The meaning of the word cooperation. The meaning of the word cooperation Cooperation means
Cooperation (from Latin cooperatio - cooperation)
1) a form of labor organization in which a significant number of people jointly participate in the same or different, but interconnected labor processes (see Labor cooperation) .
2) A set of organizationally formed amateur voluntary mutual aid associations of workers, small producers, including peasants, serving to achieve common goals in various areas of economic activity. The main types of cooperative associations: Agricultural production cooperative, Housing cooperation, Credit cooperation, Consumer cooperation, Trade cooperation, Marketing cooperation, Supply cooperation, Agricultural cooperation. Certain types of cooperatives have different forms within them, for example, partnerships for the joint cultivation of land, partnerships for the shared use of machinery, and artels (collective farms).
inside production agricultural cooperatives; savings and loan partnerships, credit unions, “people's banks”, “people's cash offices”, “worker's cash offices”, credit associations within credit cooperatives, etc. Cooperatives are classified according to their field of activity: production, fishing - in the production sector; consumer, sales, supply, credit, etc. - in the sphere of circulation; by industry: sales (marketing cooperatives), supply (supply cooperatives), credit (credit cooperatives), trade (consumer cooperatives), etc.; by social class: workers, peasants, farmers, handicrafts and mixed (general class); by territorial basis: urban, rural. In some countries, cooperative organizations are divided along national and religious lines. K.'s funds are formed from shares and membership fees, and profits from economic activities. The essence, place and role of capital in the socio-economic formation are determined by the prevailing relations of production. Depending on them, two types of capitalism are distinguished: capitalist and socialist. Capitalist capitalism arose in the mid-19th century. with the development of capitalism. It was one of the ways to involve small commodity producers or consumers in the system of market capitalist relations and at the same time one of the forms of their struggle against the exploitation of trade intermediaries, resellers, moneylenders and industrial capitalists. Under capitalism, cooperatives are collective capitalist enterprises, since the main source of their profit and the formation of cooperative property is part of the surplus value ceded to them by industrial capitalists; they develop in accordance with the economic laws of capitalism, often themselves acting as exploiters of wage labor. Many cooperatives are headed by representatives of the bourgeois strata of society, closely associated with capitalist monopolies, banks, the state apparatus, and prominent figures of bourgeois political parties and organizations. But cooperatives differ from private capitalist firms, joint-stock companies, and monopolistic associations in that the main goal of their activities is not to extract maximum profit, but to provide for the consumer, production and other economic needs of their members. Cooperatives, in contrast to joint-stock companies (See Joint Stock Company), which unite capital, are associations of persons using their services or taking part in economic and social activities. Cooperatives are characterized by a more democratic nature of management and management: regardless of the number of shares, the principle of “one member - one vote” applies. In many countries, the state provides assistance to certain types of cooperatives (mainly agricultural cooperatives) by providing them with loans. Acting as capitalist enterprises, cooperatives at the same time remain mass organizations of workers, peasants, farmers, and artisans, representing and protecting their interests. Under the conditions of socialization of the means of production, capitalism becomes socialist and turns into a powerful instrument for uniting and involving the broad masses of working people, and primarily the peasantry, in socialist construction. In the USSR and other socialist countries, agriculture has become the main means of socialist transformation of agriculture. production (see Collectivization of agriculture, V.I. Lenin’s Cooperative Plan, Cooperation of peasant farms).
Economic activity in socialist countries is based on economic accounting (see Economic accounting) and is carried out according to a plan coordinated with the general national economic plan. It is regulated by special or general legislation, charters that determine, depending on the type of cooperative, the rights and obligations of members of cooperatives, the structure and procedure for the formation of funds, distribution of income, organization and payment of labor, management of the cooperative, use of means of production, and other important issues of its activities. The highest body of society is the general meeting, which adopts the charter and elects governing bodies and public control bodies. It decides all the main issues of economic activity, admits new members to the cooperative and expels them from its membership, etc. The board, headed by the chairman, manages the affairs of the cooperative in the period between general meetings. K. theories arose in the 1st half of the 19th century. in connection with the emergence of consumer, agricultural, credit and other cooperative associations in the capitalist countries of Western Europe. The development of cooperative theories followed three main directions: petty-bourgeois, liberal-bourgeois and proletarian. From the mid-19s to the 30s. 20th century The most widespread were the petty-bourgeois theories of capitalism, which were utopian and reformist in nature and rooted in the teachings of the utopian socialists. These theories were based on ideas about capitalism as the main link in the transformation of capitalism into socialism. V.I. Lenin called this direction “cooperative socialism.” Subsequently, these theories were well-known reflected in the teachings of representatives of Christian socialism, Fabianism (see “Fabian Society”) and F. Lassalle. In the works of representatives of the “Nim school”, headed by S. Zhid ,
have been developed since the 80s. 19th century the ideas of “consumer socialism”, and since the 20s. 20th century - ideas of a “cooperative republic”, etc., which were based on ideas about consumer cooperatives as the main force capable of transforming capitalism into socialism: as they spread, cooperatives first take over trade, then gradually buy up industrial enterprises and agriculture. lands and create collective farms on them. These theories had supporters in many countries (except Germany): in France (B. Lavergne and E. Poisson), in Great Britain (T. Mercer), Russia (M. I. Tugan-Baranovsky and V. F. Totomyants) .
Russian populists were also supporters of these theories. Lenin, assessing these theories, wrote that their authors “... dreamed of the peaceful transformation of modern society by socialism without taking into account such a basic question as the question of the class struggle, the conquest of political power by the working class, the overthrow of the rule of the exploiting class. And therefore we are right in finding in this “cooperative” socialism entirely fantasy, something romantic, even vulgar in the dreams of how, by simple cooperation of the population, one can turn class enemies into class collaborators and class war into class peace...” (Full collection) Soch., 5th ed., vol. 45, p. 375). In the 30s 20th century Social reformist theories of the “third way” are being developed, which most widely spread after World War II (1939-45) in developed capitalist countries. Based on the fact that society is characterized by some democratic principles (voluntary membership, election of management and control bodies, equality of votes of members, limitation of share capital and interest rates on capital, educational activities, etc.), supporters of these theories argue that cooperatives, even under capitalism, are supra-class organizations. In their opinion, cooperatives should not be considered capitalist institutions, but organizations that promote the democratization of economic life, the elimination of classes and class struggle, the radical improvement of the material and social situation of workers, leading ultimately to the creation of a new system. Criticizing the capitalist system and at the same time rejecting the socialist economic system, the ideologists of the “third way” argue that capitalism will ensure the creation of a new system, which will differ from the currently existing two methods of production (capitalist and socialist), will be devoid of their shortcomings and will represent "welfare state" (see "Welfare state theory") ,
"society of social justice" (see Harmony of interests theory)
etc. This direction is followed by West German, Belgian, Austrian social democrats, the English cooperative party, prominent theorists of English laborism (J. Cole and J. Strachey), major theorists of the cooperative movement J. Lasserre (France) and D. Warbus ( USA), Indonesian sociologist M. Hatta and others. Preachers of the “third way” are also many right-wing leaders of the International Cooperative Alliance (See International Cooperative Alliance).
