Later this spring the Mondragón Bookstore and Meeting Place will open at 111 Market Street in Lewisburg. The store will be run as a worker-managed co-op using democratic principles and will offer a wonderful array of used books that speak to the desire for a better world. There will be a meeting place where members of the community may gather to learn or work together on issues of common concern. A lending library will offer books for children and adults’ books that emphasize the values of fairness, inclusion and cooperation.

Named after the Mondragón network of producer co-ops in the Basque country of northern Spain, Mondragón co-ops comprise one of the most successful networks in the world. Mondragon is owned by about 40,000 worker-members, whose democratic votes ultimately determine all of its operations.

Worker co-ops in the United States are growing in popularity but are not yet widely known. The benefits of this type of organization are often overlooked. Part of the purpose of this new bookstore is to demonstrate the benefits of cooperation. We encourage you to come see for yourself how this type of business differs from traditional stores. It may also help to explain the co-op model to dispel some common misconceptions and to clarify the role co-ops play in a wider movement towards economic democracy.

What is a co-op?

A co-op is a group of people who come together to serve a social purpose and agree to govern themselves according to the principles of democratic participation. The goal is to provide for human need while creating a viable livelihood for its members. Coops act on what Thorstein Veblen called 'the instinct of workmanship' – the natural human propensity to do things well. Recognizing that we exist in relation to others, co-ops also seek to create flexible work arrangements in order to allow their members the opportunity to care for others – their children, their elders, their neighbors and friends – and also to have time for creativity, reflection and play. Co-ops seek to allow their members to realize their full potential through creative work, active participation in decisions and fulfilling relationships.

Each co-op is organized in a way that allows every worker to have a say in the decisions affecting the enterprise and in the policies and regulations by which the co-op abides. In so doing, Mondragon has created a highly flexible and effective organization. Instead of paying inflated salaries to executives, the workers themselves elect managers to make decisions concerning operations. These workers gather before work hours, make the necessary decisions and then return to their positions as workers. Their experience on the shop floor informs their decisions as managers. They do not receive additional compensation for this effort but are rewarded, instead, by the additional responsibility and satisfaction associated with contributing to the firm. The savings accrue to the firm and add to its competitiveness.

Workers, as owners of the co-op, receive their dividends in the form of supplements to their stock ownership. In other words, a considerable part of the earnings of the co-op is retained within the firm as equity and is therefore available to the firm for re-investment. Instead of having to pay outside investors, workers essentially pay themselves and these earnings remain available to the co-op until the worker retires and withdraws his or her investment in the form of a (surprisingly considerable) nest egg. Rules concerning payments for work, ownership and governance are discussed and modified by a general assembly of all workers in the co-op. I am not suggesting that co-ops do not also have their difficulties. In any co-operative enterprise there is a tendency for a core group of individuals to coalesce and attempt to have their interests prevail. Work may be specialized and monotonous and it may be difficult to distribute tasks in an equitable way. Also, in Mondragon, co-ops have outsourced work to low wage countries in order to compete with authoritarian firms and the co-ops have been unable thus far to operate these firms as co-ops. To their credit, Mondragon is trying to overcome this obstacle by exploring the possibility of developing co-operative education centers in these low-wage regions.

The continued success of the Mondragon co-ops, however, belies the claims of those who say that co-ops are not a viable means of organizing work efforts. To the contrary, co-ops provide for the needs of their members because they are designed and directed to meeting these needs, rather than the needs of shareholders. That is the key difference and that is why co-ops continue to be denigrated, discouraged and ignored by those who favor an authoritarian economy.

For a number of years, activists from around the world have been gathering to brainstorm about how to transform the authoritarian economy. The World Social Forum serves as a locus for this activity and their efforts have resulted in the notion of the solidarity economy. The solidarity economy includes those aspects of our collective economic activity which are directed toward the provision of human needs and the preservation of the ecology on which we all depend – an economy that puts people and planet first. This solidarity economy is already up and running; it takes the form of methods of economic organization that do not fall into the category of traditional firms or state enterprises. Some examples include non-profits, non-governmental organizations, household enterprises, local green businesses, credit unions, land trusts, community organizations and, of course, co-ops.

The authoritarian economy may recover but as long as work serves shareholders instead of workers, as long as people are systematically excluded from decisions affecting their lives and their livelihoods, we will not achieve the full measure of our humanity. Joining a co-op may not be sufficient to bring the economy to sanity but it is most certainly a good first step.

Come to the Mondragon Bookstore and Meeting Place to see for yourself the benefits of this type of economic organization. We also encourage you to support those organizations in our community that promote the common good.



David Kristjanson-Gural is a Lewisburg resident and a Spilling Ink writer. For more of David’s work and others in Spilling Ink go to www.SpillingInk.net.