A model of the free-entry producer cooperative

One of the most frequent criticisms of the Illyrian model of the labour-managed firm is that it does not take into account key institutional factors which are likely in practice to eliminate the perverse short-run supply and degeneration results well known in the literature. This paper presents a new model of the labour-managed firm, incorporating several of the most significant institutional factors actually in evidence in Western cooperative sectors. The free-entry producer cooperative model includes differing member and nonmember compensation methods, free access to membership, and special capital financing and shutdown rules. The new model's results differ from Ward's Illyrian firm model in a number of ways: first, capital is always variable for these firms, so the perverse short-run supply response does not apply; second, free-entry producer cooperatives do not degenerate into capitalist firms as Illyrian firms do; and third, such cooperatives will always have higher survival rates than both Illyrian and conventional firms.     

Commons and cooperatives: A new governance of collective action

The Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) is emerging as a social movement capable of moving society beyond the imbalances of the capitalist market economy and its top‐down regulation by the state. But the SSE's progress has been slow while unresolved challenges (e.g., climate, inequality) continue to intensify. Among communitarian responses to these challenges, the commons have shown great potential as a shared governance mechanism for the responsible management of common‐pool resources. To the extent that this success encourages broader applicability for commons, we focus also on commoning as crucial social practice rooted in collective action and adaptive governance. Adding this dimension of activism opens the possibility of enriching the SSE both in theory and practice for the purpose of strengthening its institutional make‐up, in particular cooperatives occupying a central position in SSE. Commoning enables us to conceive of tangible connections between commons and cooperatives as complementary modes of anti‐capitalist organization. We can illustrate this complementarity by analyzing how Ostrom's “design principles” for commons can help strengthen the ICA's Cooperative Principles. Useful lessons can be learned from concrete examples of commons–cooperative alliances, such as Ecuador's Buen Vivir initiative, the Enercoop PACA project in France, and Oakland's OmniCommons space.     

Entrepreneurial ecosystem for cooperatives: The case of Kyrgyz agricultural cooperatives

The article discusses the development of agricultural cooperatives in Kyrgyzstan from an entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) perspective. Agricultural development priorities explain cooperatives’ importance in Kyrgyz government's policies, but cooperatives still fail at countering the challenges of the smallholder economy. Considering agricultural cooperatives as a form of rural entrepreneurship, this paper aims to contribute to the discussion of the factors that support cooperatives in developing countries adapting the EE framework to cooperative entrepreneurship. Using a content analysis method, we analysed and coded textual data from documentary and archival publications on the agricultural cooperatives in Kyrgyzstan published by the government, cooperatives and their unions and the reports of international organizations. We identify five main dimensions of the cooperative entrepreneurial ecosystem for cooperatives: (1) policy and regulatory framework; (2) education and skills; (3) market environment; (4) culture; (5) networks. We found that even if the overall structure of cooperatives’ EE can be comparable to conventional enterprises, its sub-elements significantly differ for cooperative enterprises. Despite its exploratory character and single-case research design, this article contributes to the theoretical discussion on cooperative entrepreneurial ecosystems in post-socialist developing contexts and offers a framework of analysis for cooperative development policies and practices.     

Classifying the degree of cooperative multinationality: Case study of a French multinational cooperative

In recent decades, the largest European worker cooperatives, and those that are the most emblematic in their countries, have been transformed into multinational companies. This article examines workers’-cooperative multinationality by providing a classifying tool based on the interaction between control rights and return rights held by foreign employees in the subsidiaries of multinational cooperatives. We illustrate our matrix of cooperative multinationality by classifying an internationalized historical cooperative, Up Group (formerly Chèque Déjeuner, SCOP). In the last few decades, the French cooperative Up has become a hybrid multinational player in the employee benefits industry by setting up capitalist subsidiaries both in France and overseas. The case study also reports on Up's innovative attempt to produce a global cooperative or a more democratic multinational enterprise through converting subsidiaries’ employees into associates.     

