Cooperative movement
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The cooperative movement emerged as a social movement in England and on mainland Europe from the middle of the 19th century with new economic policy objectives and is to be understood as an important attempt at solving the social problems raised by early capitalism . In this sense, cooperatives are to be understood economically as "supporting business management " (R. Henzler). Perhaps the most comprehensive attempt at co-operative communities arose after the turn of the 20th century in Palestine with the kibbutz movement , beginning with the “original kibbutz” Degania .
Amount of movement
All in the nascent industrialization nonperforming nascent industries took up new cooperative forms of organizational self-help : farmers ( Raiffeisen co-ops), artisans and retailers ( credit unions , purchasing cooperatives ), apartment seekers ( housing cooperatives ), workers as consumers ( consumer cooperatives ) and in the Bauhütte movement as a professional Self-organization (the “ knights ” of the declining manor nobility are also conspicuous in this context).
Its effects reached early on in the emerging labor movement , but also in the trade union movement , guild socialism and anarcho-syndicalism .
Historical connection
Historically and terminologically, the cooperative movement - especially in the German-speaking area - resorted to the " cooperatives " ("unions", " guilds ") known from the Middle Ages (e.g. forest cooperatives, dike cooperatives, funeral cooperatives), but it differs from the traditionally “ communally ” inherited forms in their rational and theory-based planning. This modern cooperative movement is also not the first anti-capitalist economic reform movement (e.g. the emergence of the savings bank system with its charitable features was two generations earlier). Operational functions, such as financing, purchasing, manufacturing, sales, could be bundled in a cooperative , depending on the branch of industry, with particular priorities.
Analyzes of the cooperative movement (s)
Scientifically, Otto von Gierke as a political scientist (two-form theory: Roman law “ rule ” vs. German law “ cooperative ”) and Ferdinand Tönnies as a sociologist (two normal types : “ community ” and “ society ”) presented pioneering analyzes of this social movement early on . In 1896 Franz Oppenheimer presented the “iron transformation law of the cooperatives” (Oppenheimer's transformation law), according to which all cooperatives sooner or later have to transform into capitalist companies.
Typical branch theorists and founders worked for the individual branches of the cooperative movement: Raiffeisen , Schulze-Delitzsch , Huber and Kaufmann .
Legal expression
Legally, the cooperative movement in the German Reich obtained the Genossenschaftsgesetz (GenG), in which the forms of “registered cooperative with unlimited liability” (eGmuH) or “with limited liability” (eGmbH) were established, but traditional cooperatives were not included. Other legal forms could also be designed in the form of a cooperative (registered associations , mutual insurance associations, foundations ).
literature
- Hartmut Glenk : Development of the cooperative idea and its importance today . In: Cooperative Law. Systematics and practice of the cooperative system . 2nd Edition. CH Beck, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-406-63313-3 .
- Gisela Notz : The socialist cooperative movement as the third pillar of the labor movement. History and Perspectives . In: Axel Weipert (ed.): Democratization of the economy and the state. Studies on the relationship between economy, state and democracy from the 19th century to today . NoRa Verlag, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-86557-331-5 .
Footnotes
- ^ The settlement cooperative . Attempt to positively overcome communism by solving the cooperative problem and the agricultural question , Leipzig 1896.