996)