False prosperity: Rethinking government support for farmers’ cooperatives in China

The rapid development of farmers’ cooperatives in rural China cannot be separated from government support. To ensure the growth of farmers’ cooperatives, the Chinese government uses it as a key performance indicator for its local institutions. Superficially, rural China's cooperative population and membership size witnessed rapid growth during the first decade after the Farmers’ Specialized Cooperatives Law was enacted in 2007; however, such government intervention also leads to non-standard phenomena due to market distortion. Using nationally representative survey data from 504 cooperatives in Jiangsu, Jilin, and Sichuan provinces, this paper provides a reliable estimate of the “shell cooperative” rate around 2014. The empirical study sheds further light on the role of government during the period of rapid but chaotic growth by a subset containing 241 marketing cooperatives. Results show that direct administrative intervention leads to the emergence of many shell cooperatives (approximately 37%). Further study also confirms that task-oriented policy support is only positively associated with the nominal coverage ratio but has no significant relationship with cooperatives’ function. This study provides new insights into the formation of shell cooperatives and suggests that direct administrative intervention may not be a good strategy for promoting the sustainable development of farmers’ cooperatives.     

Privatization and efficient contracts: The workers' stake in the transition

The privatization programs in Hungary and Poland afford workers the opportunity to acquire shares in their large state-owned company on preferential terms. Relying on the literature on Western producer cooperatives, we argue that such a policy may enhance worker productivity, but that it will also require the participation of a core investor in company governance. Using a shared decision-making model, we characterize efficient wage-employment bargains for these two groups. Comparative static results indicate that debt reduction and less generous unemployment compensation are beneficial to both parties as well as to the financial well-being of the newly privatized companies.     

COMMUNITY AND COOPERATION: THE EVOLUTION OF COOPERATIVES TOWARDS NEW MODELS OF CITIZENS' DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION IN PUBLIC SERVICES PROVISION

The community cooperatives that are spreading today in many parts of the world are the arrival point of an evolutionary process that has seen the progressive shift of cooperatives’ focus from specific social and professional groups to society as a whole. This evolution is marked by two changes. The first was at the turn of the 19th century when there made their appearance the first community cooperatives which catered to the needs of a whole community. Among them were electric cooperatives, cooperative banks and some kinds of agricultural cooperatives. A further development relevant to the evolution of community cooperatives occurred towards the end of the last century with the enlargement of cooperatives’ aims to embrace society's benefit. From this process there emerge in total four categories of cooperatives which taken together constitute a complete classification of the cooperative universe. New community cooperatives are the off‐springs of the old ones but the picture is rather confused. The term itself is relatively new and similar institutions are named differently at different times. Moreover, though having a few basic features in common, they differ much from one another and from the old ones. To take care of this we elaborate a concept of community cooperative consistent with its evolution and the classification of cooperatives we have identified. Basic elements of the concept are community goods, territory and citizenship, which are discussed extensively with reference to factual cases. We then discuss in what way new community cooperatives differ from old ones. The paper closes with a discussion of their future prospects.     

农村经济组织形态的演变与创新——山东省莱阳市农业产业化调查报告

农业产业化的进程也是一个农村经济组织演变和创新的过程。作者在对山东省莱阳市调研的基础上描述和分析了这一历史过程。在农业产业化之初 ,农村的主要经济组织形式是合作社和“龙头企业 +农户”。但是 ,这两种组织形式都存在着一些缺陷。前者主要是受制于资金不足和缺乏抵押性资产 ;后者主要是契约不能对当事人构成有效约束。为了克服这些缺陷 ,有必要引入组织中介 ,形成新的组织形式———“龙头企业+合作社 +农户”或“龙头企业 +大户 +农户”。这种组织变革在一定程度上弥补了原有制度缺陷 ,从而在实践中日益发展成为农业产业化的主要组织形态。但是 ,由于契约是不完全的 ,合作社和大户抵押性资产不足 ,这两种组织形式也面临着一些新问题 ,本文探索了组织改善和组织创新的路径。     

Organizational structure, redistribution and the endogeneity of cost: Cooperatives, investor-owned firms and the cost of procurement

As an organizational type, cooperatives are in general not the dominant form of enterprise. Nevertheless, cooperatives and cooperative-like organizations do play important roles in a number of sectors, suggesting that in some circumstances they are more efficient than other business forms. This paper explores the importance of membership goals on the relative efficiency of the cooperative form of organization. The cooperative cost (and hence production efficiency) advantage is directly linked to the goal alignment between the cooperative and its members, and is influenced by the extent of income redistribution between members and the degree of rent seeking that takes place in the organization. When there is no aversion to income inequality, the members produce at their first best levels. However, as aversion to inequality rises, the production profile of the members converges to the production profile generated when the members face an IOF. Regarding rent seeking, if the more (less) efficient members are able to get their profits valued more, total output is increased (decreased). As a consequence, consumers may benefit from the lobbying that occurs inside a cooperative where the powerful members are the most efficient agents.     

