Varieties of Social Ownership: A Response to Plural Cooperativism

Abstract

Kuch’s proposal for a regime of Plural Cooperativism relies on a universalization of the (worker) cooperative, while abolishing today’s dominant business corporations. It integrates several other components (public banks and stock markets) into such a regime. In this response, I first make some general comments about the normative framework of Kuch’s paper, which presents Plural Cooperativism as a way to instantiate the idea of ‘social ownership’. Second, I question the exclusive focus on cooperatives: why pluralize cooperativism, and not a pluralism of a wider set of corporate forms, amongst which foundation-owned companies and state-owned companies? Third, I question whether we should pluralize cooperativism with private and public shareholding. Why not restrict oneself to cooperativism simpliciter? All in all, we can think of ‘varieties of social ownership’ just as there are varieties of capitalism. My critiques are meant to stimulate systematic comparative thinking about the merits of Plural Cooperativism versus other regimes of social ownership.