I have in a drawer a treasured gold watch. It was presented to my father in his later years when he was made a life member of the NSW Vegetable Growers Association in recognition of his long years of service to the industry.
During those years he represented the growers on the Sydney City Markets Consultative Committee. One evening the issue of bribery in the Markets was on the agenda. My father said: "It has been said that their is bribery in the city markets, but that has not been my experience".
The next morning a major daily newspaper reported: "Mr Fowler said that there is bribery in the markets." Don't trust all you read in newspapers or hear on radio or television!
He had owned a farm on which someone grew vegetables and my father would load his truck with vegetables in the evening and then at 3:00 am drive to the markets to sell them. After that he would drive to a farmers co-operative supplying dairy and poultry feed to its members where he had a contract to deliver the feed.
In later years, when he ceased his own business operations he spent some years as Manager of the NSW Vegetable Growers Co-operative that marketed the products of its membership of small farmers.
So my experience of co-operatives began in my earliest years. My father had only two weeks of formal schooling in his life but he was one of the most educated persons and business man I have known, having learned from life experiences.
Do not think you MUST be highly "educated" to succeed in life.
Following the Western path of development impacts on South Africa, as on other African nations, in two negative ways:
1.
In terms of economic development it falls further behind. Statistics show that, through institutions such as the World Bank, IMF and the African Development Bank together with large corporations that control African resources, Western nations are being enriched at the expense of Africa.
This is supported by Gerald Caplan, a senior consultant to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. The Australian writer, Tony Iltis, investigated Australian involvement in this at first hand documenting the atrocities that commercial corporations are prepared to commit in order to protect their interests in Africa. He says: "The claim that free-market policies represent a strategy for ending world poverty is an extraordinary inversion of reality.'
This process is further accelerated when locally owned commercial enterprises are acquired by foreign interests, leading profits flowing out of the country.
The Trade Justice Movement‚ a U.K. coalition of major churches and other NGOs‚ argues that unjust trade rules set by Western controlled international bodies such as the World Trade Organization have a key role in this situation. Its research shows the total flow from poorer nations, the bulk of which is from Africa, as occurring at the rate of £1.3bn a DAY!
British journalist George Monbiot comments: "Debt, unfair terms of trade and poverty are not causes of Africa's poverty but symptoms. The cause is power: the ability of the G8 nations and their corporations to run other people's lives."
2.
In terms of human development, the impact is to promote in Africa's societies, most notably in South Africa, an individualistic culture of self-indulgence that is injurious to human well being. both physically, psychologically and economically
a.
It has created in Western societies epidemics of life-threatening diseases attributable to the lifestyle generated by this culture. They include obesity, Type 2 diabetes, cancer, heart, arterial, and lung diseases. These are rare in rural Africa where the traditional lifestyle prevails. (Based on WHO data)
The health of rural Africans is even better in those areas of Eastern Africa where African finger millet, rather than maize, is the staple food. Maize is almost pure starch, while finger millet is rich in essential proteins, minerals and vitamins. It is also much less susceptible to both drought and excessive rain.
The work of the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute in developing an improved hybrid variety of this indigenous grain has encouraged a resurgence of its use in Western Kenya.
b.
The negative psychological impact is evidenced by social alienation (individuals experiencing a desperate loneliness due to lack of communal support), high levels of demand for counselling and psychiatric services, and alarming levels of youth suicide.
c.
The negative social impact is growing internal inequity. As the nation grows richer the gap between the rich and poor grows wider. Many Western economists argue that as the rich of a country grow richer the wealth will eventually trickle down to the poor. However, this is refuted by more than 20 years of statistical data from both Western and African countries, shows that the direct opposite happens. The rich get richer and richer while the poor get poorer and poorer.
There will never be total equality in riches, for a variety of reasons, However, social equity is essential to human well being and a hallmark of a just society.
It should be clear that the Kenyan scientist, B. Wanjala Kerre, was right when, in 1992, he said in a paper presented to a conference of the Professors World Peace Academy in Nairobi:
"While Africa cannot isolate herself from the rest of modern civilizations, it is quite obvious that modern cultural values which have been borrowed from the West can no longer promise humanity a balanced and humane lifestyle."