RAISING CAPITAL BY ISSUING TRANSFERABLE MEMBERSHIP IN A WORKER COOPERATIVE

It is generally recognized that worker cooperatives have a disadvantage in raising capital compared with conventional capitalist firms. In this paper, we explore a method for a worker cooperative to raise non‐redeemable equity by issuing transferable membership shares as financial securities.     

Anti-immigrant sentiment and the process of settlement among Mexican immigrants to the United States: Reflections on the current wave of Mexican immigrant bashing

After reviewing literature which correlates economic crises with immigrant scapegoating and shows the former functionality of Mexican undocumented immigrants for U.S. capitalism, I argue that the anti-immigrant sentiments arising globally today have a new dimension that is closely related to the restructuring of the world system as well as to the qualitatively different character of immigration. Immigrant bashing is partially a reaction to the “deterritorialization” and increasing delegitimization of the nation-state as a viable “encapsulating” entity. Such deterritorialization represents a qualitative change in immigration patterns: immi-grants from underdeveloped to core capitalist countries have progressively formed “daughter communities” and become settlers instead of temporary, circular migrants, thus becoming economically less functional for U.S. capital. At the same time, their cause has been taken up by Mexican-American political groups, making them increasingly dysfunctional in political terms.     

Farmers’ organizations and sustainable development: An introduction

This special issue features 14 new research papers investigating the role of farmers’ organizations (e.g., collective action, self-help groups, producer companies/organizations, and cooperatives) in supporting sustainable development. The key findings include: (1) farmer groups and cooperatives promote farmers’ adoption of good farm management practices, new agricultural technologies and sustainable farming practices, although not substantially improving farm yield; (2) outsourcing services provided by agricultural cooperatives help to increase the technical efficiency of crop production; (3) cooperative membership enhances members’ bargaining power and enables them to sell their products at higher prices; (4) cooperatives motivate rural laborers to work in off-farm sectors, while self-help groups empower rural women in decision-making; (5) internet use improves agricultural cooperatives’ economic, social, and innovative performances; (6) direct administrative intervention supporting cooperative development may lead to the emergence of shell cooperatives; (7) participation in forest farmer organizations enables wood value chain upgrading; (8) increasing the cooperative size in terms of income, equity, and assets increases the profitability of savings and credit cooperatives; and (9) creating cross-border cooperation between cooperatives generates benefits for all parties involved. These findings can inspire the design of policies aimed to support farmers’ organizations in achieving sustainable development goals.     

Dynamic behavior of a simple neoclassical model with wealth and capital unequal

The paper analyzes the standard one-good neoclassical dynamic model in which wages to consumer-workers are paid in IOU's issued by producers. The wealth of consumers consists of their accumulated IOU's and the model differs from the traditional one in that it is not assumed that consumers' wealth is exactly equal to the value of the capital stock. The dynamic behavior of this model turns out to be quite different from the traditional one, the main result being that, in the absence of “excessive savings” by consumers, the golden rule will always be the unique stable steady state.     

The so-called “transformation problem” revisited: A comment

This comment shows that Lipietz's Marxist transformation theorem represents but a simple, though useful reinterpretation of obvious mathematical consequences of a standard Sraffa model—by making appropriate use of its known degree of freedom. Labor values are not involved in this new interpretation of conventional prices of production. A proposal is therefore made how their role in Marx's transformation may be investigated further on the basis of Lipietz's theorem and its interpretation of the “value of labor power”.     

