Christian keys in the Mondragon cooperative movement

The cooperative movement that arose in Mondragon, since 1951, has given rise to three corporate groups (Mondragon Corporation, Ulma Group and Orona Group) that bring together nearly 300 companies and employ some 80,000 people in 40 countries. A success story that has gone down in the history books. management. In origin and in essence, it is a cooperativism based on common ownership and management: workers are capital partners and each has one vote in the assembly. (Although expansion has subsequently required some modifications).

How did it come to this point? One explanation is the admiration and amazement of those who first followed Arizmendiarrieta, whose testimonies are collected in videos and writings. They all felt enthusiastic about his ideas, his drive and his example. The protagonists of the first Mondragon cooperatives made these ideas their own and threw themselves into the adventure. According to their testimonies, being owner and worker at the same time, uniting capital and work in the same person, sharing this situation in solidarity, was tremendously attractive for those young people who saw the possibility of realizing the social concerns they themselves had. 

Those of the first hour with Don José María, and those who arrived later, point out that Arizmendiarrieta, or the cooperative doctrine, changed their lives. It filled them with satisfaction to be creators, to do something unknown, capable of giving new life; it was the attraction of solidarity and innovative work. They saw these ideas as revolutionary and glimpsed their potential to transform business and society. These ideas opened up more possibilities than conventional work. They perceived another world, a different, non-existent field that could become a reality. They were excited about a peaceful revolution, without political ideology, which could do a lot of good. Don José María knew how to see the future and transmitted illusion and hope.

I point out three aspects of the feeling of this cooperative model: effort, knowledge and social influence. It was necessary to make an effort, to take risks. To move the cooperatives forward required hard work and sacrifices. There were countless hours of work to form companies that were not easy at the beginning, facing, at the same time, family problems, the dedication of the women who, at the beginning, had to give up working outside the home to encourage and help their husbands to create the cooperatives. It was necessary to live in the hope that it would succeed, to act with personal virtues (industriousness, generosity, sobriety, patience, magnanimity). This attitude is the way of being a cooperativist. For there to be cooperatives, there must first be cooperators. In return, equality among all facilitated companionship and a common involvement in moving forward their enterprises, doing overtime or work that was not their responsibility; solidarity also reached everyday life.

It was also necessary to know, to acquire knowledge. Cooperatives would succeed by being competitive, by manufacturing innovative products, which required training. Arizmendiarrieta had already given importance to the human and technical training of apprentices, but it would be necessary to continue studying and achieve specialization. Not only to be good technicians, but also better people. They needed to know more and be aware that they were imperfect, but perfectible, capable of transforming themselves and their environment. 

Hence the social benefits of their work. Behind the immediate (making the cooperative), the cooperative ideal contains attractive elements that come from the principles of the Social Doctrine of the Church (universal destination of goods, the person at the center, not profit; work that allows the development of people's capacities, an economy at the service of the human being...). Faced with the dilemma of the individual community, the community prevails. This requires practicing austerity in the company itself, making good use of financial assets, not squandering or making superfluous expenditures. All this benefits the workers themselves and the common good, since their activity can be extended to solidarity activities, such as housing or consumer cooperatives, in addition to spreading a responsible mentality. The profitability of cooperatives reaches more people because the value generated is shared.

Does this humanistic vision, rooted in Christianity, lower expectations of growth? The answer is the success of existing cooperative enterprises and groups. If done well, solidarity is as profitable as any well-managed enterprise. Today it is possible to understand the primacy of the person, the common good and solidarity, historical values of the West, even if it is difficult to find someone who embodies them. But there are signs of hope because cooperatives still exist and can contribute to renew the general economic mentality.