The second main direction of K.'s theories - liberal-bourgeois - arose in Germany in the mid-19th century. The initiators of the creation of cooperative associations and propagandists of the cooperative movement (See Cooperative Movement) in this country (G. Schulze-Delitzsch and F.V. Raiffeisen) considered co-operatives the main means of protecting the petty bourgeoisie and small production from exploitation by big capital. In modern bourgeois theories of calculus, a direction is identified that is adjacent to the balancing force theory (founder J. Galbraith). It views capitalism as a force counteracting the pressure of monopolies. This point of view is held by theorists and practitioners of the cooperative movement in most capitalist countries. After World War II, the direction of bourgeois cooperative thought, represented by the leaders and activists of cooperative organizations in most developed capitalist countries, became widespread. Theorists in this area study and summarize the practical activities of cooperative organizations in individual countries in the past and present, develop recommendations for improving and expanding the business activities of cooperative associations in order to strengthen their position in competition with private companies; consider it necessary to improve the cooperative management apparatus; describe various forms of cooperation between cooperative associations and public and private companies, etc. In the practice of the cooperative movement, the boundaries between bourgeois and social reformist theories of society are often lost. They converge in the struggle against Marxist-Leninist ideology. A detailed, strictly scientific, and consistent assessment of the role and significance of cooperation in the conditions of various socio-economic formations is contained in the Marxist-Leninist theory of cooperation, which represents the proletarian direction of cooperative theoretical thought. It was most fully developed by V.I. Lenin. Marxist-Leninist teaching strictly distinguishes between capitalism under capitalism and socialism under socialism. The classics of Marxism-Leninism emphasized that the socio-economic nature and content of the activities of cooperatives under capitalism have a dual, deeply contradictory character. On the one hand, capitalism is a collective capitalist enterprise that is completely subject to the objective laws of capitalism and reproduces in its activities the social and economic relations of capitalism in all their contradictions. Under the conditions of the law of competition, cooperatives tend to turn into bourgeois joint-stock companies. On the other hand, as mass organizations of the working class and middle strata of the city and countryside, cooperatives act in defense of their members from capitalist exploitation, against the omnipotence of monopolies, sometimes achieving an improvement in the financial situation of the working people. Working class society under capitalism is one of the parties to the mass international labor movement (See International labor movement) .
By developing the initiative of the masses, it instills in them the skills of collectivism and prepares workers for the role of organizers of economic life in a future socialist society. Given the massive nature of the cooperative movement, Lenin called on workers to join proletarian cooperatives, use them to raise the class consciousness of workers, and strengthen their connections with the trade union movement and parties of the proletariat. Regarding the activities of small commodity producers, represented mainly by peasant cooperatives. Lenin emphasized that, although under capitalist conditions they bring the greatest benefit to the wealthy strata of farmers, the peasantry and large capitalist farms, this form of economic activity is progressive, since it helps to strengthen the processes of differentiation of the peasantry, uniting it in the struggle against the oppression of capital. While recognizing the certain positive significance of the activities of cooperatives, the classics of Marxism-Leninism at the same time believed that under capitalism they were not able to radically improve the situation of the working masses. Being a democratic form of centralization of distribution and concentration of production and thereby contributing to the creation of the material prerequisites for the socialist mode of production, capitalism, being a capitalist institution, does not and cannot set as the immediate goal of its activity the destruction of the capitalist system and private ownership of the means of production. Therefore, the development of cooperatives in itself does not mean the development of socialism. Capitalism multiplied by capitalism inevitably gives birth to capitalism. Spreading illusions about the ability of cooperatives to “transform” capitalism into socialism serves as a means of distracting workers from the class struggle aimed at destroying the capitalist mode of production. Communist and workers' parties of capitalist countries consider cooperatives under the conditions of state-monopoly capitalism to be an integral part of the broad democratic movement, one of the forms of struggle for progressive socio-economic transformations, for the democratization of economic life. Therefore, they are working within these mass organizations with the goal of turning them into an integral part of the united anti-monopoly front of the struggle for the vital interests of the broad working masses, against the advance of monopolies. In developing countries that have freed themselves from colonial oppression, cooperatives, by promoting the development of commodity-money relations and the elimination of feudal relations, to a certain extent contribute to ensuring the preconditions for the non-capitalist development of these countries. Communism takes on a fundamentally different meaning under the dictatorship of the proletariat. Created under capitalism as an apparatus for distribution and accounting, as a form of unification of workers and small commodity producers, cooperatives under socialism are a familiar form of socialization, distribution and agricultural production for the population. production. Therefore, they act in the transition period from capitalism to socialism as the most understandable and accessible way for small commodity producers to transition to the rails of a large socialist economy. Emphasizing that Kazakhstan is a huge cultural heritage that must be treasured and used, Lenin pointed out that after the victory of the proletarian revolution it coincides with socialism. The cooperative movement, capturing peasant farms in its orbit of influence and socializing individual branches of agriculture through the organization of large cooperative industries and enterprises, creates the prerequisites for the planned regulation of agriculture on a national scale through agricultural centers. K., through socialized forms of economic life, thereby introducing the peasant to the cause of socialist construction. Lenin also emphasized that the work of involving the broad backward masses of the peasantry in the cooperative movement is a long-term process, since cooperative society requires certain skills for the success of its activities. Its development is facilitated by the spread of literacy, the growth of culture of the population, and its conscious attitude to cooperation, when small commodity producers are convinced from their own experience of the benefits and advantages of commodities. The successful construction of socialism in the USSR and other socialist countries confirmed the vitality of Lenin’s theory of transforming commodities into a means of socialist construction in city and village. Lit.: Marx K., Founding Manifesto of the International Working Men's Association, Marx K. and Engels F., Works, 2nd ed., vol. 16; his, Capital, vol. 3, ibid., vol. 25, part 1, p. 90, 94, 104, 115-16, 292, 426, 428; Lenin V.I., The question of cooperatives at the International Socialist Congress in Copenhagen, Complete. collection cit., 5th ed., vol. 19; him, On Cooperation, ibid., vol. 45; Pronin S.V., What is modern “cooperative reformism”, [M.], 1961; his, “Democratic Socialism” and the problem of cooperative socialization in England, M., 1964. V. D. Martynov.
Great Soviet Encyclopedia. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia. 1969-1978 .
Synonyms:Antonyms:
See what “Cooperation” is in other dictionaries:
cooperation- (from Latin cooperatio cooperation) one of the main forms of organizing interpersonal interaction, characterized by the unification of the efforts of participants to achieve a common goal while simultaneously dividing functions, roles and... Great psychological encyclopedia
- (lat. operatio). An enterprise carried out by combining the labor of several persons. Dictionary of foreign words included in the Russian language. Chudinov A.N., 1910. COOPERATION is the combined action of many individuals for a common goal. Dictionary of foreign words,... ... Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language
COOPERATION, cooperation, women. (lat. cooperatio joint work). 1. units only A form of labor organization in which many people systematically, together with each other, participate in the same or in different interconnected labor processes... Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary
cooperation- and, f. coopération f., German Kooperation lat. cooperatio cooperation. 1. The combined action of many persons for a common purpose. Pavlenkov 1911. This prince, although he was zealous for the common good, is as bound as I am for cooperation with us. 27.5.1799.… … Historical Dictionary of Gallicisms of the Russian Language
Cooperation(from Lat. (Latin) cooperatio - cooperation), 1) a form of labor organization in which a significant number of people jointly participate in the same or different, but interconnected labor processes (see. Labor cooperation ). 2) A set of organizationally formed amateur voluntary mutual aid associations of workers, small producers, including peasants, serving to achieve common goals in various areas of economic activity.