This does not mean rejecting the technologies developed by Western societies. Africa needs these. What it does mean is harnessing these tools to serve the interests of people rather than using them as tools to shape people in the interests of a powerful few.
This path needs to be based on the two core values of Africanc ulture:
• The priority of the well being of all people in every human endeavour;
* Communal identity as fundamental to human personal identity.
The identity of the complete person is defined by both a unique individuality and communal identity.
Western culture defines the person as an autonomous individual without communal identity. A community is an organisation that individuals join and leave at will. The defectiveness of this manifests itself in Western culture by conformist patterns of behaviour.
It is onlywhen communal identity is recognised as a fundamental component of personal identity that people are free to express individuality without social alienation.
There are three reasons why a strong united network of co-operatives across the nation is needed in developing such a development path:
1.
No African nation, including South Africa, has an internal business network that is strong enough to take on the multinational corporations on their own terms. In South Africa, that lesson should have been learned by the loss of control of ABSA, the nation's largest bank, to Barclays of London who now have a controlling interest in ABSA.
Co-operatives, operating on the established internationally recognised co-operative principles, offer a completely different way of doing business with a proven ability to compete successfully with multinationals. They have demonstrated this in every sector of the business world.
2.
They can be effective in mobilising the most underutilised resource of the nation---its grassroots people---to drive national development.
"The People Shall Share in the Country's Wealth
The national wealth of our country, the heritage of South African shall be restored to the people: The mineral wealth beneath the soil, the Banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole."
The detail in this section of the ANC Freedom Charter was always an idealistic dream in today's world. However, by means of a thriving co-operative movement the vision of the people sharing in the country's wealth can become a reality.
3.
They can be effective in generating a society that is a model of social equity. In doing so they can repair the deep social fractures that years of European occupation have left in every African society.
The International Co-operative Alliance statement of fundamental values states:
"Co-operatives are based on the values of self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity. In the tradition of their founders, co-operative members believe in the ethical values of honesty, openness, social responsibility and caring for others."
Its first principle states that co-operatives are:
"...open to all persons able to use their services and willing to accept the responsibilities of membership, without gender, social, racial, political or religious discrimination."
The Co-operatives Act provides a sound legal framework for co-operative endeavours in South Africa, affirming the fundamental principles of the International Co-operative Alliance.
However, strategies to promote these endeavours can undermine these principles, in doing so doing more to hinder than promote the development of a strong, healthy co-operative sector in the South African economy.
If we are to develop a strong, successful co-operatives we need to put aside our thinking based on experience of the existing business network.
We must not think in terms of beginning with some co-operations that can easily by set up as small operations with minimal capital and stay small, and others that begin with substantial capital and consequently need to the kick-started by providing them with the initial capital required to start.
Co-operatives are not formed with the primary objective of generating income. Their primary objectives are social objects of supplying the needs of people and strengthen communal life. They make profit in order to achieve these goals. They need to follow an organic path of development, that begins small and steadily grows till they become big.
They have an organic character, starting small and steadily growing and maturing. In the course of this development, they may need to find substantial capital, but before this happens, they need to have developed a strong, coherent functional, communal life among their members
But, you may say, South Africa is a special case. How can people who have been marginalised by the oppression of the powerful be expected to achieve these goals without such initial support?
1.
Co-operatives were developed more than 160 years ago expressly by and for just such people.
2.
Like anything else, if the co-operative movement is developed on the wrong foundations it is bound to collapse sooner or later.
The present co-operative movement was founded in 1844. There had been other earlier attempts but they all ended in failure. The 1844 movement succeeded because the founders, the Rochdale Pioneers laid sound foundations on which co-operatives have been able to thrive and grow into today's world-wide movement.
The Rochdale Pioneers
This group is regarded as the prototype of the modern co-operative society and foundation of what is now an international co-operative movement. The principles that underpinned its way of doing business are still accepted today as the foundations upon which all co-operatives operate.
In the early 19th the English market town of Rochdale in the County of Greater Manchester, at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution was a "boom town" for those with enough capital to build the large premises and buy the machinery for mechanised production.
It was far from a boom town, however, for the skilled artisans who had previously hand-made the products now being produced by the mechanised factories. The Industrial Revolution plunged them from prosperit into abject poverty.
