Democratizing Rural Economy: Institutional Friction, Sustainable Struggle and the Cooperative Movement*

Abstract

Sustainable development demands institutions manage the conflicts and struggles that inevitably arise over material and ideal interests. While current cooperative theory privileges the economic element, a political economy of cooperation emphasizes cooperatives' tentative bridging of economic and political spheres with a democratic ethos. The cooperatives' democratic political structure exists in tension with a capitalist economic structure and other sites of friction. These contradictions are: in the realm of social relations, between production and consumption; in the realm of spatial relations, between the local and the global; and in the realm of collective action, between cooperatives as both traditional as well as new social movements. Where neo‐classical economic models seek to eliminate or reduce these tensions, political economy views these tensions as functional to sustainability by creating an “institutional friction” that facilitates innovation, flexibility and long‐term adaptability. This political economy of cooperation is intended as a step toward the development of a multidimensional sociology of cooperation.

Working Together to Build Cooperative Food Systems

“…The incremental application of economic rationality risks undermining the multifunctional potential of these initiatives and can erase possibilities for more radical and oppositional forms of economic organizing and politics. If not approached reflexively, conventional business-planning tactics and strategies may contribute to the conventionalization of these initiatives (Cameron 2010) whereby they come to be virtually indistinguishable from profit-driven firms (see Gray, 2008, andMooney, 2004, for related discussion in cooperative literature). Similar tendencies have been reported earlier with respect to conventionalization in the organic food market (Guthman, 2004).…”

Historical Tensions, Institutionalization, and the Need for Multistakeholder Cooperatives

“…However it cannot be overemphasized that the predominant organizational and competing form in the larger economy is the IOF. While geographic embeddedness can serve a long-term function of protecting member-users and their communities from the impacts of recessions and capital flight from a region, from the standpoint of roi logic, local embeddedness is an unnecessary constraint that interferes with mobility and the efficient application of capital (Mooney, 2004). In response to competition with roi multinationals and in pursuing growth and profitability, many cooperatives have expanded geographically -even globally in the case of such cooperatives as Cenex-Harvest States and Land O'Lakes.…”

“…Member-users of collaborative agricultural and consumer cooperatives hold potential to internalize what is externalized under a roi rationality, via a broadening of democratic voice possibilities (Friedmann, 1995(Friedmann, , 2005Mooney, 2004). Land use, environmental, and health concerns might no longer be externalized by the default of organizational design, but rather internalized with a more inclusive structure.…”

“…n "Democratizing a Rural Economy," Mooney (2004) suggests that for future generations, social scientists may need to give some greater emphasis to bequeathing not only a sustainable environment, but also institutions that can set a forum for democratic struggle and voice. As economic entities, agricultural cooperatives may be among the few institutions in rural areas retaining a semblance of economic democratic governance.…”

Cooperative Movements in Rural Areas in Contemporary Poland: A Brief Comparison of Farmers’ Attitudes of Members and Non-memebrs of Coooperatives

“…In highly developed societies, the cooperative movement provides a powerful defence against neo-liberal favouring of large agricultural corporations. It helps to empower family farms and individual farmers who are faced with the tensions of industrial forms of food production (Mooney 2004).…”