Main types of cooperative associations: agricultural production cooperative, housing cooperative, credit cooperation, consumer cooperation, fishing cooperation, sales cooperation, supply cooperation, agricultural cooperation. Certain types of cooperatives have different forms within them, for example, partnerships for the joint cultivation of land, partnerships for the shared use of machinery, and artels (artels). collective farms ) within production agricultural (agricultural) cooperatives; savings and loan partnerships, credit unions, “people's banks”, “people's cash offices”, “worker's cash offices”, credit associations within credit cooperatives, etc. Cooperatives are classified according to their field of activity: production, fishing - in the production sector; consumer, sales, supply, credit, etc. - in the sphere of circulation; by industry: sales (marketing cooperatives), supply (supply cooperatives), credit (credit cooperatives), trade (consumer cooperatives), etc.; by social class: workers, peasants, farmers, handicrafts and mixed (general class); by territorial basis: urban, rural. In some countries, cooperative organizations are divided along national and religious lines. K.'s funds are formed from shares and membership fees, profits from economic activities.
The essence, place and role of capital in the socio-economic formation are determined by the prevailing relations of production. Depending on them, two types of capitalism are distinguished: capitalist and socialist. Capitalist capitalism arose in the mid-19th century. with the development of capitalism. It was one of the ways to involve small commodity producers or consumers in the system of market capitalist relations and at the same time one of the forms of their struggle against the exploitation of trade intermediaries, resellers, moneylenders and industrial capitalists.
Under capitalism, cooperatives are collective capitalist enterprises, since the main source of their profit and the formation of cooperative property is part of the surplus value ceded to them by industrial capitalists; they develop in accordance with the economic laws of capitalism, often themselves acting as exploiters of wage labor. Many cooperatives are headed by representatives of the bourgeois strata of society, closely associated with capitalist monopolies, banks, the state apparatus, and prominent figures of bourgeois political parties and organizations. But cooperatives differ from private capitalist firms, joint-stock companies, and monopolistic associations in that the main goal of their activities is not to extract maximum profit, but to provide for the consumer, production and other economic needs of their members. Cooperatives, unlike joint stock companies, uniting capitals are associations of persons using their services or participating in economic and social activities. Cooperatives are characterized by a more democratic nature of management and management: regardless of the number of shares, the principle of “one member - one vote” applies. In many countries, the state provides assistance to certain types of cooperatives (mainly agricultural cooperatives) by providing them with loans.
Acting as capitalist enterprises, cooperatives at the same time remain mass organizations of workers, peasants, farmers, and artisans, representing and protecting their interests.
Under the conditions of socialization of the means of production, capitalism becomes socialist and turns into a powerful instrument for uniting and involving the broad masses of working people, and primarily the peasantry, in socialist construction. In the USSR and other socialist countries, agriculture has become the main means of socialist transformation of agricultural production (see Collectivization of agriculture, V. I. Lenin’s cooperative plan, Cooperation of peasant farms ).
K.'s activities in socialist countries are based on economic accounting and is carried out according to a plan coordinated with the general national economic plan. It is regulated by special or general legislation, charters that determine, depending on the type of cooperative, the rights and obligations of members of cooperatives, the structure and procedure for the formation of funds, distribution of income, organization and payment of labor, management of the cooperative, use of means of production, and other important issues of its activities. The highest body of society is the general meeting, which adopts the charter and elects governing bodies and public control bodies. It decides all the main issues of economic activity, admits new members to the cooperative and expels them from its membership, etc. The board, headed by the chairman, manages the affairs of the cooperative in the period between general meetings.
The second main direction of K.'s theories - liberal-bourgeois - arose in Germany in the mid-19th century. Initiators of the creation of cooperative associations and propagandists cooperative movement in this country (G. Schulze-Delitzsch and F.V. Raiffeisen) considered capitalism the main means of protecting the petty bourgeoisie and small-scale production from exploitation by big capital. In modern bourgeois theories of calculus, a direction is identified that is adjacent to the balancing force theory (the founder is J. Galbraith ). It views capitalism as a force counteracting the pressure of monopolies. This point of view is held by theorists and practitioners of the cooperative movement in most capitalist countries. After World War II, the direction of bourgeois cooperative thought, represented by the leaders and activists of cooperative organizations in most developed capitalist countries, became widespread. Theorists in this area study and summarize the practical activities of cooperative organizations in individual countries in the past and present, develop recommendations for improving and expanding the business activities of cooperative associations in order to strengthen their position in competition with private companies; consider it necessary to improve the cooperative management apparatus; describe various forms of cooperation between cooperative associations and public and private companies, etc.
In the practice of the cooperative movement, the boundaries between bourgeois and social reformist theories of society are often lost. They converge in the struggle against Marxist-Leninist ideology.
A detailed, strictly scientific, and consistent assessment of the role and significance of cooperation in the conditions of various socio-economic formations is contained in the Marxist-Leninist theory of cooperation, which represents the proletarian direction of cooperative theoretical thought. It was most fully developed by V.I. Lenin. Marxist-Leninist teaching strictly distinguishes between capitalism under capitalism and socialism under socialism.
The classics of Marxism-Leninism emphasized that the socio-economic nature and content of the activities of cooperatives under capitalism have a dual, deeply contradictory character. On the one hand, capitalism is a collective capitalist enterprise that is completely subject to the objective laws of capitalism and reproduces in its activities the social and economic relations of capitalism in all their contradictions. Under the conditions of the law of competition, cooperatives tend to turn into bourgeois joint-stock companies. On the other hand, as mass organizations of the working class and middle strata of the city and countryside, cooperatives act in defense of their members from capitalist exploitation, against the omnipotence of monopolies, sometimes achieving an improvement in the financial situation of the working people. Working class society under capitalism is one of the sides of mass international labor movement. By developing the initiative of the masses, it instills in them the skills of collectivism and prepares workers for the role of organizers of economic life in a future socialist society. Given the massive nature of the cooperative movement, Lenin called on workers to join proletarian cooperatives, use them to raise the class consciousness of workers, and strengthen their connections with the trade union movement and parties of the proletariat. Regarding the activities of small commodity producers, represented mainly by peasant cooperatives. Lenin emphasized that, although under capitalist conditions they bring the greatest benefit to the wealthy strata of farmers, the peasantry and large capitalist farms, this form of economic activity is progressive, since it helps to strengthen the processes of differentiation of the peasantry, uniting it in the struggle against the oppression of capital.
While recognizing the certain positive significance of the activities of cooperatives, the classics of Marxism-Leninism at the same time believed that under capitalism they were not able to radically improve the situation of the working masses. Being a democratic form of centralization of distribution and concentration of production and thereby contributing to the creation of the material prerequisites for the socialist mode of production, capitalism, being a capitalist institution, does not and cannot set as the immediate goal of its activity the destruction of the capitalist system and private ownership of the means of production. Therefore, the development of cooperatives in itself does not mean the development of socialism. Capitalism multiplied by capitalism inevitably gives birth to capitalism. Spreading illusions about the ability of cooperatives to “transform” capitalism into socialism serves as a means of distracting workers from the class struggle aimed at destroying the capitalist mode of production.
