Camila Piñeiro Harnecker "Potentials and Risks...

I will focus on producer cooperatives. As we know there are also consumer cooperatives. Producer cooperatives can offer both goods and services, and these are the most important for me. When we think about a cooperative, it is not the legal ownership of the means of production that is most important I think, but it is useful to be at the service of the cooperative members. We should bear in mind that a cooperative is nothing more than a group of people gathered to reach a common goal. Most important, I think, is that they achieve this goal in a democratic way, managing and administering the enterprise in democratically amongst the members. The most complex item to this subject of building socialism by cooperatives, are overall due to the interpretation that socialism has given to historical experiences that still permeates the vision of a lot of people. It is a fact that a cooperative is an autonomous organization that a government cannot control directly, because that would be against its principle of autonomy. Then what does this non-government administration or management mean? Is it the same as private management, that is for the benefit of a particular group of people with narrow interests who are the cooperative owners? Or could it also have a social character? ... Read more on http://priven.nhlf.org/%E2%80%9Cpotentials-and-risks-of-cooperatives-in-socialist-construction%E2%80%9D-by-camila-pineiro-harnecker/ || First Global PROUT Conference, 7 to July 9, 2011, Caracas, Venezuela.