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Dear
Shann,
Brilliant!! Some tentative responses below. I am looking
forward very much to reading your work.
I have set out
these ten questions below with my comments:
1.1 Can Mondragon continue indefinitely with co-operative democracy
for the Basques but non-co-operative ventures outside the Basque
Country?
I would be
great pity if the MCC did not walk the talk and replicate itself
internationally. It would support arguments that its business model is
culturally specific and/or it controllers are just as opportunistic as any other
capitalist. Indeed you are so right. There are already internal
arguments about this issue within the MCC. As for all co-operatives the
lure of the capital based way is hard to resist but many Basque co-operators are
resistant. There is no doubt in my mind that having one internal policy
and one external one will erode the system inside the Basque Country too.
Walking the talk is, in the long run what will protect internal coherence that
gives the MCC so much of its power. Our challenge is to encourage the MCC
in its struggle because we need them so badly. There is much to be
achieved by global co-operation and mutual self help. If the co-operatives
of northern Italy and the Basque Country do not play a significant leadership
role the possibility of co-operatives being more than on the margins of the
corporate global economy is itself marginal.
1.2 Can any regional or national co-operative business
or set of businesses compete with no transnational
linkages?
The answer
is a resound YES for social infrastructure projects that are now typically being
privatized like freeways, bridges, tunnels, power generation, communication,
water supply, etc. Governments should not allow such essential services
with natural or created monopoly privileges to be owned and controlled by alien
interests. You are logically correct. Yet her the privatization
mania has not yet subsided even in the face of multiple Enron. One area
that may benefit from international linkage for even these firms is
technology. I was at a wind energy meeting yesterday and clearly the MCC's
technology would be of great benefit to those wishing to make a great leap into
wind power. Is this the making of a co-operative joint venture?
MCC technology and local fabrication, installation and maintenance of wind
energy co-operatives?
1.3
What form can these linkages take that is consistent with co-operative values
and principles?
For other types of business that may need economies of scale or scope
then this can be obtained through establishing relationship networks as
illustrated by the Mondragon Groups or a Japanese Keiretsu. For details
refer to my article on A NEW WAY TO GOVERN at <http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=310263>. I will look forward very much to
reading your articles and will be interested to see if they will fit (I
suspect yes) into the international Masters of Managing Co-operatives and
Credit Unions we are developing.
1.4 What is a "co-operative joint venture"?
There are many
examples in the electronics and bio-tech industries where business may both
cooperate and compete at the same time. But they are typically not
inclusive to allow the participation of all stakeholders. To achieve
inclusiveness they would need to adopt an ecological form of ownership and
control as provided by what I call Ownership Transfer Corporations in my book
Democratising the Wealth of
Nations. <http://cog.kent.edu/lib/TurnbullBook/TurnbullBook.htm>. OTCs convert capitalistic firms into
nested network of multi-stakeholder mutuals that create a Mondragon like
architecture but is more dynamic because change in ownership is built in to
maintain inclusiveness as stakeholders change over time.
Same
comment as above.
1.5 What is A
"co-operative strategic alliance?"
Refer to 1.4 and 1.5 above
1.6 What is An "international co-operative
merger"
I can imagine
and describe such an arrangement but I would not encourage it as it is likely to
combine the more unattractive features of mullti national firms. Much
better to establish networks of strategic alliances between locally owned and
controlled multi stakeholder firms like that which would be created by
OTCs. Yes I agree. Having said that the design of those
alliances to achieve the needed business results will require some innovative
thinking.
1.7 How will
co-operatives in Northern Italy link co-operatively to Mondragon and to our
consumer co-operatives in lets say North America?
Network alliances would be my recommendation as
this is consistent with how they both link locally to other local firms.
Again I agree but they are happening very slowly while competitors are
moving very fast. I suspect there are several reasons and much
exploration and discussion needs to take
place.
2.1
How do 'consumer' based co-operatives begin to
convert to [multi] stakeholder co-operatives?
This questioned is answered in my paper 'The
competitive advantages of stakeholder mutuals’, presented to the 12th Annual
Meeting of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-economics, London School of
Economics, July 9th, 2000,
<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?cfid=196284&cftoken=90592070&abstract_id=242779>
and published in a shorter form in in The New Mutualism in Public Policy,
ed. J. Birchall Chapter 9, pp. 171-201, Routledge, 2001, London.
This
I will also read with great interest. Clearly you and likely others have
given these questions a great deal of thought but the thinking is not reaching
co-operative managers. gain, hopefully the Masters program will drive the
use of research and thought.
The question is also answered in my public policy booklet being
launched today in London by the New Economics Foundation on A New Way to
Govern: Organisations and society after Enron. This publication was
financed by a consumer co-operative, the Oxford, Swindon and Gloucester Co-operative
Society that wants to convert to a
multi-stakeholder cooperative. The pocket book was also commissioned to
identify alternatives to privatisation and public/private partnerships that are
not operating satisfactory or have failed like Railtrack.
Interesting! I have done some work
with OS&G around this issue including workshops with some staff
groups. It has been linked to Marketing Our Co-operative Advantage.
The MOCA linkage is that you can only market what you have created and if you
have not made mutual cause with the workers you have severely limited what you
can market and your effectiveness. The bigger the co-operative difference
the greater the co-operative advantage plus the benefits of increased
productivity that comes from regarding the workers as colleagues as opposed to
resources.
2.2 Who is studying attempts to do this?
[Stakeholder mutuals]
I do not know but I would like to when people
try.
2.3 Legislation that allows it?
I do not believe that any changes in legislation
would be required in the UK, US and Australia if corporation law was used
instead of cooperative specific laws. No changes in legislation is
required to create OTCs in these countries. It is simply a matter of
members changing their corporate constitution. Alas, there are real
pitfalls to using corporate law and not having good co-operative law. Take
a good look at the new federal co-operative act in Canada. One thing I did
learn in Australia is that co-operative law there is very weak. It was the
single most consistently complained topic and clearly some reform is needed as
is also needed here in many of our provinces. Having been invloved in
incorporating several stakeholder co-operatives, a co-operative stakeholder
approach recognized in law is a very definite asset.
I found you comments very
useful and hope I will be able to entice you to be involved in some way in our
masters program. We need first rate thinkers if we are to provide the kind
of learning opportunities co-operative managers need to move co-operative
performance from mediocre to dynamic.
Co-operatively,
Tom
J. Tom Webb
Global Co-operation
111 Macken
Road
Summer Office
R.R. #
4
Rous Island
Antigonish, Nova Scotia
902-624-9048
Canada
Phone:
902-863-0678
Fax
902-863-0625
Is global co-operation like a tree?
"The great
French Marshall Lyautey once asked his gardner to plant a tree. The
gardner objected that the tree was slow growing and would not reach maturity for
100 years. The Marshall replied, "In that case there is no time to loose,
plant it this afternoon!" John F. Kennedy
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