Co-ops - an answer to 'crony capitalism'?

Over the last few weeks and months we have listened to party leaders such as Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg and David Cameron set out their plans for responsible capitalism. In part this is in response to the global economic crisis, but it should not only be a knee-jerk response to the economic crisis. Perhaps we should have known all-along that there was a better way to do business.

 

2012 has been designated by the UN as the International Year of Co-operatives. The theme for the year is ‘Co-operatives Build a Better World’, who could disagree with such a slogan? But beneath the glib slogan there must be a challenge to everybody - what are we doing to make the world better?

 

I believe that co-operatives give us a real chance to make the world a better place. The economic crisis was caused, at least in part, by a belief that shareholder capitalism was the only way to do business. That thinking led to profits being chased without any thought for the consequences.

 

Are there really any alternatives? I would say that a co-operative is a real alternative. A co-operative is a group of people acting together to meet the common needs and aspirations of the members of the co-op, they share ownership and they make decisions democratically.

 

Across the UK 5,450 co-operative enterprises work in all areas of the economy. Co-ops are well known in the retail sector, but there are also co-ops in housing, farming, football, finance, social care, energy and pubs. Co-op pubs often allow a community pub to stay open when big business has given up on that pub and that community, this can be important in sustaining communities.

 

Co-ops in the UK are owned by 12.8 million people, more than one in five of the population. Co-operatives do many of the things that the left think are good such as empowering consumers and the workforce. In the UK the Co-op movement has been at the forefront of promoting fairtrade. But co-ops are also viable businesses which make a real contribution to the UK economy. In 2010 the turnover of UK Co-ops was £33.2 billion.

 

In December 2011 Pope Benedict praised co-ops as helping to humanize the economy. Many people from a faith perspective have seen that co-operatives value the dignity of the individual consumer or worker, usually both, and have recognised that there is a better way to organise business. 

 

This is a business model which works across all sectors and all sizes of business. It has the potential to change the way we do business in the future. The Co-operative Party’s slogan for its campaign to remutualise Northern Rock and other demutualised Building Societies is ‘Fed up with banks that put profit before people? The Feeling’s Mutual.’

 

There is no doubt that that feeling is mutual and that putting far more enterprises into mutual and co-operative ownership would be popular and would show that lessons had been learnt from the economic crisis caused by banks chasing unsustainable profit.

 

The answer to the question posed by Cameron, Clegg and Miliband about responsible capitalism demonstrates that there is a better way and that way is, at least in part, about promoting co-operatives and mutuals. In doing this we can go some way to making 2012 a year when co-operatives do build a better world and make the international year mean something.