The Cooperative Movement is on the Rise

For TREC in particular, the fact that the Federal Government is ending the Cooperative Development Initiative (CDI) program will not adversely affect them yet since they have one more year in their three-year grant contract. But Lipp told me that it will definitely be a painful blow going forward for new cooperatives.

Corcoran also agreed. “Getting grants is almost impossible from federal foundations….and getting capital, as well, it’s a challenge because of its nature in cooperatives, which is instrumental and not what is driving the business.”
She continued: “We’ve long argued that there is a need for a national co-op development fund on the order of $20 million or bigger.” The CWCF currently offers a small fund that people can use to start their own co-ops.

In talking with all three, it became apparent that the biggest obstacle to the cooperative movement had to do with funding. It was agreed that because the work that cooperatives do is in many ways innovative, focused mostly on social advantages rather than on individual profits, not many “seasoned investors” are interested in offering their dollars. Nevertheless, Lipp assured me that as viable alternatives to traditional capitalist economic models go, cooperatives were certainly on the list since they “have been around for the last 200 years.”

Indeed, in Italy, the cooperative movement had its origins in the 1850s, and flourished until the end of the Second World War, when Mussolini’s brutal fascism decimated “its strong cooperative and labour movements,” Logue’s essay reads.

But this did not end the movement. And neither did the CIA money that went into destabilizing the Left-wing government in Emilia-Romagna who, in spite of those Machiavellian American efforts, managed to “encourage employee ownership, consumer cooperatives, and agricultural cooperatives, [as well as] the development of Cooperative Institutions for all small businesses.”

Although we no longer find any blatant suppression towards cooperative and labour movements, governments in the United States and in Canada have kept hush on funding them.
As mentioned above, the Canadian Federals are currently cutting the funds fuelling the Cooperative Development Initiative, but even long before this Conservative noose on the country, the Liberals weren’t exactly paving crossroads.

“We actually spent ten years starting this organization,” Corcoran told me, because they “had next to nothing, like $30,000 or $40,000-a-year budget. We were about to give up when we obtained our funds,” she said, laughing with disbelief.

“We hadn’t obtained the capital funds after years of lobbying the Liberals – we were just going to throw in the towel because we were exhausted and tired. But luckily that came in just in time… in 2001.” This was used to start their Capital Fund for starting co-ops, which they are still operating. They had come close to obtaining the full funds, she said, “but the liberals didn’t act fast enough, then the government became a minority Conservative one and then of course they wouldn’t do it.” Actually, they’ve sent money to Quebec, but she told me that that was money that was supposed to go to the CWCF and to Ontario, but because we lack the “political capital…and people prepared to stand up and lobby and go to the streets,” she opines, Ontario was overlooked.

Government support is essential to the cooperative movement’s progress. In Italy, for example, the movement is enshrined under Article 45 of the 1947 Italian Constitution and the Basevi Law of 1947, which, Logue explains, “provided co-ops with special tax treatment to encourage their self-capitalization by creating the concept of ‘indivisible reserves’ for the benefit of all (i.e., future generations of employees and the community).”

But the most difficult barrier of all is the myth that corporate or individual-focused capitalism is the only feasible business method out there.

“We do have a strong culture of individualism and the mythology of the individual entrepreneur is very strong,” said Earle. “I don’t think that in 100 years all businesses will be cooperatives…I think of it more as a one-step-a-time process in the sense of supporting those cooperatives out there…as an option that is on the table and make sure that it will always be on the table for folks looking for new work opportunities.”

Lipp also thought, like Corcoran told me at one point, that the cooperative model is indeed a viable alternative to capitalism.

“The cooperative movement is an antidote to the capitalist model which is all about maximizing profits for the shareholders,” she explained enthusiastically. “This is about maximizing profits for the community and at the same time recognizing the social values that people are interested in pursuing. Ultimately, the biggest difference between a co-op and a corporate model….is the member vote: regardless of your investment, it is one member one vote – a democratic enterprise.”

“Beyond that,” she continued, “you can use a co-op for any number of activities. We could be using a co-op instead of a corporate structure for banking, retail, cultural factors, the energy sector, because it’s a model that’s proven to be more in line with peoples values….It’s a way for people to get involved in the green energy sector as opposed to what’s been happening with some of the contentious issues around project development, where foreign companies are coming in and, at the very local level, are setting projects and sometimes not respecting the people on the ground.”