Education and worker cooperatives : obstacles and opportunities

Abstract

Educational provision has always been an integral component of the strategy for cooperative development. Owenism, which inspired one of the earliest examples of a worker cooperative in an industrial setting, was in its very essence an educational movement. For every Owenite, education in its technical and cooperative aspects was a vitally important matter and a requisite for practical success (Cole, 1944, p. 71). Yet, within a few years the Owenite-inspired worker cooperatives in Britain, as with other innumerable attempt at worker cooperation worldwide which followed, had fallen victim to either liquidation or transformation into private or state ownership. Apparently, education via the actual experience of cooperation, along with training in cooperative and technical skills, has not been enough to ensure worker cooperative success. This article will propose a strategy for worker cooperative promotion in which education is seen as a necessary but not sufficient ingredient. It will also highlight in the process the crucial difference between the objectives and consequences of education as "schooling" and those of a "counter-hegemonic" education.