An educational strategy for cooperativism : the function of education in supporting worker cooperativism in Malta

Abstract

Worker Cooperatives embody a set of socio-economic relations of production distinctly different from both private and state capitalism. Their most fundamental and distinguishing feature is that control of the business is derived directly from working in it. Cooperative structures of work organisation are as old as civilization itself, but their emergence over the last two centuries has been strongly induced by a desire among workers to have more control over the conditions of their work and a more just and equitable share in the fruits of their labour. The cooperative organisation of production also offers an improved access to economies of scale which tend to be reaped by medium and large-scale enterprises without losing the pride of craft, skill and self-control usually associated with self-employment. The possible contribution by worker cooperatives towards job creation or preservation has led to a renewed interest in such forms of production in a scenario of global open unemployment and underemployment, both as part of official Government policy and as worker or peasant grass-roots initiative. The Issue being addressed and its Justification: The specific concern of this research paper is to examine the function of Education in leading to successful worker cooperative establishment: Success being defined in terms of two major requirements - economic viability and the preservation of worker control and of democratic participation in decision making. The argument is posed within a broad theoretical framework which analyses the wider conditions that influence the behaviour and performance of worker cooperative structures. There is a dual justification for my focus on education and its contribution towards successful worker cooperativism. The first is rooted in pragmatism: As a staff member of an educational institution involved in promoting worker cooperatives in Malta, my home country, my concern arises from an actual, immediate situation. My recommendations are addressed as much to Maltese policy makers, cooperative members and educational planners as to myself and my colleagues at the Workers' Participation Development Centre. My reliance on secondary data for presenting my case is also corraborated by my own experience in an educational agency involved in cooperative development. Secondly, cooperation and education are inextricably linked: Owenism, which inspired one of the first cooperative developments in an industrial setting, was, in its very essence, an educational movement. For every Owenite, education in the principles of the new "social system" was a vitally important matter and a requisite for practical success. Robert Owen himself pioneered in the field of cooperative education by opening the Institution for the Formation of Character at New Lanark, in 1816. The Rochdale Pioneers, established under owenite leadership in 1844, aimed not only at enrolling members but at making good cooperators of them in a very broad sense, including not only a clear awareness of the principles of cooperative trading, but also a new outlook on the problems of citizenship and on the forces, moral and material, that were shaping the industrialising world of steampower and mass production that was Britain at that time. Such an outlook made them encourage education in both its technical and cooperative aspect, and it made them eager to attend to the education 5 of their children as well as of themselves. As early as 1853, two and a half per cent of the Pioneers' trading surplus was allocated to finance their educational activities, which included the maintenance of a newsroom and library. Yet, in spite of these noble ideals, most cooperatives have failed to live up to the expectations of their founders. Owen's own self-managed community - ironically located at Harmony Hall - became the seat of a bitter conflict within a few years; the Christian Socialists were already disillusioned with worker cooperatives as viable democratic structures by 1851, when the large majority of the cooperatives they had helped to establish had already 8 withered away. Even the Rochdale Pioneers' Manufacturing Society, looked upon by others as a model on how to succeed, was converted into an ordinary joint-stock, profit-making concern in 1862. 9 Thus, how to set up economically successful worker cooperatives which upheld their democratic principles was already a matter of grave concern over a century ago. Education, in technical and cooperative skills had been recognised as important but, apparently, it was not enough to prevent either liquidation or degeneration. The same concern is at the heart of this research paper. […]