Communist and workers' parties of capitalist countries consider cooperatives under the conditions of state-monopoly capitalism to be an integral part of the broad democratic movement, one of the forms of struggle for progressive socio-economic transformations, for the democratization of economic life. Therefore, they are working within these mass organizations with the goal of turning them into an integral part of the united anti-monopoly front of the struggle for the vital interests of the broad working masses, against the advance of monopolies.
In developing countries that have freed themselves from colonial oppression, cooperatives, by promoting the development of commodity-money relations and the elimination of feudal relations, to a certain extent contribute to ensuring the preconditions for the non-capitalist development of these countries. Communism takes on a fundamentally different meaning under the dictatorship of the proletariat. Created under capitalism as an apparatus for distribution and accounting, as a form of unification of workers and small commodity producers, cooperatives under socialism are a familiar form of socialization, distribution and agricultural production for the population. Therefore, they act in the transition period from capitalism to socialism as the most understandable and accessible way for small commodity producers to transition to the rails of a large socialist economy. Emphasizing that Kazakhstan is a huge cultural heritage that must be treasured and used, Lenin pointed out that after the victory of the proletarian revolution it coincides with socialism.
The cooperative movement, capturing peasant farms in the orbit of its influence and socializing individual branches of agriculture through the organization of large cooperative industries and enterprises, creates the prerequisites for the planned regulation of agriculture on a national scale through agricultural centers and through socialized forms. economic life, thereby introducing the peasant to the cause of socialist construction. Lenin also emphasized that the work of involving the broad backward masses of the peasantry in the cooperative movement is a long-term process, since cooperative society requires certain skills for the success of its activities. Its development is facilitated by the spread of literacy, the growth of culture of the population, and its conscious attitude to cooperation, when small commodity producers are convinced from their own experience of the benefits and advantages of commodities. The successful construction of socialism in the USSR and other socialist countries confirmed the vitality of Lenin’s theory of transforming commodities into a means of socialist construction in city and village.
Lit.: Marx K., Founding Manifesto of the International Working Men's Association, Marx K. and Engels F., Works, 2nd ed., vol. 16; his, Capital, vol. 3, ibid., vol. 25, part 1, p. 90, 94, 104, 115-16, 292, 426, 428; Lenin V.I., The question of cooperatives at the International Socialist Congress in Copenhagen, Complete. collection op. (work), 5th ed., vol. 19; him, On Cooperation, ibid., vol. 45; Pronin S.V., What is modern “cooperative reformism”, [M.], 1961; his, “Democratic Socialism” and the problem of cooperative socialization in England, M., 1964.
V. D. Martynov.
COOPERATION(from the Latin cooperatio - cooperation), 1) a form of labor organization in which a significant number of people jointly participate in one or different, but interconnected labor processes. 2) Organized voluntary mutual aid associations of small producers, workers, employees to achieve common goals in various areas of economic activity. At the end of the 20th century. In developed countries, intermediary and marketing cooperation in agriculture has become most widespread.
Modern encyclopedic dictionary
COOPERATION- one of the main forms of organizing interpersonal interaction, characterized by the unification of the efforts of participants to achieve a common goal while simultaneously dividing functions, roles and responsibilities between them. Among the main types of cooperation are:
1) automatic cooperation, existing at the instinctive-biological level; associated with pack organization, the struggle for survival and ensuring the safety of offspring, sexual behavior, etc.;
2) traditional cooperation, guided by generational traditions, rituals, and historically established social norms;
3) spontaneous cooperation, based on relationships of friendliness, sympathy, love and determined by situational conditions - cooperation in gaming, friendly, family groups;
4) directive cooperation, characteristic of military organizations, certain forms of entrepreneurship and others, where the determining condition for the existence of a group is the absence of voluntary participation;
5) contractual forms of cooperation, where the individual interests of the participants are united on the basis of formal or informal agreements between them. Inclusion in cooperative interaction stimulates the development of attraction between group members, promotes mutual assistance, and strengthens the interdependence of the participant. But, since cooperation is only a form of interaction, the osnaphic psychological content of the relations of the participant is determined osnaphically by the nature of the activity within the framework of which cooperation develops.
Dictionary of a practical psychologist
COOPERATION, -i, w. 1. See cooperate. 2. A special form of labor organization, in which many people jointly participate in the same or in different interconnected labor processes; in general, a form of communication between industrial organizations and entire areas of production activity. L. labor. 3. A collective production and trade association created at the expense of its members. Commercial, consumer, housing. Agricultural. International Day of Cooperation. II adj. cooperative, -aya, -oe. International K. Alliance.
Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language S.I. Ozhegov
COOPERATION, cooperation, w. (Latin cooperatio - joint work). 1. units only A form of labor organization in which many people systematically, together with each other, participate in the same or in different interconnected labor processes. Cooperation, based on the expansion of labor, takes its classical form in manufacture (Marx’s formula). 2. A trade or industrial public organization, formed at the expense of its members - shareholders. Consumer cooperation. Fishery cooperation. Housing cooperation. Agricultural cooperation. Under the dictatorship of the proletariat, cooperation is the main method of transferring the broadest masses of the peasantry to the path of socialist agriculture. To carry out Lenin's cooperative plan means raising the peasantry from household and supply cooperation to, so to speak, collective farm cooperation. Stalin. 3. A store owned by a cooperative, cooperative (colloquially). Our cooperation has good soap.
