Related Papers
Organization Studies
Book Reviews: Sharryn Kasmir: The Myth of Mondragón. Cooperatives, Politics and Working-class Life in a Basque Town 1996, Albany: State University of New York Press. 243 pages
1997 •
Hans Nutzinger
Is the Mondragón Cooperative Experience a Cultural Exception? The Application of the Mondragón Model in Valencia and Beyond
Spencer Thompson
It has frequently been presumed that the ability of the Mondragón group of co-operatives to achieve a remarkable degree of trust and loyalty amongst its members while maintaining relatively bureaucratic workplaces is due to the uniquely solidaristic traits of Basque culture, implying that the same feat will be unattainable amidst less favourable cultural milieus. This article argues that, on the contrary, Mondragón’s organisational culture is embedded in its organisational structures — such as its systems of governance, education, ownership, remuneration, and inter-co-operation — and should therefore be widely applicable, even if not identically replicable, in other regions. To this effect, the article provides evidence that the key features of ‘the Mondragón Model’ have indeed been emulated elsewhere — namely in Valencia and the United States — and moreover has significant parallels around the world.
Renewal: A journal of social democracy, 23(4): 37-54
Mondragon in five points: advantages and challenges of worker cooperatives
2015 •
Thomas Ferretti
Having spent a month at Mondragon in 2014 to study the cooperative and meet with its members, I thought it would be useful to spread knowledge about worker cooperatives. I offer a brief summary about co-operatives as egalitarian forms of organisations, showing how they can overcome the challenges they face and how states can support the cooperative model. Beyond superficial praise and criticism, what can Mondragon teach us about alternative ways to organise collective work? http://renewal.org.uk/articles/mondragon-in-five-points-advantages-and-challenges-of-worker-co-operatives
The origins of Mondragon: Catholic co-operativism and social movement in a Basque valley (1941-59)
Antonio Miguez Macho, Fernando Molina
Globalizations
Prefiguring communalism and economic democracy in the Basque Country
2021 •
Xabier Renteria-Uriarte
This article examines the emergence of a grass-root movement that brings back the past in order to prefigure communalist practices in the Basque Country. The movement comprises both the platform of Biltzarre and the Basque Cultural Instinct Team. Their proposal implies an invitation to consider a concrete 'social myth' that brings forward the sovereign agency of an ancient socioeconomic cultural model (medieval Basque direct democracy) into contemporary anti-capitalist struggles. Although those practices have mostly withered away, they may still function as a source of inspiration for revolutionary purposes. Crucially, such experience helps us to overcome the 'leftist melancholy' pointed out by Enzo Traverso, in which social movements seem to start always from the scratch. The article stresses the importance of engaging with economic democracy debates critically, thus questioning the role prices and technology have in sharing economy and commoning models, and problematizes the limits they may have in global capitalism. To cite this article: Xabier Renteria-Uriarte & Jon Las Heras (2021) Prefiguring communalism and economic democracy in the Basque Country, Globalizations, DOI: 10.1080/14747731.2020.1863542
WorkingUSA
The Cooperative Movement, Self-Management, and Competitiveness: The Case of Mondragón Corporación Cooperativa
2010 •
Leda Gitahy
The Mondragon Experience (Oxford Handbook of Mutual, Co-Operative, and Co-Owned Business 2017)
Javier Lezaun, Xabier Barandiaran Irastorza
The Basque town of Mondragón is home to one of the largest and most significant experiences of co-operative organization and workers’ self-management anywhere in the world. The Mondragón co-operative movement, born in the 1950s around the local technical training college and a handful of small industrial firms, encompasses today more than one hundred co-operative firms operating in ninety-seven countries and generating an aggregate revenue of €12bn. In this chapter we review the historical origins of the Mondragón experience and the goals that guided the first co-operative projects. After describing the organizational principles and governance mechanisms of individual co-operatives and of the Mondragón group as a whole, we examine the rapid expansion and internationalization of some of the most emblematic Mondragón firms – a process that has led to a difficult balance between the maintenance of the original co-operative principles at home and an increasing reliance on capitalist forms of ownership and production abroad. We conclude by discussing the impact of the recent economic crisis on the Mondragón group and its system of inter-co-operative solidarity, and reflect on the future prospects for this far-reaching experiment in collective ownership and democratic governance.
Worker cooperatives, a status to survive in a changing world or a status to change the world? Spain and France, two worldviews on worker cooperatives
2015 •
Sandrine Stervinou
Since the recent crisis, the resilience of worker cooperatives has not gone unnoticed in Europe (Cecop, 2012). In France this renewed interest in worker cooperatives has led to a new law in 2013 promoting this model of enterprise based on democratic governance. The legal status of worker cooperatives implies that such organizational forms are characterised by a double mission: to be profitable in order to maintain their activity and to be responsible vis-a-vis employees and towards their community. Such hybrid mission implies that such firms may be viewed as social enterprises. In this context, we use Austin & al.’s (2006) framework in order to assess how leaders of French and Spanish worker cooperatives make sense of who they are in terms of social or commercial entrepreneurship. Our study is based on a series of twenty semistructured interviews conducted with founders and / or leaders of worker cooperatives, from the Western region of France and the Basque country in Spain. Both r...
Forms of Collective Engagement in Youth Transitions. A Global Perspective
The Lonjas in the Basque Country. New Forms of Collectivity in Precarious Times
2021 •
Maria Martinez
Principles of the Mondragon Corporation and Effects on Labor
Terence C Carr
The field of economics usually draws a clear line between employees and management when examining firms, but one company in the Basque region of Spain has shown that this line can be blurred. Since the founding of its first venture in 1956, the Mondragon Corporation has encompassed a growing network of over 100 labor-managed firms (Hindmoor 217). Each is democratically managed by the workers who comprise it, and each worker’s income is directly tied to the firm’s long term success. The success of Mondragon is somewhat singular, and as a result has been the subject of much interest; partly due to the rise of neoclassical economics and its shift away from institutional analysis, however, empirical study of Mondragon is fairly scarce. This paper will focus on the history of Mondragon, three key aspects of its founding principles, and how these affect the success of its labor force.
