Germany sees its cooperative system as being at the heart of the international cooperative movement. It even actually believes that Delitzsch, Flammersfeld and Weyerbusch, the towns associated with Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch and Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen, are the birthplaces of the cooperative idea. Such claims are completely unfounded, as Kaltenborn proves with the aid of a wealth of documents. The idea and practice of cooperatives have always existed throughout the evolution and history of mankind. Neanderthal man already demonstrated cooperative behaviour when hunting big game, and cooperatives actually existed in a variety of different forms in Europe during ancient history and the Middle Ages, a fact well-known to Schulze-Delitzsch.
The beginning of the modern era marked a growing rise in literary and theoretical interest in the cooperative idea in Europe. Its practical application took on a wide variety of forms. This development culminated with the founding of a consumer cooperative by the “Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers” in the English town of Rochdale in 1844. The principles defined by this society are still those of the International Co-operative Alliance today.
Schulze-Delitzsch and Raiffeisen each formed their own cooperative concept shortly afterwards, based on the ideas in discussion and practice at that time. Both also pursued much wider socio-political goals, of which cooperative interaction was just one element.
Germany has now requested that the cooperative idea be declared intangible cultural heritage of humanity by UNESCO in Paris. There could be no objection to this if it were not for the false justification that the cooperative idea was of German inspiration and first implemented by Schulze-Delitzsch and Raiffeisen. The cooperative idea is in fact a universal idea – and therefore ultimately naturally belongs to the intangible cultural heritage of humanity, without the need for any UNESCO declaration.
Martin Bergner
This book is dedicated to all those, known and unknown, who have developed and participated in cooperative human interaction around the world over the centuries.
Published by Zentralkonsum eG
Neue Grünstraße 18, 10179 Berlin, Tel.: 030-27584-0
www.zentralkonsum.de
cover: © akg-images / Johann Brandstetter
Translation: Joanna Langworthy-Durier
Editing: Uta G. Barth
Manufactured and published by:
Books on Demand GmbH, Norderstedt 2016
ISBN: 978-3-741-22164-4
In spring 2015, the German Commission for UNESCO nominated the “cooperative idea” for inclusion in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity at UNESCO headquarters in Paris (see German UNESCO 2015a). It has already figured in the German inventory of intangible cultural heritage since 2014, alongside the Rhineland Carnival, the Pied Piper of Hamelin, German bread culture and other mostly regional customs and traditions. So why not the cooperative idea? Why should it not be declared cultural heritage of humanity? So let us look at the reasons why it should. What does the cooperative idea actually mean and where it does come from? The German Commission for UNESCO offers a justification for its nomination. This includes the very serious claim that the idea and practice of cooperatives spread from Delitzsch, Weyerbusch and Flammersfeld (where German cooperative founders Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch and Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen began their work) “to other parts of Germany and beyond. Today it is practiced nearly worldwide.” (German UNESCO 2015a).
This is simply inaccurate and untrue, and the claim is reason enough to examine the matter in more detail: how did the idea and practice of cooperatives actually develop? This is what the following pages aim to answer, in an unavoidably abridged manner. The most important findings are listed in the summary.
In the nomination by the German Commission for UNESCO, the German word “Genossenschaftsidee” (cooperative idea) was translated into English as “the idea and practice of organizing shared interests in cooperatives” (see German UNESCO 2015b). Let us start with the actual idea. It was none other than Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch who labelled the idea of the cooperative, of cooperation, as the “association of separate small individual forcesin the interest of common aims1” (Schulze-Delitzsch 1858: 68). This definition in fact covers all forms of human cooperation, all of which could be given the name cooperative, and does not just concern economic goals. Indeed, Schulze-Delitzsch also called the workers’ educational associations that he initiated and sponsored ‘cooperatives’, regardless of their legal form.
