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

by Sharryn Kasmir

Book 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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0791430049
• ISBN13: 9780791430040
• Release Date: July 1996
• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Length: 260 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.9" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

very useful study

The author is a sociologist who spent quite a bit of time in the '80s and '90s in Mondragon. The important thing about this book is that it showss that a formal system of "economic democracy" does not ensure that workers will have effective control over the places where they work. In the Mondragon cooperatives there is an internal class division. The managers and engineers are really in control. Worker "social committees" were not given time off from work to do their job properly, to raise issues of concern to workers. And workers were prohibited by the rules of the coops to bring in outside consultants, because that would enable them to challenge management's plans. Effective worker management control would have to go beyond just a general meeting and "one-person, one-vote" democracy to actually training workers to know the ropes and give people paid time to learn and participate effecttively. the "myth of Mondragon" is the myth that workers are really in control of the coops. At the same time, this is not to say that workers have not benefited from the coops. And capitalist employers in the Basque country have also introduced worker participation schemes to get the same increases in productivity the Mondragon coops get from their profit sharing and nonimal (but minimal) avenues for worker input.

A good counter-balance

I recently read Roy Morrison's "We Build the Road As We Travel" to gain a better understanding of cooperatives in general and the Mondragon cooperative system in particular. After reading Morrison's book I wanted to know more about Mondragon and so I picked up Kasmir's book. After reading "The Myth of Mondragon" I have a very different idea of Basque Spain throughout the Franco years and the developmental years of the Mondragon cooperative system. While Morrison's book mentions the complexity of the region and the cooperative system itself Kasmir actually digs into both and produces quality thought-provoking information helping the reader to find a broader conclusion base. While it is true that the cooperatives have provided job stability and health care - things that all folks ought to be guaranteed - Kasmir also points out that globalization has exacerbated class issues within the cooperatives as well as created an atmosphere in the cooperatives that is less distinct from the local private firms than it maybe once was.

New insights into the Mondragon cooperatives

The book contains many new insights into the internal working of the Mondragon cooperatives and their economic, social and political problems. Ms Kasmir's meticulous field-work and her studies of different historical archives of the Mondragon community offer a realistic picture about the Mondragon cooperatives unique experience