Join us on October 26th for the 2024 Beyond Business as Usual Conference

CO-OPS & THE NEXT ECONOMY

FRAMEWORKS

WHAT IS A COOPERATIVE? 

A cooperative, or a co-op, is defined by the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) as “an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically controlled enterprise.” In other words, a co-op is a business that is owned and controlled by and operated for the benefit of its members, or the people who use its products and/or services.

Cooperatives follow a set of seven internationally recognized principles: 

Voluntary & Open Membership

Education, Training and Information

Democratic Member Control

Cooperation Among Cooperatives

Autonomy & Independence

Concern for Community

Member Economic Participation

This language was adopted by the ICA in 1995. Read more in this report published by the ICA’s Principles Committee in 2016 giving guidance and advice on the practical application of the Principles in a 21st century context. 

The Rochedale Equitable Pioneer Society, a consumer co-op in Rochdale, England founded by cotton mill workers facing low wages and high cost of food and household goods in 1844, is credited with popularizing these ideas that serve as the pillars of the modern cooperative movement. 

At the same time, we seek to also root our network in the principles and practices of economic cooperation that have existed among Black, indigenous and migrant communities for centuries here on Turtle Island and across the Global South prior to, in response to and/or in spite of racial capitalism and settler colonialism. For more writing on this subject, we recommend the work of Jessica Gordon Nembhart, Stacey Sutton, Kali Akuno, Emily Kawano, and Francisco Perez. 

This framing keeps us grounded in the core belief that co-op development is not simply a form of business and workforce development. To quote Kali Akuno, founder of Cooperation Jackson, “co-ops are a tool in the arsenal of working people” both to meet material needs in the short-term and to facilitate social and economic transformation in the long-term toward Black liberation, decolonization, and gender, labor, and environmental justice. 

Co-ops vary widely in terms of membership - or who owns the cooperative. Models include worker co-ops, businesses owned by the workers, consumer co-ops, that are owned by members who use the co-ops to purchase goods and services, producer co-ops, that are owned by people who produce similar types goods and services and use the co-op to more effectively negotiate prices and access larger markets, and purchasing and shared services co-ops whose members are businesses or organizations who use the co-op to achieve better pricing, availability, and delivery of products or services. Additionally, there are hybrid or multi-stakeholder co-ops.

WHAT IS AN ECONOMY? 

Movement Generation defines the term economy in simple terms as: “how we manage our home.” Economies can be measured in many ways beyond money, financial markets, and gross domestic product.

Economies exist at various levels from a household to a nation to a planet. In this framework, all economies are built on a common set of pillars: 

  • natural resources which we combine with human work towards some purpose. 

  • There also must be a culture/worldview that makes the economy make sense to the people who

    participate in it and sets the limits of what is acceptable and not. 

  • Finally, there is governance, which is the organization and facilitation of the functioning of the economy towards its purpose. 

    Learn more about Movement Generation’s strategic framework for a just transition from an extractive economy to a living or regenerative economy and download the zine in English and Spanish here. 

    Another useful definition of economy comes from the Center for Economic Democracy’s Economics for Emancipation open source curriculum: 

    “the processes that provision for human life.”

WHAT IS THE SOLIDARITY ECONOMY? 

The New Economy Coalition defines the solidarity economy as:

“a global movement to build a just and sustainable economy where we prioritize people and the planet over endless profit and growth.” 

It is a democratic, post-capitalist economic framework that emerged from movements in Latin America and Europe in the 1980s and 1990s. This set of concepts has been referred to historically by many names i.e. Next Economy, New Economy, Regenerative Economy, Just Transition, Democratic Socialism.

According to economists Emily Kawano and Julie Matthaei in this 2020 primer, the solidarity economy “rejects state-dominated authoritarian forms of socialism” and is “explicitly feminist, anti-racist, and ecological.” 

Building the solidarity economy involves transitioning towards collective ownership and democratic management over our land, food, housing, labor, financial systems, water, internet, gas, electricity, media, and technology and stewardship of the land, air, and water. 

The solidarity economy movement requires a diverse set of strategies including but not limited to developing co-ops. Other interventions include:

  • labor and tenant unions

  • mutual aid networks

  • community land trusts

  • community gardens and fridges

  • regenerative agriculture

  • co-housing, intentional and resident-owned communities

  • time banking and bartering systems

  • participatory budgeting

  • non-extractive lending, public banking, and susus 

  • community solar and broadband projects

  • free, open source technology and content