It’s the case that cooperatives have the same market forces on them as non-capitalist companies when we look at the boundary to the company. There is also nothing that requires cooperatives develop sensible politics. However, internally they have very different dynamics. The worker/owners will have more egalitarian pay, and longer term vision for the company than a capitalist would regarding a company, and experiments with more sustainable production and more worker friendly production is much more viable.
Taking an overtly political view of cooperatives is absolutely necessary if they are to function usefully for progressive politics. Otherwise they can easily degenerate (in terms of control and pay ratio) or simply be sold to capitalists when the pay-off is high enough. The mere existence of lots of cooperatives is not sufficient.
We need to have a base in the working class from which can generate surplus so that we can have political expressions which aren’t dominated by mere profit making interests. In order for this to happen we need to politicise cooperatives, which an only happen if the left engages with them actively. Unions can also be filled with conservatism, but just as with cooperatives, they have the potential not to be so.
Some aspects which need to be paid attention to.
A) A cooperative bank which funds only cooperatives is absolutely necessary, and this is the institution which would have the most power to ensure that we build up a connected cooperative movement which retains decent politics. The structure of the company can be a requirement of obtaining credit, which means that it will at least remains democratic.
B) Having a federation of cooperatives, rather than atomised cooperatives can potentially yield important benefits. Experimentation with alternative internal trading (both on supply chain, and consumer goods) within a federation of cooperatives could help to reduce the need to work strictly off of exchange value.
C) We need to propose a series of legal reforms that can help cooperatives to function. These can include everything from limited liability to allowing cooperatives to provide goods in kind to members in lieu of remuneration. This can reduce the costs to the cooperative and make them more competitive in the market while still improving worker living standards. Tax breaks for cooperatives is another possibility, as are state finance for cooperatives.
D) The use of surplus for investment should be strongly encouraged. This is one of the reasons that Mondragón didn’t suffer as badly in the credit crunch, since they save at high rates and reinvest in new cooperative enterprise, while capital works on a less coordinated basis.
E) Historically there is a trend of forming cooperatives in areas with low margins. Getting involved in production of means of production themselves, or in other high tech areas which have the potential for high profit rates is crucial. The focus on making consumer capitalism nicer or more green directly is misguided.
F) A mass political party would have to explicate the wider vision of how to use cooperatives for a transition to a socialist society. Even non-market socialism can be much easier to transition to via a large cooperative sector.
Lenin remarked that the Bolsheviks had tons of problems trying to staff banks or make the bankers play nice. If we had politicised cooperative banks, we would have real experience in finance and such problems would be radically reduced. The potential for coordinated planning would obviously be much better as experiments over a period could take place, rather than some shock-treatment transition to state command economies.
The strategy may end up leading to coops which are apolitical, deficient or degenerate. While not a sufficient condition for progress, it looks to me to be at least like an important component of a modern socialist strategy.