Democratizing Rural Economy: Institutional Friction, Sustainable Struggle and the Cooperative Movement
Author: Mooney P.H.
Source: Rural Sociology, Volume 69, Number 1, 1 March 2004 , pp. 76-98(23)
Publisher: Rural Sociological Society
Key:
- Free Content
- New Content
- Subscribed Content
- Free Trial Content
- Free Content
- New Content
- Subscribed Content
- Free Trial Content
Abstract:
Sustainable development demands institutions manage the conflicts and struggles that inevitably arise over material and ideal interests. While current cooperative theory privileges the economic element, a political economy of cooperation emphasizes cooperatives' tentative bridging of economic and political spheres with a democratic ethos. The cooperatives' democratic political structure exists in tension with a capitalist economic structure and other sites of friction. These contradictions are: in the realm of social relations, between production and consumption; in the realm of spatial relations, between the local and the global; and in the realm of collective action, between cooperatives as both traditional as well as new social movements. Where neo-classical economic models seek to eliminate or reduce these tensions, political economy views these tensions as functional to sustainability by creating an "institutional friction" that facilitates innovation, flexibility and long-term adaptability. This political economy of cooperation is intended as a step toward the development of a multidimensional sociology of cooperation.Document Type: Research article
DOI: 10.1526/003601104322919919
Key:
- Free Content
- New Content
- Subscribed Content
- Free Trial Content
- Free Content
- New Content
- Subscribed Content
- Free Trial Content
Click here for Page Help