Leis, Long live the cooperatives

In the past few decades, the cooperatives have developed in a big way in Panama, and constitute an important source for the creation of income and jobs. They are an economic and social power. The cooperatives’ support for the economy has been around $800 million by almost 360 cooperatives with about 172,000 members in all regions of the country. I would have to ask whether this increase translates into the active presence of the cooperative movement in the decisive spaces in which public policies, socio-economic strategies and the actions of popular movements and civil society are defined. The answer is evident --- they have a low profile, with little presence or visibility.

The cooperative movement faces many challenges. The cooperatives express the prevailing centralism, with activity broadly localized in Panama province, followed by Chiriqui and Veraguas, leaving the indigenous areas way behind. Let us not forget the burden of poverty in the country and the indigenous areas, and this is reinforced when the co-ops’ locations are more urban than rural.

Although women are half of the population, and are found more and more in the cooperatives, there still remains a lot of room for progress. At the same time, it appears that the co-ops hold little attraction for the youth, as the majority of their members are middle-aged or mature. A movement that doesn’t regenerate itself and bring in the youth runs the risk of reducing its elasticity and dynamism.

Although the majority of the cooperatives declare net surpluses, there is an educative deficit. In 162 cooperatives --- 109 urban and 53 rural --- there is no functioning education committee, from which the lack of leadership motivation (125 co-ops) or of economic resources (53 co-ops) may be adduced. Among the difficulties that affect the functioning and development of the cooperatives, the members cite aspects that could be confronted with more and better education: little interest on the part of members, directors who don’t know their functions, few human resources, limited membership, high arrears. The educative deficit is not only quantitative, but also qualitative. This contradicts one of Rochdale’s principles.

There is a lack of some kind of “cooperatometer” that evaluates the social, educative and cultural aspects, so as to integrate the qualitative dimension according to progress or lack thereof toward accomplishment of the seven principles of cooperativism --- voluntary and open membership; democratic management; economic participation of all members; autonomy and independence; education, training and information; cooperation among cooperatives; community interest.

Cooperativism can’t forget its origins or subordinate the values of solidarity which inspires it to economic activity, which is only the means by which these values are incarnated. It’s part of the social economy, that is, the confluence of enterprises and organizations that are at the service of both the individual and the collective interest. It’s a socio-economic system that has as its end service to its members and to the environment, autonomously from for-profit business, endowed with democratic decision-making processes and giving people and labor priority over capital.

The cooperative is the foundation of the social economy. Its essence is in the initiatives of a group of citizens, whose political power inside the organization is not based upon ownership of capital, but rather given in the process of participation by users and workers who are members of the organization’s decision-making bodies, on the basis of a limited distribution of benefits, with the explicit objective of benefiting the community.

Cooperativism is fundamental to make common cause among wealth, distribution and equity. But it is not an easy task, given that nowadays there is an all-powerful market, against which it is difficult to compete under equal conditions, and which is sustained by powerful political and economic forces in an environment in which many people believe in its efficiency and wealth-generating capacity. As the cooperative uses the ways and means of the market to accomplish its objective of establishing different economic relations among people, communities and cooperatives in order to improve life in the community life and promote social harmony, it runs the risk of losing sight of the social dimension of cooperativism, which is not the maximization of benefits but the maximization of service to the members and society. In the tradition of the movement’s founders, the cooperative members embrace the ethical values of honesty, transparency, social responsibility, self-help, individual duty, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity.

The dominant socio-economic model is far from being inclusive and people-centered. The cooperatives that were inspired by the farmer initiatives that Héctor Gallego and many of the country’s other social leaders embodied must uphold the necessity of human development, with a social, solidary, inclusive and equitable economy.

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opinion

Long live the cooperatives