Worker cooperative ‘regeneration’: Insights from the Brazilian Landless Rural Workers Movement

Abstract

The degeneration thesis posits that worker cooperatives fail commercially or renege on their democratic governance when operating within free-market neoliberalism. Whilst the inevitability of degeneration has been challenged, there remain limited in-depth empirical examinations of where cooperatives have shown a capacity to ‘regenerate’. This article draws on participatory action research in cooperatives within a Brazilian social movement to contribute novel empirical insights into cooperative regeneration. In doing so, we develop an analytical framework that facilitates an understanding of what constitutes the cooperative regeneration process. Informed by extant literature and reflected in our findings, we identify four dynamically interacting criteria: the preservation of democratic member control; the renewal of collaborative forms of work organisation; a continued conferment of equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities; and a sustained commitment and reflexivity to cooperative ideals and goals. Our findings illustrate the practices and governance structures that underpin these criteria, enabling cooperatives to preserve direct and participatory democratic member control under the omnipresent threat of capitalist imperatives, and thus effectively combat cooperative degeneration.