1 Vereinigung atomistisch vereinzelter kleiner Kräfte zur Erreichung gemeinschaftlicher Zwecke
Another important cooperative figure, this time from our century, can also be quoted: Ivano Barberini, President of the International Co-operative Alliance from 2001 until his death in 2009, declared that the cooperative idea is in man’s DNA; traces can be found in the experiences of each and every one of us. Every generation of children is told the tale of prehistoric man, who, once he began to hunt, fish and cultivate the ground, quickly learnt that better results could be achieved by working together, cooperating. (see Barberini 2009: 16/17). Finally, in more modern times “generations of philosophers, politicians, religious leaders and cooperative members […] elaborated the idea of the cooperative according to their personal convictions.” (Barberini 2009: 42). In other words, the cooperative idea is a universal idea.
A German cooperative theorist, Richard Sigmund Schultze, laconically declared, as early as 1867, that “the history of mankind is also the history of association”. (Schultze 1867: 5). Another more recent author, the rather conservative legal historian Bernd-Rüdiger Kern is just as succinct: “The very first and most important form of human association to date is the cooperative”. (Kern 1998: 82). The prestigious University of Michigan in Ann Arbor declares in an online publication under the heading “The Cooperative Movement” that “people learned ages ago that by working together they can accomplish more than the sum of each individual's efforts. […] The history of human economic cooperation is perhaps older than the history of competition” (see University of Michigan 2015).
German economist and cooperative theorist Willy Wygodzinsiki made a similar statement a century ago: “Cooperative formations can be found as far back as we can see in the history of human activity; yes, we can truly say that the cooperative economy is at the origin of economic history, and that individual economic units are only a later form.” (Wygodzinski 1911: 6).
These clear statements are supported by scientific anthropology, for example by the following somewhat lengthy observation: “People are the uncontested world champions in cooperation. […] In experiments, so-called ‘public goods games’, subjects distribute their own goods fairly, in other words to their own disadvantage, and without obtaining any visible advantage from this altruistic act. They even go one step further and punish fellow players for uncooperative behaviour, even if this punishment is at their own cost. […] Human behaviour evolved in situations of strong competition between neighbouring groups. In such situations, it can be more advantageous to the group if it is composed of cooperative members.” Cooperation seems to be based on reciprocity, in that help given to someone today will be reciprocated by him or a third-party tomorrow.(Ostner 2009: 240/241). Another identical observation just phrases it differently: “Cooperation is based on empathetic identification: it is necessary to participate in the aims of another to achieve effective cooperation; the aim of another becomes one’s own concern.” (Bischof-Köhler 2009: 315). Two anthropologists vividly declare in a joint article that “The horrors of reality” can be “considerably reduced by understanding and cooperation, particularly within a social community” (Großheim 2009: 214). The horrors of reality were alleviated by consumer cooperatives more often than we would like to imagine and it is not without reason that they were known as “Kinder der Not2” during the 19th century.
The earliest statements of anthropological relevance, which were of philosophical rather than actual scientific substance, also made similar observations. This was the case of Plato, whose view can be summarised in a modern interpretation as follows: each of us is inadequate alone and requires others. Man is therefore apparently dependent on the help of his fellow men, on cooperative relations (see Jörke 2009: 442/443). Aristotle also saw man as a social being in need of cooperative relations (see Jörke 2009: 444). This is the famous definition of man as a “zoon politikon”, to which Aristotle adds that he who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god (see Aristotle 1971: 65ff.), and is therefore beyond human spheres.
2 Children of distress
Man’s ability to cooperate, or rather his need to do so, is visible from research on prehistory. The Homo habilis, founder of the Oldowan culture, lived in East Africa around two million years ago. It is very probable, according to Stone Age researcher, Hansjürgen Müller-Beck, that “social contact within groups and sexes […] also gradually intensified and evolved over generations” as a result of this developing division of labour. (Müller-Beck 2004: 40/41).
Around 1.6 million years later, Homo erectus, the species of man that lived at that time, had spread to Europe. Bone remains found at the Bilzingsleben Palaeolithic site in the north of Thuringia in Germany allow us to conclude that Homo erectus hunted big game. “As it is difficult to imagine that a forest elephant could be tracked and killed by just one hunter alone, it is possible to draw conclusions on the social behaviour of early man. Homo erectus hunted this type of game in groups, and the participants also needed a system of communication to agree on their individual tasks.” (Terberger 2002: 66).