Are co-operatives democracies?
My main tool for thinking about democratization has been the book Workplace Democratization by Paul Bernstein. The book generally uses terminology referrring to the dynamics between managers and employees, but the book is also deeply useful for analyzing members’ rights in a co-operative.
So are co-ops democracies? Well, how would we analyze it? There’s a lot of kinds of co-ops out there, and things are very different from place to place:
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a co-op where members aren’t aware they can vote for the board
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a co-op where voting for the board is the only decision you get to participate in
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a co-op where workers don’t get to be members and unionize to demand rights
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a business which calls itself a co-op but but isn’t actually a co-op.
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a co-op where every member is equal and all decisions are made collectively
Because of this, I focus on democratization as the objective to rally around. Being a co-operative is one thing, but democratization is an activity and mentality. A co-op is an ideal place for democratization, but it is never guaranteed. There is no fixed, single, or final state of democracy – it is kindled or it burns out.
For Resonate, our multi-stakeholder model both raises the bar on member engagment and adds complexity. We’re owned by… everyone! Members here want to take initiative, contribute, build, lead, and be supported in turn. The question is often – well, what does that look like in practice? How will we know we’re on track?
6 components of democratization
In his book, Bernstein proposed six minimally necessary components of democratization. In his analysis, when any are missing, a crisis will eventually emerge to demand it or the group will move away from democratization.
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Participation in decision-making
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Frequent economic return to participants based on the surplus they produce
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Sharing management-level information, and, to an increasing extent, management-level expertise
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Guaranteed individual rights
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An independent appeals system
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A complex participatory/democratic consciousness
Bernstein spends his book analyzing these components. How have different companies experimented with these components? To what degrees? Where did the initiative emerge: for example, if a grievance committee was set up, who set it up and who decided who was on it?
Resonate: a multi-stakeholder co-op
We’re is an alliance of unique perspectives, needs, and contributions: Founders, Listeners, Musicmakers, and Workers.
My primary focus for democratization is honed on the Workers group, not just because it’s what I do here, but because the co-op has not set up clear processes for contributors to become Worker Members or take collective initiative in decision-making. It’s a fundamental piece that’s missing.
As we set out our objectives for this year, I invite y’all to explore these questions of democratization together with me and have this in our hearts.
“Although the consciousness of managers is considered a crucial element in the model, our finding generally was that the consciousness of the employees was more critical in the long run, especially their motivation to participate. Democratization cannot function well until the workers themselves want it.”