Ushakov's Dictionary
COOPERATION . - By K. we mean any cooperation of several persons to achieve any common goal. In the field of economic activity, people can unite either for aggregate production, or for the aggregate acquisition of consumer goods, or, finally, to achieve both of these goals simultaneously. Cooperation in production can consist either in the fact that several people simultaneously perform some kind of work together (for example, building a house, harvesting bread, etc.), or in the fact that they participate in the same task one after another , and there are works that sometimes require a change of entire generations for their final implementation (for example, work on regulating rivers, draining swamps, etc. K. in this sense (combination of labor, English combination of labor) is of two kinds: in firstly, one in which different persons help each other in the same work (for example, when lifting heavy weights, sawing wood, harvesting hay or bread, etc.) - simple K.; secondly, one in which different persons help each other doing different types of labor - complex labor. The last type of labor, in turn, may consist either in the fact that several workers in one place work on the production of parts of the same product or object (for example, on the production of a Berdanov gun 963 special workers of various categories work) - tag name. the spread of labor in the proper sense of the word - or in the fact that individuals or groups of people, depending on climatic, soil and living conditions, are engaged in various places in the manufacture of various objects (products) intended to serve for mutual exchange - tag-name. planting activities. The benefits of simple hunting are expressed by the English proverb that “two dogs together will catch more birds than four dogs separately.” They boil down to the following: 1) cooperation in production, due to mutual competition, increases the intensity or intensity of the work of each of the participants: 10 workers in 10 hours of joint work will do more than one worker in 100 hours; 2) only through cooperation do many works become possible, the execution of which exceeds the strength of an individual person (for example, lifting heavy weights, building a house, etc.) or requires a period of time exceeding the duration of human life (for example, draining swamps, etc. ); 3) cooperation makes it possible to perform such work that, according to the very conditions of production, must certainly be completed within a certain and, moreover, short period of time (for example. harvesting hay, bread); these works could not be accomplished otherwise than through joint work, with the combined efforts of many people; 4) cooperation, in certain cases, reduces the amount of labor required to produce a certain product; so, for example, to bake bread for 100 people together requires much less labor than for 100 people separately; you need to light the stove once, prepare the dishes, etc.; Surely, with simple cooperation or simple cooperation, some of the benefits that generally flow from production on a large scale appear; b) a group of people uniting for cooperation thereby acquires new properties that are absent in each of the group members taken separately; So, for example, is the creditworthiness of an artel, each individual member of which would not receive anything on credit; 6) each participant in the cooperation is given the opportunity to use the guidance of persons experienced in running the enterprise, as a result of which work can be performed with greater planning and become more productive, and finally, 7) when producers unite, a decrease in prices due to their competition is prevented. - With complex labor, the benefits of a simple combination of labor are supplemented by special advantages inherent in the special development of labor or the development of occupations. When a group of equal persons voluntarily unites to jointly pursue the same economic goals, participating in the enterprise in equal measure with labor or labor and capital, cooperative unions or partnerships, cooperative associations (English Cooperative societies, French - associations, sociуtус cooperatives, German - are formed). Genossenschaften). The main features of a company are: 1) a general economic goal; 2) an indefinite number of members; 3) free entry and exit from the union; 4) equal use of the benefits delivered by the common enterprise; 5) participation of members in managing the affairs of the union; 6) use of the rights of an independent legal entity, the constituent elements of which are persons, and not capital (this is the difference between cooperative societies and joint-stock and other trade and industrial unions). Cooperative unions have the main task of: 1) either reducing the cost of purchasing consumer goods for union members - thanks to the wholesale purchase of goods, which are then sold at retail to union members; this is the tag name. consumer societies; 2) or getting a cheap loan - the so-called tag. mutual credit societies, savings and loan banks; the latter are unions of low-income individuals in need of a small loan, formed with the aim of creating, through gradual small contributions, a more or less significant share capital, for issuing loans from it to individual members, and enabling the latter to borrow, under mutual responsibility from outsiders, what they need for farming or fishing, money on more favorable terms, so that it would be available to each of them individually. The union of such persons in unions often determines the receipt of a loan; a loan to an individual small producer does not seem sufficiently secured in the eyes of the creditor, and unions of several such producers, assuming mutual responsibility for obligations, if not completely eliminate, then significantly reduce the risk of the capitalist and are therefore recognized by him as creditworthy. 3) The third type of cooperative unions are productive partnerships; they consist of equal persons who unite to produce any values with their labor and capital and jointly run the entire enterprise or any part of it.
The common goal of all cooperatives. alliances is to eliminate or possibly reduce intermediation. Consumer societies seek to eliminate the intermediation of traders by making their members both buyers and sellers; mutual credit societies and savings and loan partnerships eliminate the intermediary of private lenders and banks, creating an organization in which the members of the union themselves benefit from the benefits brought by lending money; finally, productive societies strive to eliminate intermediation between the producer and the buyer in the person of the entrepreneur. Of the three types of cooperative societies in the West, the most widespread are: in England and France - consumer societies, in France, Germany and Italy - credit societies. As for productive societies, the greatest number of attempts to establish them were made in France. In addition to the three main types of cooperative societies, other types of economic mutual aid unions subsequently began to emerge in the West. Tag, for example, small producers, uniting to purchase together at cheaper prices the raw materials they need, form a tag name. raw materials partnerships (German: Rohstoffgenossenschaften); by joining together to jointly purchase or rent instruments of production, they form production-auxiliary partnerships (Werkgenossenschaften); finally, uniting to organize the general sale of their works, they form the so-called tag. warehouse associations (German: Magazinengenossenchaften). All these types of cooperative. societies, together with the productive partnerships mentioned above, form one general group called industrial societies or partnerships.
(from Latin cooperation - collaboration) - 1. Interaction of individuals or groups in the process of joint activity, united by a common goal or solution to a specific problem. 2. A set of organizationally formed, voluntarily united workers, employees, peasants, small producers for the purpose of determining. household or consumer activity. 3. Form of labor organization, with a cut defined. number of people jointly participating in one or different, but interconnected labor processes. L.G.Skulmovskaya
Excellent definition
Incomplete definition ↓
COOPERATION
lat. cooperatio - cooperation) is a form of labor organization and, more broadly, social life, which involves the joint participation of people in the implementation of activities. affairs. As a subject of socio-philosophical analysis, the principle of capitalism was interpreted in the works of Herzen, the Petrashevites, Sieber, who, based on Marx, interpreted socialism as a cooperative system, and the Narodniks. The role of civilization in the growth of universal human solidarity was noted by L. I. Mechnikov in his work “Civilization and the Great Historical Rivers. Geographical Theory of the Development of Modern Society” (1889, Russian translation 1898). Here the principle of K. is derived from natural scientific foundations and includes all types of social interaction. But the most profound philosophical, sociological and natural scientific justification for the principle of Kropotkin was given by Kropotkin. As a result of long-term observations of natural life in little-studied areas of Eastern Siberia, the Amur region and Northern Manchuria, he put forward the biosociological law of mutual assistance, contrasting it with the principle of the struggle for existence of Charles Darwin. This law also determines the evolution of forms of human society - up to the establishment of a federation of free communes covering the whole world. At the same time, the cooperative principle does not at all deny the concentration of large-scale industries; this tendency is simply not recognized as optimal. Effective agriculture, according to Kropotkin, is the result of joint efforts demonstrated by all classes of the country (Fields, factories and workshops. Industry combined with agriculture, and mental labor with manual labor. M., 1921. P. 61). Kazakhstan is both a source of innovation and breakthroughs in technical development, provided that the rights of people in it are fully protected, if the principles of self-government are implemented from top to bottom. In Kropotkin and his followers, the rootedness (and optimality) of the principle of K. is visible not only in social, but also in natural life. His views on the factor of mutual assistance as the cause of the evolution of living things in comparison with the factor of the struggle for existence of Darwin form the basis of his ethical ideas, oriented towards anarchic (but not powerless) communism. Accordingly, the theory of competition receives broader justifications than the principle of competition of regulatory control (on the part of the state). The principle of capitalism, with an emphasis on its economic feasibility, was worked out by S. N. Prokopovich, Tugan-Baranovsky, A. V. Chayanov, Ya. B. Struve; it formed the basis of the “constructive socialism” of Chernov and other ideologists of the Socialist Revolutionary Party and “People’s Socialists” . Prokopovich shared the concept of K. as a principle of organizing social life, as a socio-economic formation inherent in a certain stage of social development (in Russia it “protects its members from capitalist exploitation and strives to implement the principle of social equality in economic life”), and as a specific group of producers or consumers. Tugan-Baranovsky believed that capitalism, as a form of organization of socio-economic life, provides the possibility of crisis-free development of production and progressive consumption. Chayanov interpreted the principle of agriculture as the basis for the organization of agriculture in Russia, since only it reveals the positive trends inherent in the very nature of peasant labor. In this regard, cosmos is an organism that develops naturally, but this process can be disrupted through forced collectivism or decreed individualism. This principle is well-known reflected in the works of Sorokin, primarily in his idea of the priority of superorganic value systems, which he developed in the USA. Lenin's last works were devoted to rethinking the populist concept of K., which took into account the experience of Russians. K. theorists in substantiating the basic. provisions of the NEP."... Much of what was fantastic, even romantic, even vulgar in the dreams of old co-operators becomes the most unvarnished reality." In connection with which, he wrote, we are forced to admit a radical change in our entire point of view on socialism" (Poln. sobr. soch. T. 45. P. 369, 376). An increase in interest in the theory of K. was observed in the 2nd half. 80 -ies in connection with the search for new forms of management in the conditions of perestroika.
