(IPS) - Cooperatives in Venezuela, which are mushrooming at a rate of over 100 a day, have become a mechanism through which the government is distributing windfall oil profits to the people.
"But it's true that these aren't really cooperatives in the traditional sense," the national superintendent of cooperatives, Carlos Molina, told IPS. "Actually, they are one of the tools employed by the state as part of its policy of inclusion (of marginalised sectors) and its aim to achieve a more just distribution of wealth."
The new cooperativism in Venezuela differs from the modern cooperative movement that traces its history back to the small town of Rochdale, England, where 28 flannel weavers saved a few pennies a week for a year until they had enough to open a co-op store in December 1844.
In Venezuela, under a law on cooperatives decreed in 2001 by the government of left-leaning President Hugo Chávez, any group of at least five people can easily register a new cooperative through a quick process that involves few bureaucratic hurdles.
Venezuela's cooperative movement emerged in 1959. Forty years later, when Chávez was elected, there were 870 cooperatives in the areas of credit, transport and other services, although only half were successful to any degree, according to the movement's spokespersons.
More than 1,000 new cooperatives were established in 2001, and more than 2,000 the following year. But since the government approved an enormous increase in funding for cooperatives in 2003, the number has skyrocketed, with 18,000 founded in 2003, 36,000 in 2004, 41,000 in 2005 and more than 20,000 so far this year.
In this country of 26 million, which has an economically active population of 12 million, "we have 132,000 cooperatives, with approximately 1.3 million associates," said Molina.
April set a new monthly record, with the creation of 5,761 cooperatives.
Sixty-two percent of the cooperatives are in the services sector, 32 percent are involved in the production of goods, and the rest are credit or housing associations, or serve a social function (providing funeral services, for example), according to the superintendency.
"It is still early to talk about a third sector of the economy (as opposed to the state and the private sector), because we first need to conduct a census that would indicate what the cooperatives contribute to the country's gross domestic product," said Molina.
Leave a comment