What can we learn from Cuba? The role of cooperativism in a transforming society

Cuba’s experiment with cooperativism within a socialist economic system offers important lessons for the global co-operative movement. Co-operatives as defined by the International Co-operative Alliance Statement of... [ view full abstract ]

Cuba’s experiment with cooperativism within a socialist economic system offers important lessons for the global co-operative movement. Co-operatives as defined by the International Co-operative Alliance Statement of Co-operative Identity (ica.coop) typically function within capitalist market systems where they face pressures from competition, and institutions designed to support and protect investors. Co-operatives may face isomorphism under competitive and institutional pressures, and although they often identify as non-capitalist, their collective associative power is often challenged as non-transformative.

Solidarity economy on the other hand “pushes the envelope of transformative change fundamentally challenging the core institutions of the capitalist system and seeking alternatives centred on redistributive justice, deep sustainability, active citizenship and a more profound reconfiguration of power relations.” (Utting 2016) Co-operatives are an integral part of the solidarity economy movements, particularly in Latin America where their non-capitalist / associative features are placed at the root of an alternative socio-economic system. Typically, as in the understanding of ‘new cooperativist’ movements (Vieta 2010), co-operatives fit for ‘post-capitalist’ socio-economic foundations include association of labour with self-management and distributional equity. This aspect of co-operation can be found in worker and producer co-operatives, as well as most multi-stakeholder (solidarity) co-operatives (Vezina and Girard 2014).

The paper discusses the role of co-operatives in the Cuban transformation of its socio-economic model and explores the underlying features of socialist co-operatives. The mandate for Cuban co-operatives is to mutualize (rather than privatize) state firms, manage social property, and secure a more socialized form of ownership than other recently legalized private enterprises (Novkovic 2017). As vehicles of socialist transformation, co-operatives in Cuba are assuming a more radical role reaching beyond the ICA principles; a role that fits well with Latin American solidarity movements broadening cooperativism as a social movement to all forms of self-managed organizations serving people, rather than capital.

In the socialist tradition, Cuban co-operative members are workers or producers[1], which ties them with other worker co-operatives around the world. Collective association of labor is at the centre of worker co-operation in general, and socialist co-operatives in particular, if one considers labour theory of value as the key argument in favour of labour sovereignty (Novkovic 2014). A more fundamental argument in favour of labour association is extended in the labour theory of property (Ellerman 2016), arguing that workers –although under a capitalist labour contract - are in fact legally responsible for their actions, and should also be the legal owners of the outcomes of their actions. Further, many worker co-operatives emerged from the Catholic social doctrine, most notably Mondragon, where labour is of primary concern.

 “Labour is the principal factor for transforming nature, society and human beings themselves..” (Arizmendiarrieta, cited in Herrera 2004)

The struggle in Cuba is to develop the institutional framework for cooperativism which will replace the government in the delivery of social goods. While collective ownership and associated labour define worker cooperatives, internalization of ‘externalities’, i.e. a community focus is not necessarily embedded in worker co-operation. 

The multi-stakeholder co-operative form would serve this purpose well, but is not yet present in Cuban institutions. The paper concludes showcasing the socialist -- multistakeholder-- co-operative experience in the former Yugoslavia, and presents relevant findings for Cuban co-operative development with further implications for the structure of solidarity cooperative movement.

References:

Ellerman, David 2016.  The labour theory of property and marginal productivity theory. Economic Thought 5.1:19-36.

Herrera, David 2004. Mondragon: a for-profit organization that embodies Catholic social thought. Review of Business (The Peter J. Tobin College of Business, St. John's University) 25 (1): 56–68

Nova, Armando 2013 Agricultural Cooperatives in Cuba: 1959–Present. In Pineiro Harnecker, Camila (ed)

Novkovic, Sonja 2014. Co-operatives in a socialist economy: Cuba’s decentralization of decision-making. A version of the paper presented at the Managing the Co-operative Difference conference in Moncton, New Brunswick. Unpublished

Novkovic, Sonja 2017. The role of co-operatives in Cuba's transforming economy, in Novkovic, S. and H. Veltmeyer (eds) Cooperativism and local development in Cuba: An agenda for democratic social change. Brill publishers, forthcoming

Pineiro Harnecker, Camila 2013 (ed) Cooperatives and Socialism: A View from Cuba. Palgrave MacMillan

Utting, Peter 2016. Mainstreaming Social and Solidarity Economy: Opportunities and Risks for Policy Change. UNSSE unsse.org http://unsse.org/wp-content/up... [Dec 30 2016]

Vezina, Martine and Jean-Pierre Girard 2014. Multi-stakeholder Co-operative Model as a Flexible Sustainable Framework for Collective Entrepreneurship: An International Perspective. in Gijselinckx, Caroline, Li Zhao and Sonja Novkovic (eds.) Co-operative Innovations in China and the West. Palgrave MacMillan, London UK.

Vieta Marcelo 2010. The New Cooperativism (Editorial), Affinities: A Journal of Radical Theory, Culture, and Action, 4,1: 1-11.

[1] Cuban agricultural co-operatives take three forms: CCS with privately owned land by farmer-members, CPA with collectivized land or leased state land, and UBPCs where worker co-operators use state land for agricultural production (Nova 2013). New non-agricultural worker cooperatives are leasing capital from the government.