Worker Cooperatives in India by Timothy Kerswell & Surendra Pratap

Author:Timothy Kerswell & Surendra Pratap
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer Singapore, Singapore

Ideology and Cooperative Formation

In this section, we will discuss the relationship between political ideologies and the approach taken by political organisations, social organisations, and trade unions toward cooperative formation. This will involve a survey of the approaches to cooperatives taken by the Indian labour movement. We will focus on CPIM and CITU given that the focus of this chapter is the Alcond Cooperative, but consider the other main trade unions also. We conclude the chapter with a comparison between the relatively defensive approach of the Indian trade unions that have formed cooperatives to save dying enterprises, and the proactive approach of the Mondragon cooperatives in the Basque region.

To fully understand the formation and operation of the Alcond Cooperative, it is necessary to have an understanding of the CPIM and its trade union organisation, CITU , as these are the parent organisations of the Alcond Cooperative. In this section, we will specifically address the ideological position of CPIM , their understanding of socialism, and their approach to cooperative building formation. It is notable that across the broad Indian left, no left political forces have actively promoted cooperative formation as a crucial part of their political strategy. Defensive use of cooperatives is the norm in India, and this perspective is something we are hoping to change. In this section, we will demonstrate the way that cooperatives were set up, not as an alternative model of production, but only as a way to retain jobs and industry in the state of West Bengal.

The CPIM embrace a productive force determinist reading of Marxism, important in understanding their approach to cooperatives. A reading of Marxism based on productive force determinism stresses the historical role of productive forces and their ability to determine the relations of production and therefore the mode of production. This understanding of Marxism is the “orthodox” understanding of Marxist at the time as it was the Marxism espoused in the Soviet Union, and by the original Communist Party of India (CPI henceforth) before its division. We can see this philosophy through an examination of the discourse of key CPIM leaders.

Consider, for example, Sitaram Yechury, the current General Secretary of the CPIM , who said (Yechury 1999),

It would be erroneous to conclude that under socialism the market will cease to exist. So long as commodities are produced, the market exists. The crucial question is not planning versus market but which dominates what. Under socialism , the market is one of the means for the distribution of the social product. Centralised planning, utilising the market forces and the market indicators, will be able to efficiently develop the productive forces and meet the welfare demands of the people. Therefore, ignoring market indicators leads to greater irrational use of resources, which will adversely affect the plan process itself.

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