This week, we start a series on the impressive cooperative movement in the Indian state of Kerala. With a history extending back to 1957, the thriving co-op movement now counts over 12,000 active co-ops of one variety or another, including the Kudumbashree women's co-op with 4.8 million members (one in four women in Kerala are members). The co-ops of Kerala may not be nearly as well known in the US as the co-op complexes of Mondragon or Emilia-Romagna, but they are just as worthy of study and emulation.
Then, Luis Razeto continues his examination of the practice of cooperativism in the market economy, and how the poor and marginalized groups in society manage to "make a way out of no way" by using whatever is available to them to create the wide range of activities and organizations that Razeto refers to as the popular economy.
The Cooperative Movement in Kerala, India
by Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research & Uralungal Labour Contract Co-operative Society Research Centre
There are, of course, challenges and contradictions, and these are discussed with clarity: there is no sense in exaggerating the possibilities presented by cooperatives that must struggle to survive in a world where the capitalist law of value is the law of the land. Nor is there sense in minimising these cooperatives’ important contributions to the people who live in Kerala – both in material and spiritual terms. These cooperatives are not merely a source of inspiration: they provide a blueprint for cooperatives around the world as seeds of a just future that exist within the confines of capitalism today.
Cooperative Enterprise and Market Economy: Chapter 17
by Luis Razeto Migliaro, translated by Matt Noyes
Historical analysis shows that the cooperative phenomenon is not born of particular cultural and political conditions, nor is it based on social conditions generically defined in terms of poverty, misery and social injustice. Rather it arises in response to the particular process of reorganization of the economy and of commerce that was seen with industrialization and the capitalist organization of the market. The cooperative phenomenon is, then, a specific fact of the modern world, an organizing process that accompanies, and is a consequence of, the emergence and growth of the capitalist economy and of industrialism.
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What we’ve learned from the past year of building the cooperative movement
TESA Collective — Over the past 12 months, we at TESA have been focused on helping to build the cooperative economy in concrete, practical ways.And we have to recognize that work hasn’t happened in a vacuum. We’ve been operating amid deepening global instability, widening inequality, and the steady normalization of authoritarian politics. At times, it has felt like pushing against systems designed to exhaust people who are trying to build something different. But if anything, that context has made the work feel more urgent...
Business NOT as Usual
Each for All — Corinne Remple, Executive Director of the Alberta Community Co-op Association, decided that the story of co-ops needed to be told differently, especially to Gen Z and Millennials.So she collaborated with provincial and national partners to help launch Business NOT as Usual, a campaign that highlights how co-ops are an alternative way of doing business built on shared ownership, sustainability, collective impact and driven by values...
Grit and Dedication in Caring
Equal Care Cooperative —Typically, after heavy snowfall, care agencies face nightmare scenarios as workers struggle to reach individuals scheduled for care. A flurry of panicked phone calls and message exchanges follows as agencies attempt the near-impossible task of meeting all care needs with an already-stretched workforce that has been reduced overnight due to snowbound homes and cars. At Equal Care, however, the story is very different...
Union Co-op PSA
Sieze the Means Video Co-op (YouTube) — A PSA about worker co-ops and the Union Co-ops Council...
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