Cooperation- This the association of enterprises and the interaction of two or more individuals to complete a particular task.
Cooperation- This a form of labor company in which a significant number of people participate together in the same or different but related labor processes
Cooperation is a set of organizationally formed amateur voluntary associations of enterprises mutual assistance of workers, small producers, including peasants, serving to achieve common goals in various areas of economic activity.
Role and types of cooperation
Main types of cooperative trusts: agricultural production cooperative, housing cooperation, credit cooperation, consumer cooperation, fishing cooperation, marketing cooperation, supply cooperation, agricultural cooperation. Certain types of cooperation have different forms within them, for example, partnerships for the joint cultivation of land, partnerships for the shared use of machinery, and artels (collective farms) within industrial agricultural production. cooperatives; savings and loan partnerships, credit unions, “people's banks”, “people's cash offices”, “worker's cash offices”, credit associations within credit cooperatives, etc.
Cooperatives are classified by field of activity: production, fishing - in the field of production; consumer, sales, supply, credit, etc. - in the sphere of circulation; by industry: sales (marketing cooperatives), supply (supply cooperatives), loan (credit cooperatives), trade(consumer cooperatives), etc.; by social class: workers, peasants, farmers, handicrafts and mixed (general class); by territorial basis: urban, rural. In some countries cooperative companies are divided along national and religious lines. Cooperation funds are formed from shares and membership fees, profits from economic activities.
The essence, place and role of cooperation in the socio-economic formation are determined by the prevailing relations of production. Depending on them, there are two types of cooperation - capitalist and socialist. Capitalist cooperation arose in the mid-19th century. with the development of capitalism. It was one of the ways to involve small commodity producers or consumers in the system of market capitalist relations and at the same time one of the forms of their struggle against the exploitation of trade intermediaries, resellers, moneylenders and industrial capitalists.
In conditions capitalism cooperatives are collective capitalist enterprises, since their main source is arrived and the formation of cooperative property - part of the surplus value ceded to them by industrial capitalists; they develop in accordance with economic laws capitalism, often themselves act as exploiters of hired labor. Many cooperatives are headed by representatives of the bourgeois strata of society, closely associated with capitalist monopolies, banks, the state apparatus, and prominent figures of bourgeois parties and organizations. But cooperatives differ from private capitalist firms, joint-stock companies, and monopolistic associations of enterprises in that the main goal of their activities is not to extract the maximum arrived, but to ensure the consumer, production and other economic needs of its members.
Cooperatives, in contrast to joint stock companies that combine capital, are associations of enterprises of persons using their services or participating in economic and social activities. Cooperatives are characterized by a more democratic nature of management and management: regardless of the number of shares, the principle of “one member - one vote” applies. In many countries state provides assistance to certain types of cooperation (mainly agricultural cooperatives) by providing them with loans.
History of cooperation in the USSR
Acting like capitalists enterprises, cooperatives at the same time remain mass organizations of workers, peasants, farmers, handicraftsmen, representing and protecting their interests.
In the conditions of socialization of the means of production, cooperation becomes socialist, turns into a powerful tool for uniting enterprises and involving the broad masses of workers, and primarily the peasantry, in socialist construction. In the USSR and other socialist countries, cooperation has become the main means of socialist transformation of agriculture. production.
The activities of cooperation in socialist countries are built on the basis of economic calculation and are carried out according to a plan coordinated with the general national economic plan. Regulated by special or general legislation, charters that determine, depending on the type of cooperative, the rights and obligations of members of cooperatives, the structure and procedure for the formation of funds, the distribution of income, company and wages, management of the cooperative, use of means of production and other important issues of its activities. The highest body of society is the general meeting, which adopts the charter and elects governing bodies and public control bodies. It decides all the main issues of economic activity, admits new members to the cooperative and expels them from its composition, etc. The board, headed by the chairman, manages the affairs of the cooperative between general meetings.
Cooperation theories arose in the 1st half of the 19th century. in connection with the emergence of consumer, agricultural, credit and other cooperative trusts in the capitalist countries of Western Europe. The development of cooperative theories followed three main directions: petty-bourgeois, liberal-bourgeois and proletarian.
From the mid-19s to the 30s. 20th century The most widespread were petty-bourgeois theories of cooperation, which were utopian and reformist in nature and rooted in the teachings of utopian socialists. These theories were based on ideas about capitalism as the main link in the transformation of capitalism into. V.I. Lenin called this direction “cooperative socialism.” Subsequently, these theories found a certain reflection in the teachings of representatives of the Christian socialism, Fabianism and F. Lassalle.
In the works of representatives of the “Nîmes school”, headed by S. Gide, they were developed starting in the 80s. 19th century ideas of "consumer socialism", and since the 20s. 20th century - ideas of a “cooperative republic”, etc., which were based on ideas about consumer cooperatives as the main force capable of transforming into socialism: as they spread, cooperatives first take over trade, then gradually buy up industrial enterprises and agricultural lands and create collective farms on them.
These theories had supporters in many countries (except Republic of Germany): in France(B. Lavergne and E. Poisson), in England(T. Mercer), Russian Federation (M. I. Tugan-Baranovsky and V. F. Totomyants). Russian populists were also supporters of these theories. Lenin, assessing these theories, wrote that their authors “... dreamed of the peaceful transformation of modern society by socialism without taking into account such a basic question as the question of civil war, the conquest of political power by the working class, the overthrow dominion exploiter class. And therefore we are right in finding in this “cooperative” socialism entirely fantasy, something romantic, even vulgar in the dreams of how by simple cooperation of the population one can turn class enemies into class collaborators and class war into class peace...”
In the 30s 20th century social reformist theories of the “third way” are being developed, which most widely spread after the 2nd World War wars 1939–45 in developed capitalist countries. Based on the fact that cooperation is inherent in some democratic principles (voluntary membership, election of management and control bodies, equality of votes of members, limitation of share capital and interest rates on capital, educational activities, etc.), supporters of these theories argue that cooperatives, even under capitalism, are supra-class organizations. In their opinion, cooperatives should not be considered capitalist institutions, but organizations promoting the democratization of economic life, the elimination of classes and civil war, a radical improvement in the material and social situation of workers, leading ultimately to the creation of a new system. Criticizing the capitalist system and at the same time rejecting the socialist economic system, the ideologists of the “third way” argue that cooperation will ensure the creation of a new system, which will differ from the currently existing two methods of production (capitalist and socialist), will be devoid of their shortcomings and will represent “ general welfare”, “society of social justice”, etc. This direction is followed by West German, Belgian, Austrian social democrats, the English cooperative party, prominent theorists of English laborism (J. Cole and J. Strachey), major theorists of the cooperative movement J. Lasser ( France) and D. Warbus (USA), Indonesian sociologist M. Hatta and others. Many right-wing leaders of the International Cooperative Alliance are also preachers of the “third way”.