They could not compete with the low prices of the new capital intensive industries. These were driven by the expensive more efficient steam engines, invented and patented by James Watt, and required large factory buildings. Unable to even dream of raising the capital needed to build their own factories, the artisans had no choice but to take work in the factories of the rich.
James Watt
The factories were very unhealthy places: poorly lit, smoky, dirty, noisy and badly ventilated. The combination of poor working conditions, long hours, and poor food undermined the health of working families.
Watt steam engine
Since there was an abundance of labour due to the collapse of the many small enterprises, the factory workers were paid very low wages, barely enough to provide the most basic necessities.
To make matters worse, factory owners established general stores, where they sold household goods at high prices, in order to put more money into their own bulging pockets.
Not only did these stores charge high prices, but adulterated the food with cheap ingredients in order to increase profit: flour was mixed with lime or chalk, coffee with chicory, cocoa with brown soil, and tea with dried leaves.
As if that was not enough, profits were further increased by using false weights and measures. As there was no government regulation to prevent such dishonest practices and no alternative source of food, the workers had no choice. If they complained about being cheated they risked losing their jobs in the factories which were their only source of income.
It would be hard to imagine a situation of greater oppression and marginalisation of the majority by the few rich and powerful than these Rochdale workers suffered
In 1844 a group of 28 these oppressed artisans, mainly weavers, now working in the cotton mills decided to do something about it by establishing the Rochdale Equitable Pioneers Society.
They decided that by pooling their scarce resources and working together they could access basic goods at a lower price. Initially, there were only four items for sale: flour, oatmeal, sugar and butter.
The Pioneers decided it was time shoppers were treated with honesty, openness and respect, that they should be able to share in the profits to which their custom had contributed and that they should have a democratic right to have a say in the business. Every customer became a member and so had a true stake in the business
At first the co-op was open for only two nights a week, but within three months, business had grown so much that it was open five days a week. It continued to grow, with some name changes, until 1991 when its co-operative activities were merged with other co-operative enterprises.
The success of the Rochdale Pioneers co-operative inspired others until within ten years the British co-operative movement had grown to nearly 1,000 co-operatives.
The world organisation for co-ops, the International Co-operative Alliance was founded with headquarters in London. The headquarters of this are now in Geneva with regional offices around the work, The Africa regional office is in Nairobi.
The Rochdale Principles remain the core principles for co-operatives around the world. As the saying is: "From little acorns big oak trees grow". Little did the pioneers know what would come from their initial extremely modest endeavour
The Rochdale enterprise was a consumer co-operative. These are still important, but since then a number of other types of co-operative have emerged, covering every sector of today's economy. These include financial institutions providing savings accounts for individuals and loan facilities for co-operative enterprises. This is the most popular form of co-operative worldwide.
Co-operatives are a signficant component of the internal economy of developed countries, with Japan being a leading example. However, the Rochdale enterprise remains to this day the model for the development of successful co-operative enterprises: begin by pooling what you have and growing from there, not only building your own enterprise but joining with others in national and international alliances for mutual support.
Unlike other forms of business enterprise, co-operatives have an organic character from the impetus of human communal life, which is fundamental to human identity.
The bottom line is that, if South Africa is to have an effective co-operative movement, it has no real choice other than to do what the rest of the world has done and build its co-operatives by following in the steps of the Rochdale Pioneers---the only tried and tested model there is.
And any co-operative in South Africa that already has been started on different foundations needs to disentangle itself as soon as possible from any commitments it has made that are contrary to the fundamental co-operative principles as soon as possible to become an authentic member of the international co-operative community.
This is not to say that there is no role for governments and/or universities in stimulating co-operative development in South Africa.
On the contrary, there is a crucial role in informing the people, especially at the grassroots, urban as well as rural, of the unique nature and potential benefits of co-operatives for them.
With this kind of support, together with support from the international co-operative movement, I can see no reason why the people of South Africa, by following the model of the Rochdale Pioneers cannot develop a significant network in a much shorter time than they did without any support.
I am convinced that, by taking this path, South African co-operatives can rise beyond the level of small and medium enterprises to engage in the big league by providing a competitive alternative for the benefit of all South Africans.
To achieve this, however, means starting small and steadily growing and maturing, just as any organism does.
