The Myth of Mondragon: Cooperatives, Politics, and Working Class Life in a Basque Town

by Sharryn Kasmir

Overview

Shows how the creation of an idealized image of the Mondragon cooperatives is part of a new global ideology that promotes cooperative labor-management relations in order to discredit labor unions and working-class organizations.

This is the first critical account of the internationally renowned Mondragon cooperatives of the Basque region of Spain. The Mondragon cooperatives are seen as the leading alternative model to standard industrial organization; they are considered to be the most successful example of democratic decision making and worker ownership. However, the author argues that the vast scholarly and popular literature on Mondragon idealizes the cooperatives by falsely portraying them as apolitical institutions and by ignoring the experiences of shop floor workers. She shows how this creation of an idealized image of the cooperatives is part of a new global ideology that promotes cooperative labor-management relations in order to discredit labor unions and working-class organizations; this constitutes what she calls the "myth" of Mondragon.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780791430040
Publisher:	State University of New York Press
Publication date:	07/03/1996
Series:	SUNY series in the Anthropology of Work
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	260
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Sharryn Kasmir is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology/Anthropology at Knox College.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations


Foreword by June C. Nash


Preface


Acknowledgments


Notes on the Text


Introduction: The Mondragón Model and the Remaking of Industrial Working Classes


1. Making the Myth of Mondragón


2. The History of Mondragón as a Working-Class Town


3. Cooperativism and Middle-Class Reforms


4. Remaking the Basque Working Class


5. Comparing a Cooperative and a Standard Private Firm


6. Fagor Clima and Mayc, S. A.


7. Cooperatives, Politics, and Working-Class Life


Conclusions


Appendix: Basque Syndicates, Political Organizations, and Parties


Notes


Works Cited


Index

Editorial Reviews

"The topic—class consciousness, struggle, and cooperativism—is significant for several reasons. First, Mondragón cooperatives have been the object of much attention by social scientists, but previous work has viewed them from managers', not workers' perspectives. By using the perspective of workers, Kasmir not only shows that there is conflict between managers and workers in the cooperatives, but that workers in cooperatives and in private factories have not always acted together. This perspective also enables her to draw out very effectively the links between managers, the ideology of cooperativism, and Basque nationalist politics.

"Second, the analysis of cooperatives and class in Mondragon has important broader implications about contemporary class patterns. By looking at the ideology of cooperativism in its larger political and social context at different times, Kasmir raises important questions for class analysis elsewhere." — Frances Rothstein, Towson State University

From the Publisher

An anthropological study that challenges the scholarly and popular view of the world-famous cooperatives by presenting the perspective of people who actually work in them. Finds that the structure and ideology of the coops prevents workers from having as much control over their job as workers in nearby private companies, and that the movement has eroded class identity and the labor movement in the town. Also explains that the coops were established to accomplish that very purpose, and how they have always been enmeshed in the various factions of the Basque nationalist movement. Based on extensive field work in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews