The Dialectical Relation Between Cooperation and Capitalism: Cooperation Before, During, and After the Advent of Capitalism

Abstract

Explains how cooperation was the primary form of social life practiced by the first humans for 90 % of human history. Their cooperation took the concrete form of collective/communal ownership, management, and distribution of land, tools, food, and other resources. Tribal members made collective decisions about procuring and distributing their means of subsistence. They provided for all members on the basis of morality and concern for all people. Quid pro quo market exchanges were not the basis of social relations. Interestingly, this original form of cooperation was a complete, comprehensive, and organic form that was essentially democratic and supportive. This advanced level of cooperation has rarely been achieved by contemporary cooperators. This “primitive communism” was uprooted by the advent of social classes wherein a small number of social members usurped power and wealth from the majority. The most radical and comprehensive destruction of cooperation was performed by the capitalist social class and its telos of private enrichment. Capitalism destroyed cooperation through an inexorable process of privatizing common, collective resources that were administered by a community. Capitalists replaced the community as owners and administrators of resources. The community became reduced to individual consumers of resources that were privately owned and administered by capitalists. The former collective social processes were converted into individual transactions with capitalists that were mediated by money. This privatization not only decimated cooperation, it created an unstable socioeconomic order that was subject to continual economic crises. Restoring cooperation can correct these socioeconomic problems. The antithesis between capitalism and cooperation demonstrates that capitalist social relations must be transformed if cooperation is to be restored as concrete social practice. The antithesis makes co-existence dubious. The antithesis lay out requires cooperators to be vigilant and aversive of capitalist elements.

End Notes

1. Of course, capitalism is not the only society that impedes concrete cooperation. Many societies share this invidious distinction and do so in various ways. Across the world, on average, the richest 1 % of the population has 40 % of the personal wealth. In China, the richest 1 % has 70 % of the personal wealth, much of it held by the 271 billionaires (in 2011), many of whom derive their fortunes from their political positions (Wall Street Journal August 17, p. B1). We focus on capitalism because it is the most blatant antagonist to cooperation in our time (and possibly in all of time). Capitalism certainly has to be reckoned with today by anyone in anyplace who seeks to envision and implement cooperation. Capitalism is also the society that this author knows most about. I hope that experts on other societies will elucidate how they impede cooperation and dialectally also lay the basis for an alternative cooperative society. This kind of cross-cultural comparison will lead fruitful areas of cross-fertilization.