Ian MacPherson (1998)
21st Century Cooperation is the background paper authored by Ian MacPherson as accompaniment to the 1995 revision of the Cooperative Identity, as well as his address to Congree that same year. The paper was later formally published by the International Cooperative Alliance in 1998.
MacPherson begins by surveying the Cooperative Movement in the 19th and 20th centuries, as foundation to discussion of the Cooperative Movement’s future. Of central interest is the evolution of “traditions” or “viewpoints” within the Cooperative Movement: Consumer, Worker, Saver/Borrower, Producer, and Service Provider. Consumer is accounted for in the English response to industrialization, Worker from French organizing in the 1840s, financial cooperation (Saver/Borrower) began to be most actively promoted in the German states around the 1850s, and agricultural cooperatives (Producer) gained prominence in Northern Europe during the 1880s. This viewpoint framework is a fair summation of how the Cooperative Movement has evolved, though it is lacking in its awareness that this was somewhat limiting of the movement’s imagination.
While MacPherson generally supports and promotes this framework with some light critique, in assessing the “viewpoint” and “tradition” monikers in the contemporary context, a few key issues with the framework become apparent: these categorizations adhere to roles created or reinforced by the industrial revolution and the accompanying capitalist takeover of all remaining feudalist systems; these are conventional marketplace conditions and do not effectively represent all the existing and potential formations of cooperative activity. Accordingly, the framework fails to take into account feminized forms of labor (e.g. reproduction, child and elder care) that are often organized into non-fiscal cooperatives, and each of these categories have typically been presented as occurring in distinct spaces and times (i.e. disallowing multi-stakeholder or multi-purpose cooperatives), and, further, the roles are presented as “choices” rather than basic human activities undertaken to survive and thrive repackaged and reorganized in service to capital (e.g if one is both the producer and consumer of a good or service, there is no opportunity to extract value during its exchange and therefore not acknowledged in the paradigm).
Further, and as MacPherson recounts, the incongruence of consumerism with cooperativism was noted first in the 1940s in preparation for the Principles assessment process of the 1960s, and has been brought up consistently over the past century. These critiques call into question the framing of the activities of the Rochdale Equitable Society of Pioneers, considered the founders of the consumer Cooperative Movement in the 1980s as seeking to be empowered consumers, rather than - perhaps - another interpretation, such as simply reacting to and endeavoring to survive the onslaught of capitalism and the Industrial Revolution. The Principles revision process in the 1990s explicitly sought to correct what was framed as an over-focus on the role of the consumer in the Cooperative Movement. However, this shift has not fully occurred, likely due to the great influence consumer cooperatives have within the movement due to their financial power, despite arguably not wholly adhering to the Cooperative Identity (e.g. retail food cooperatives denying their workforce rights/ownership). Most of the thinking that shaped the tradition framework came from Europe, and MacPherson notes that the other initiatives and movements started outside of Europe have a “legacy of paternalistic government involvement,” as they “were started through the direct action of imperial and colonial governments” from Europe seeking to capitalize on the resources of other parts of the world.
Indeed, many of the largest cooperatives of the late twentieth century have their roots in the “settlement experience” or, more aptly, the genocidal and still active process of colonization (224). The evolution of the Fourth Principle of Autonomy and Independence is part of this legacy, insisting that legitimate cooperatives are not beholden to outside people or groups, governments, in particular. MacPherson calls for an examination of “how cooperatives should relate to government” given that colonial history and, additionally, that, via the emergence of neoliberalism in the latter part of the twentieth century, “governments are increasingly less able and less willing to influence the economic, social and legal frameworks within which their citizens live” (230) and, rather, adopt a subordinate role to and in order to enable liberal capitalism. He spends a great deal of the paper discussing how best to interact with legislation and regulation, as well as how cooperatives are presented with the opportunity to step in to provide essential social services that are being increasingly eliminated by governments around the world. The latter sentiment was also voiced multiple times by Laidlaw in his Congress address, when he expressed that taking over social services abandoned by governments is a strategic step towards restructuring society into multi-purpose, local cooperative commonwealths.
Relatedly, MacPherson chronicles the last two decades of the century in which neoliberalism, which advocates for the capitalist privatization of government and social services, expanded to influence the globe. During the 1980s and 1990s, capitalism - as a political and economic system - was running a victory lap in the minds of many people following the end of the Cold War. This resulted in cooperatives and apex organizations shifting cultures and practices in the face of these pressures that compelled many to distance themselves from anything vaguely perceived as: communist, communal, or cooperative. This resulted in greater alignment and compliance with structures and behaviors in conflict with the Cooperative Identity. The most recent revision of the movement’s philosophical canon, when a German delegation pushed for the removal of “culture” from the Defining Statement and the addition of “self-help” to the Value set, was completed in this context.
In considering the future of the movement in the twenty-first century, MacPherson updates Laidlaw’s assertion that the primary external threats to cooperation are capitalism and “big” government. He added that -
“[t]he greatest challenge confronting cooperatives did not come from the outside world. As in the past (and as it will be in the future), the most serious threat was not the competition. It was not even the altered political order. It was in the hearts of discouraged cooperators. It was a matter of resolve, an uncertainty as to what the movement could offer the contemporary world” (230-231).
In response, MacPherson shares that the key to the success of the Cooperative Movement in the twenty-first century is in the movement projecting “a clear sense of its distinctiveness” (233). This assertion is surrounded in the text by calls to learn from capitalist enterprise and public sector actors, alike, while not going so far as to wield the “master’s tools.” To the end of establishing distinctiveness, he shares that one must have pride in their identity as a cooperative and cooperator, which means that identity has to be clearly understood and integrity to that identity upheld. In service to this, “it is in the struggling to understand how the range of possible action, implicit in cooperative thought, principles, and practice should be applied in the contemporary experience that cooperators make their contribution” (253).
MacPherson frames the contemporary experience at the start of the twenty-first century via five trends:
- increasing population,
- concentration of economic power,
- degradation of the environment,
- complex problems with physical and service infrastructure, and
- issues of social justice.
To close, he moves through various sectors and industries in the Cooperative Movement expounding their potential future in the face of these trends. In addition, he observes and predicts how women, youth, and indigenous peoples might be impacted and can be impactful. Most notably regarding youth, he shares,
“[t]he rich and diverse traditions of the movement, its subtleties and potential of its philosophies, need to be reconsidered and reapplied by each generation. The sooner young people are involved, the sooner they begin to consider for themselves how the Cooperative Movement should be adjusted for their times, the better it will be for all. The dialogue across generations of cooperators is a fundamental requirement for continuing success” (252).
These closing sentiments signal a passing of the torch to the next generation in our shared lineage of cooperative philosophy.