The second main direction of theories of cooperation - liberal-bourgeois - arose in Federal Republic of Germany in the middle of the 19th century. The initiators of the creation of cooperative associations of enterprises and propagandists of the cooperative movement in this country (G. Schulze-Delitzsch and F.V. Raiffeisen) considered cooperation the main means of protecting the petty bourgeoisie and small production from exploitation by big capital. In modern bourgeois theories of calculus, a direction is identified that is adjacent to the balancing force theory (founder J. Galbraith). It views cooperation as a force counteracting the pressure of monopolies. This point of view is held by theorists and practitioners of the cooperative movement in most capitalist countries. Widespread after World War II wars received the direction of bourgeois cooperative thought, which is represented by the leaders and activists of cooperative organizations in most developed capitalist countries.
Theorists in this area study and summarize the practical activities of cooperative organizations in individual countries in the past and present, develop recommendations for improving and expanding the business activities of cooperative trusts in order to strengthen their positions in competition with private companies; consider it necessary to improve the cooperative management apparatus; describe various forms of cooperation between cooperative associations of enterprises with public and private companies, etc.
In the practice of the cooperative movement, the boundaries between bourgeois and social reformist theories of cooperation are often lost. They unite in the struggle against Marxist-Leninist ideology.
A detailed, strictly scientific and consistent assessment of the role and significance of cooperation in the conditions of various socio-economic formations is contained in the Marxist-Leninist theory of cooperation, which represents the proletarian direction of cooperative theoretical thought. It was most fully developed by V.I. Lenin. Marxist-Leninist teaching strictly distinguishes between cooperation under capitalism and cooperation under socialism.
The classics of Marxism-Leninism emphasized that the socio-economic nature and content of the activities of cooperatives under capitalism have a dual, deeply contradictory character. On the one hand, cooperation is collective capitalist, completely subordinate to the action of objective laws capitalism and reproducing in its activities the social and economic relations of capitalism in all their contradictions. Under conditions of action law competition, cooperatives tend to turn into bourgeois joint-stock companies. On the other hand, as mass companies of the working class and the middle strata of the city and countryside, cooperatives act in defense of their members from capitalist exploitation, against the omnipotence of monopolies, sometimes achieving an improvement in the financial situation of the working people. Workers' cooperation under capitalism is one of the sides of the mass international labor movement. By developing the initiative of the masses, it instills in them the skills of collectivism and prepares workers for the role of organizers of economic life in a future socialist society. Given the massive nature of the cooperative movement, Lenin called on workers to join proletarian cooperatives, use them to raise the class consciousness of workers, strengthen their connection with the trade union movement and political parties proletariat. Regarding the activities of cooperation of small commodity producers, represented mainly by peasant cooperatives. Lenin emphasized that, although under capitalist conditions they bring the greatest profit to the wealthy strata of farmers, peasants and large capitalist enterprises, this form of economic activity is progressive because it helps to strengthen processes differentiation of the peasantry, unification of its enterprises in the fight against oppression capital.
While recognizing the certain positive significance of the activities of cooperatives, the classics of Marxism-Leninism at the same time believed that under capitalism they were not able to radically improve the situation of the working masses. Being a democratic form of centralization of distribution and concentration of production and thereby contributing to the creation of the material prerequisites for the socialist mode of production, cooperation under capitalism, being a capitalist institution, does not and cannot set as the immediate goal of its activity the destruction of the capitalist system and private ownership of the means of production. Therefore, the development of cooperatives in itself does not mean the development of socialism. , multiplied by cooperation, inevitably gives birth to capitalism. Spreading illusions about the ability of cooperatives to “transform” capitalism serves as a means of distracting workers from civil war aimed at destroying the capitalist mode of production.
Communist and workers political party capitalist countries consider cooperatives under the conditions of state-monopoly capitalism to be an integral part of the broad democratic movement, one of the forms of struggle for progressive socio-economic transformations, for the democratization of economic life. Therefore, they are working within these mass organizations with the goal of turning them into an integral part of the united anti-monopoly front of the struggle for the vital interests of the broad working masses, against the advance of monopolies.
In developing countries that have freed themselves from colonial oppression, cooperatives, by promoting the development of commodity-money relations and the elimination of feudal relations, to a certain extent contribute to ensuring the preconditions for the non-capitalist development of these countries. Cooperation takes on a fundamentally different meaning under the dictatorship of the proletariat. Created under capitalism as an apparatus for distribution and accounting, as a form of trust for workers and small commodity producers, cooperatives under socialism are a familiar form of socialization, distribution and agricultural production for the population. production. That's why they perform in transition period from capitalism to socialism as the most understandable and accessible way for small commodity producers to transition to the rails of a large socialist economy. Emphasizing that Kazakhstan is a huge cultural heritage that must be treasured and used, Lenin pointed out that after the victory of the proletarian revolution it coincides with socialism.
The cooperative movement, capturing peasant farms in its orbit of influence and socializing individual industry agriculture through the establishment of large cooperative industries and enterprises, creates the prerequisites for the planned regulation of agriculture on a national scale through agricultural centers. Cooperation, through socialized forms of economic life, thereby introducing the peasant to the cause of socialist construction. Lenin also emphasized that Job to involve the broad backward masses of the peasantry in the cooperative movement is process long-term, since cooperation requires certain skills for the success of its activities. Its development is facilitated by the spread of literacy, the growth of the population’s culture, and its conscious attitude towards cooperation, when small commodity producers are convinced from their own experience of the income and benefits of cooperation. The successful construction of socialism in the USSR and other socialist countries confirmed the vitality of Lenin's theory of transforming cooperation into a means of socialist construction in town and countryside.
Cooperation in Europe
The modern cooperative movement began in Europe. This happened not because Europeans had an inherent capacity for trust, but because Europeans were the first to feel the impact of the Industrial Revolution. If there are similarities between economic growth in Europe in the 19th century and the situation of developing countries in the 20th century, then the experience of the development of the European co-operative movement, the place of co-operative shops in the national economies of European countries, will provide lessons for other movements to help them avoid mistakes in their own. development.
Britannia.
In the 50s, British consumer cooperatives were one of the most powerful cooperative movements in the world. The cooperative chain owned 90% of all self-service stores and 20 of the 50 supermarkets.
But the co-op sector, which included more than 1,000 co-ops with stores of varying sizes, whose distribution did not last long to match the changed model trade, faced with a sharply increased competition businessmen. As a result, its share dropped to 22% by 1964.
There were four main reasons for this:
More than 30 thousand cooperative stores were historically concentrated in old industrial areas with relatively low purchasing demand of the population.
Low level of management. Among the leaders of cooperatives there were practically no people not only with higher education, but even with special education.
Weakening the role of the central union cooperatives, which disrupted the coordination of individual cooperatives. The cooperative movement became uncontrollable.
