"Cooperation, makes it happen," states the video short on Sesame Street. Dancing muppets, working together, singing in harmony; a creative image of what cooperatives can do for people to develop a better society that focuses on people and not on profit and its destructive luxuries. Reaching as far back as the 1600s, the Cooperative Movement in the US based itself in fighting oppression, facing economic crises, and developing an alternative structure and mindset for society.
"The fact that many Europeans migrated to North America to escape oppression contributed to their enthusiasm for cooperative projects to build a better society in their new homeland." (Merrett & Walzer, 28)
The Massachusetts Bay Colony, best known by the pilgrims of Plymouth Rock, may be the first example of a utopian community in the US. Many of these cooperative and communal living communities grew from the religious oppression rampant in Europe. Many Europeans migrated to the New World seeking to establish a counter-culture that accepted them. These communities were organized under specific communal religious principles like New Harmony in Indiana.
"They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of the bread and to the prayers. [...] All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their property and possessions and divide them among all according to each one's need." (New American Bible, Acts 42-46)
New Harmony was later run by the welsh utopian and social reformer, Robert Owen, who is considered the father of the cooperative movement. The Owenites of New Harmony represented the change from independent utopian communal communities to a more organized cooperative movement. Not long after the founding of New Harmony, the Rochdale Equitable Pioneers Society birthed the modern cooperative movement and wrote the principles that govern the activities of cooperatives.
From desires to live in an alternative society to European models and economic needs, the Cooperative Movement in the US did not become widespread with the establishment of utopian communities, but with agricultural agendas. In the late 1800s cooperatives were actively promoted by The Grange organizations that worked in local regions to promote farmer owned stores based on the Rochdale principles. The Grange organization and cooperative movement received a boost after the Long Depression of 1873 characterized by economic over-expansion after the Civil War, the Black Friday panic, equine influenza that crippled industry, and the Chicago fire.
"[...] movement sprang out of farmer protests against the crop-lien system of the South." (Merrett & Walzer, 30)
This was followed by the expansion of cooperatives across the US in agricultural business. In the 1890s, the Farmer's Alliance was elect a majority of its affiliated members to Kansas Congress in able to develop into a national political party, the People's Party, that held the most successful third party contest in federal elections. In 1916 the first national organization for cooperatives was founded, the Cooperative League of the US, later to become the National Cooperative Business Association. In 1922 the Magna Carta for cooperatives was signed into law, the Capper-Volstead Act. A few years later the Great Depression hit.
"Between World War I and the Great Depression of the 1930s, the movement acquired ideological and organizational focus. A series of visionary leaders conceived of consumer cooperatives as a general answer to numerous social ills. Their vision, though it drew on experiences of working-class and farm movements, was not strongly tied to class [...] but was instead a general doctrine of consumer sovereignty and democracy through co-ops" (Merrett & Walzer, 40)
The social protests of the 1930s, grew the movement as people disillusioned with the current economic system and desperate for economic relief joined cooperative organizations. There were now over 1000 credit unions and the cooperative movement expanded further in various consumer realms: housing, health care, rural electricity, and other fields. The 1930s also saw powerful government support for cooperatives. Roosevelt's administration passed legislation in support of credit unions and other co-ops, individual legislation was also passed in roughly 26 states.
The 1940s and 1950s saw consolidation of cooperatives into stronger and more centralized organizations. In 1946, the North American Student Cooperative League, later to become the North American Student Cooperative Organization in 1968, was founded to support low-cost student housing during World War II. Cooperatives such as Land o' Lakes, GreenBelt, and Farmland Industries broke into large industry showing that cooperatives can compete economically. New York's state government started a number of cooperative housing initiatives supported by labor unions and legislation was passed to provide These decades also saw the development of new kinds of cooperatives which became more well known later.
Crisis hit the global economy in the 1970s:
"[...] the first oil crisis, the collapse of international monetary arrangements in favor of a less regulated system of currencies, and the economic crisis of high inflation combined with high unemployment. [...] followed by a recession of the early 1980s. Old industries that had been the mainstays of economies for a century were downsizing, closing, or mechanizing in new ways, with tens of thousands thrown out of work at a time. There were trade wars, with new rounds of free trade, protectionism, and bloc-building. Commodities faced falling prices on world markets. Growth was in the service sector; part-time work, multiple employments, and career changes became more frequent. With these trends came the information revolution embodied in the widespread introduction of personal computer systems and the emergence of the Internet. The information economy that has emerged during this era has been characterized by globalization, turbulance, and unpredictability." (Merrett & Walzer, 46)
New cooperatives associated with the ecological and organic-food movements. These new co-ops reflected broader changes in society as they became less associated with consuming or producing material goods and more with values, lifestyles, and services. The 1980s and 1990s saw many large successes and failures of cooperatives. Notably the GreenBelt and Berkley cooperatives closed down. 1985, the National Cooperative Business Association was founded from the Cooperative League of the US and gave cooperatives a national network and support base. In 1990, there were over 1 million units of cooperative housing. In 1995, it was reported that almost 4000 cooperatives existed and earned a net income over $2.2 billion. By 2001, there were almost 10,000 credit unions with 80 million members represented.
In the current economic crisis already a year down the recession tube, localization on the rise, recognition of a need to become more ecologically conscious and responsible, desire for accountability in democracy with increased participation, and a newly elected president calling for bottom-up restructuring of society, who is to say that cooperation cannot make it all happen.
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