The Relationship Between Agricultural Cooperatives and the State in Sweden: The Legislative Process

On the basis of interviews made with twenty seven leading personalities from cooperatives and government institutions, it is identified, that two main dimensions, the economic and the social, are emphasized by different interest groups involved in the cooperative process. It is also indicated that the relationship between state and cooperatives, in varying degrees, combines these two basic dimensions over time in the actual cooperative law and thus focuses on one dimension, neglecting the other.
Relationship is meant to anchor the economic and the social values of cooperatives in the political process, and enable them to be accepted. In conclusion, it can be argued that the state can influence the character of cooperatives by selecting specific actors in specific processes. For this reason, in order to secure a sustainable autonomous development of cooperatives, it is important to synthesize and take into consideration different interests in future relations between cooperatives and the state.     

Cooperation in the Moshav

The moshav is a cooperative village in which members own and operate their farms individually. The moshav supervises cooperative marketing of most of the farms' products. But its most important function is as financial intermediary since its members are handicapped when acting by themselves in the credit market. Despite occasional internal conflicts about the cooperative marketing, in the long run the moshav enhances capital accumulation and income. This paper reports an empirical study of cooperative marketing, credit, and capital in the moshav. A dynamic model is developed and estimates are presented.     

Chinese Capitalism and the Maritime Silk Road: A World-Systems Perspective

As China tries to catch up from a semi-peripheral status in the hierarchy of a capitalist world-system, three decades of fast economic growth have recently shown serious signs of capital glut, overproduction and decreasing returns to capital, indicating the beginning of a phase of contraction and stagnation in the long-cycles of capitalist accumulation. The combination of “capital logic” and “territorial logic” in Giovanni Arrighi’s framework gives both the Chinese state and Chinese capital strong incentives and pressure to actively engage in a “spatial fix” by reconfiguring its geographic vision in order to further capital accumulation and expansion on a larger spatial dimension, culminating in the “One Belt, One Road” Initiative, including the Maritime Silk Road Initiative (MSRI). The official promotion of the MSRI hopes to revitalise the historical precedents of the “Silk Road” so that the modern-day hyper-connectivity across Asia, Africa and Europe will facilitate the formation of a China-led reorganised world economy, operating under open and equal participation, possibly leading to common development for all countries involved. However, the nature and impact of such a grandiose initiative, especially its core mission of “connectivity”, is still highly contingent on the hybrid nature of Chinese capitalism in the world-system and how China engages capitalism at the global scale.     

New evidence on wages and employment in worker cooperatives compared with capitalist firms

This article presents new econometric evidence on the comparative behavior of worker cooperatives and capitalist firms, highlighting the differences in wages and employment responses. We use a comprehensive panel data set that covers the entire population of cooperatives and their capitalist counterparts registered in the social security records in Uruguay from April 1996 to December 2005. We analyze the data to study the employment and wage decisions in both types of enterprises, the results of which suggests that their adjustment mechanisms to idiosyncratic price changes and macroeconomic shocks may differ greatly. The data set also allows us to estimate wage and employment variations for members and non-members of cooperatives separately, and provides an empirical test for the so-called degeneration hypothesis. Our findings are broadly consistent with previous studies for Italian cooperatives and plywood cooperatives in the United States. As studies of this kind are so few, our research provides a significant contribution to the empirical literature on labor managed firms. Moreover, comparing worker cooperatives and capitalist firms offers an exceptional opportunity to determine how control by workers may lead to different organizational behavior.     

Employee ownership and internal governance

This paper is designed to counter Oliver Williamson's hypothetical ‘Peer Group’ model of organization with a discussion of three prosperous populations of employee-owned firms: worked-owned scavenger companies, taxi cooperatives, and professional partnerships such as the large law firm. It will be shown here that these firms are formed, endure and prevail over their competition for reasons that Williamson, more than anyone else, has taught us to appreciate. In particular, this paper will argue that the metering problems and human asset considerations that are so prominently featured in Williamson's work are crucial for understanding the success of these firms.     

Reputation and imperfect information

A common observation in the informal literature of economics (and elsewhere) is that is multistage “games,” players may seek early in the game to acquire a reputation for being “tough” or “benevolent” or something else. But this phenomenon is not observed in some formal game-theoretic analyses of finite games, such as Selten's finitely repeated chain-store game or in the finitely repeated prisoners' dilemma. We reexamine Selten's model, adding to it a “small” amount of imperfect (or incomplete) information about players' payoffs, and we find that this addition is sufficient to give rise to the “reputation effect” that one intuitively expects.