Because of competition small cooperatives began to go bankrupt and merge into larger, but also economically weak ones (by the mid-90s, the number of societies decreased from 1000 to 50). The unstable obligations of cooperatives to shareholders led to a weakening of their interest in the activities of cooperatives and reduced confidence in management.
By the mid-90s, the cooperative sector accounted for only 4% of retail turnover.
Today there are signs of a revival of cooperation, for which British cooperators have undertaken the following:
selling capacity for the production of goods, unions cooperatives have again turned into retail associations of enterprises;
a trading niche was found - medium and small-sized stores and supermarkets convenient for the population, the trading network was transformed, direct connections were established with suppliers of goods;
cooperative insurance societies and cooperative bank became the strongest part of the activity;
the moral policy was updated, cooperatives returned to their original values and operating principles. Faith in cooperatives began to return to shareholders, and there was an increase in the number of shareholders;
requirements for professional training of management personnel have increased.
Federal Republic of Germany
After the collapse of the corporate economic system in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), the consumer cooperation system was completely reconstructed. This made it possible by 1953 to double cooperative trade turnover, the number of members increased to 2 million people.
The difference between German consumer cooperation and consumer cooperation in England was that the legislators of the Republic of Germany reduced the maximum bonus payments to cooperators to 3%, thus giving preference to the development of retail trade turnover businessmen. Therefore, wholesale trade became the basis of cooperative trade in the Federal Republic of Germany.
But the result of the development of these consumer cooperations is similar: by 1965, German cooperators controlled 8.5% of the country's market, 19.5% of stores and 31% of wholesale stores.
Attempts to organize powerful national cooperative trusts were limited by a weak central power cooperative unions and resistance from the leaders of autonomous cooperatives. In the mid-70s, the situation in cooperation deteriorated sharply. Formally, a single cooperative union was created, but it did not receive sufficient power from the grassroots societies and did not have a significant impact on improving the situation in the national cooperative movement. The system of regional wholesale stores he created turned out to be unprofitable.
Meanwhile, managers of consumer companies, taking advantage of the lack of openness, were able to obtain for themselves the majority of the shares of their companies and began to transform them into joint-stock organizations. The basis for this was the long-term secrecy of information for shareholders.
The cooperative movement of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) split: the reorganized cooperatives formed their own union, which became the second largest trade group in the Republic of Germany.
Due to the transformation of cooperatives into actually joint-stock companies, by the 90s, only 37 ordinary consumer societies remained in the Federal Republic of Germany, uniting 650 thousand people.
It is paradoxical, but associations of cooperator enterprises that did not pass into the hands of businessmen and remained true to cooperative principles and became stronger. For example, the Dortmund cooperative today has 480 thousand members (every second family) and controls over 14% of trade in its region.
Finland
IN Finland There are two national trusts of cooperatives: social democratic (s) and neutral (SOK).
Both movements began to develop supermarket chains, but later than their competitors. SOK expanded and became one of the largest owners of hotels and department stores.
E-movement has become the largest wholesaler.
As in other countries, the creation of a single national center was hampered by the ambitions of the leaders of individual cooperatives, but in Finland an additional obstacle was the politicization of one of the trusts and the presence of Swedish-speaking and Finnish-speaking populations antagonistic to each other.
And yet, economic reasons forced the merger of OTK (the main wholesaler of E-movement) and SOK, which created a single union ESA, which became the largest cooperative association of enterprises in Finland.
It is worth noting the wisdom of this process: through fragmentation, which combines the advantages of a unified chain with the decentralization of decision-making, there was a final recognition by the movement itself that commercial viability trumped public mentality.
The SOK group found its niche for business - small stores in rural areas, while its competitors developed large supermarkets in cities.
The results were immediate: in 1997, the share of cooperative trade turnover increased to 35%.
France
Historically, France has been dominated by the regional cooperative movement, with comparatively weak national-level organizations.
The strength of the national co-operative movement lay in the industrial North, while in the South co-operative activity was in decline.
There were two main directions in the development of retail trade: small stores focused on serving shareholders and supermarkets serving the entire population.
The main problem of French consumer cooperatives is weak management. Like the British co-operatives, the French did not trust people with higher education and the leadership of the co-operatives was chosen mainly from lower and middle class employees with good knowledge in trade, but poor in business.
This led to a loss in competition with other trading enterprises. For example, in the 60s, cooperators had only 23 stores, while competitors had over 1,600, cooperators had 1 supermarket, and competitors had 76.
Moreover, the management of cooperatives has become an elite, and an elite that does not know business, but ignores the opinions of its shareholders. As a result: by 1983, cooperators had only 3% market, and only 40 thousand employees supported the cooperative movement. Formal membership in cooperatives was observed by 1.5 million member families, but they did not trust the cooperative elite and economically ignored the cooperatives.
Loss of social base, focus on wholesalers suppliers and inability to organize their own business led to the fact that in 1985, after the refusal of wholesalers suppliers in supplying bankrupt cooperatives, over 40% of cooperatives, including central bodies, ceased to exist.
But those cooperatives that retained the original cooperative principles and acted not for their employees, but for shareholders, continue to exist and operate successfully (for example, the Alsace cooperative).
Sweden
Cooperative movement Sweden has strong central bodies and is characterized by good coordination of the activities of its member cooperatives.
Its formation took place in competition with the ICA trade group, which owned the main share market and therefore the Swedish cooperative movement became the most dynamic and innovative of all Western European cooperative movements.
Unlike the old movements, Swedish cooperators used the most modern technologies and business methods: they introduced a self-service system, diversity in non-food cooperatives, and a supermarket system. The widespread use of deep-frozen food technology has allowed consumer associations of enterprises to become leading exporters of products.
Having carried out a structural reorganization in a timely manner, by the beginning of the 80s, Swedish cooperators reduced the number of societies by almost 3 times, the number of stores by 2.7 times, but at the same time increased the number of members to 1.6 million people, and their market share to 18% .
As in other European cooperatives and for the same reasons, in the mid-80s there was a decline in Swedish consumer cooperatives: the managerial elite took over the cooperatives, which led to a loss of interest among shareholders.
The following measures have been taken:
the level of management has been qualitatively increased, the basis of which was its democratization;
increased interest of shareholders in the development of consumer cooperation by subsidizing economically weak cooperatives;
concentrated efforts in the area retail with the formation of new trade groups.
Here are some excerpts from the principles of Swedish cooperatives:
democratic nature of management, based on the equality of members and the principles of democratic construction of the organizational structure of cooperatives from below up;
inadmissibility enrichment of one member of the cooperative at the expense of another, fair distribution of profits between members in proportion to their economic participation with mandatory deductions in USD - CAD in accordance with the charter;
The example of Italy shows that, given time and some refuge from competition, even the oldest cooperative movement can become more modern and assert its relevance.
The Swedish example shows that even when faced with effective competition, the cooperative movement can rise to the challenge.
The example of Migros shows how consumer cooperation does not hinder the growth of dynamism of consumer-oriented acquirer individual societies and, like many cooperative movements, independently develop into thriving modern enterprises.
At the same time, the example of national consumer cooperatives in Austria, the Netherlands or Belgium demonstrates the danger: they could not resist the onslaught of businessmen, were absorbed by them and actually ceased to exist in their previous form. Today they are more like joint stock companies than true cooperatives.
Great psychological encyclopedia
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