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The current economic crisis is forcing the international community to consider new business models, and the International Co-operative Alliance (I.C.A.) wishes its voice to be heard. 

The organisation, one of the biggest and oldest in the world, is doing its utmost to get its views into the mainstream.  Their former president, Mr. Ivano Barberini, passed away recently, and the I.C.A will announce its new president later this year.  Newspapers today are speaking about the end of the current recession, despite unemployment (the pinnacle factor) remaining high and stagnant, the message that the I.C.A wishes to put across that the very philosophy of industry must change.  People are angry with what is being recognised as the “unacceptable face of capitalism”.  In a recent interview, the Director General of the I.C.A, Mr. Iain Mcdonald spoke about this, among other things. 

Alberto Dufey: Could you give us some information about yourself, your professional background?

Iain McDonald: I come from Edinburgh, Scotland.  I was born in 1947 and my co-operative background began in Glasgow in Scotland in 1979, when I became the education officer of the co-operative union of the U.K. Now it’s called Co-Operative U.K.  From there I moved to work for the C.W.S. the Corporative Wholesale Society, transferring to a head-office in Manchester in 1996.  After a few years in Manchester I then was appointed to be Director General of the I.C.A. in 2002.

AD: You are an economist?

IM: No, I did a degree at the University of Edinburgh in History and Race Relations, this is my official degree.  Then I worked for Local Government and for the Civil Service in the U.K. for many years and then I transferred to the co-operative movement as I said in 1979.  So my background is very much an arts background, not economy.  But connected with all of that, I also had a career in politics and I think that’s probably more relevant to the work I do now than anything else.

AD:  Why is it of interest?

IM: I first got involved in the co-operative movement when I was working in London, in the Civil Service and there was a very strong connection in the U.K. with the Labour Party and politics and if you were seriously involved in the Labour Party in the 1970’s, you were almost always in the London area involved in the Co-operative Party.  And that’s how I started, through politics, as I said earlier. But after I joined the co-operative, I then developed a huge regard and belief in what it stood for.  When I left university, my main principal was “I didn’t like capitalism”.  I’ve never thought that capitalism represented a good and fair way of doing business and in my view, the co-operative movement provides a socially just and commercially successful way of doing business. 

AD: When did you start in the Co-operative movement?

IM: I started as Director General in September of 2002 moving from Manchester.  But while I was in Manchester, I also worked for international projects and that’s what gave me a good interest in the international movement.  But I think also from a political point of view, I’ve always been an internationalist, and I feel that that managed to be developed through a co-operative movement. 

AD: What is the role of the Co-operative at present?

IM: The current economic crisis I think offers the co-operative movement a huge opportunity to proclaim to the world the importance and the success of an alternative way of doing business and the co-operative movement with its unique set of values and principals offers the world a way of doing business which avoids the pitfalls of capitalism and its emphasis on individual attainment, which in another word is “greed” and in the co-operative sector, that cannot exist because of our values of democracy and solidarity and therefore I feel that we must use this time to make sure that the world knows that the co-operative movement has got a solution to its current problems.

AD: You are convinced that the co-operative is capable of solving this crisis. Why?

IM: I think what we have seen recently is what people would call the “unacceptable face of capitalism”, in the world the gap between the rich and poor is growing ever wider. And it’s increasingly obvious that there has to be serious change in order to narrow that gap and make the world a fairer and more socially just place to live and I think, as I said, that the co-operative movement is the only system that I know of that offers a serious alternative to the “investor owned” model of business.  And as I said, with the values of democracy, solidarity, self help, self responsibility, equity and equality, you’ve got a group of values there operated by our principals which no other type of business structure has and our plea to the world, to the world leaders, to the international organisations is to please listen to us and look at some of our successful examples of enterprise which are practically unaffected by the current crisis. 

AD:  There is great diversity in the co-operatives, does this present a problem to achieve the goals of the co-operative. 

IM: I would say that the diversity of co-operatives is an advantage, not an obstacle because what it means is there is not one form of economic or social enterprise that is not applicable to the co-operative model. Any kind of enterprise can be run as a co-operative and therefore the diversity of co-operatives adds to the advantages which we have.  There is nothing that we cannot do.  However, if there is a disadvantage and an obstacle, it is that it is difficult for people to see what we are trying to say because the variety of what we have to offer is sometimes difficult to absorb. People can’t see us as one area of operation. They see fishing co-ops, or housing co-ops, or consumer co-ops, and they don’t link those three together, and it’s our job here in the I.C.A. and through our membership to try and show people that we do offer one well-planned and well-argued form of business. 

AD: What is the position concerning the co-operatives of the South that are protectionist while in Europe the co-operatives are subsidised, what is your position regarding that?

IM: We would say that following the fall of communism, the view that co-operatives should be subsidised and indeed controlled by government is one which is fast disappearing.  Both concepts are clearly against advice and principals of co-operation.  You can’t have self-help and self-responsibility if at the same time you are also being subsidised, and therefore, we ask for government support for co-operatives through fair and equal legislation but we don’t ask for special help any different from anybody else, and we certainly don’t ask for government control.  And there are still some examples of governments who don’t understand this but it’s becoming much less.  I would say that the co-operative movement today is growing in strength and partly that’s because governments are understanding the independent and autonomous nature of a co-operative which is absolutely essential to its survival.   

AD: What will happen next, will you keep the same position or will everything change?

IM: Well, I think it all depends on who the next president will be.  Clearly Ivano Barberini was a highly regarded and well respected leader of the international co-operative movement and he is already being sadly missed.  However, his view of the co-operative movement I think is unlikely to change. It is very much a global organisation with a global message to convey. The next president I don’t think will change that but I think the next president may have a more specific view of co-operatives and the I.C.A has moved into a more regional structure and I think through that we may see the growing of more regional orientated policies together with more global ones, but I think that might change. Ivano Barberini was very academic in his approach and had a very strong brain in how to see things through, the next president, whoever he or she may be, is likely to be more practical and to try and break through this impasse which is governments and international organisations don’t really see us as the alternative that I’ve been talking about and I think the role of the next president will be to raise the profile of the co-operative movement and insure that we get this message across. 

AD: Are you a candidate?

IM: I am not a candidate, no, but there are one or two people who are interested and we hope that in Geneva in November we will have our new president unanimously elected by the membership. 

AD: Why do you think the co-operatives are not so well known?

IM: That’s a good question because I think the concept of co-operation is quite well known.  The organisation, the International Co-operative Alliance (I.C.A.) is not well known even though it’s probably the biggest N.G.O (Non Governmental Organisation) in the world in terms of numbers of members, I mean we have 8 hundred million members at least if not more, we provide 1 hundred million jobs across the world, so we are a huge organisation, a huge concept. I think one of the problems is that the co-operative movement, if you look at its history: it developed, it’s naturally modest, we don’t proclaim our successes in the way that capitalist business does, we don’t market ourselves very well. But this is something we’re trying to change. We think that it’s well overdue that the international bodies in Geneva were more aware of who the co-operative alliance is, as well as governments, as well as ordinary people, but it’s a hard thing to do and I think again, going back to the new president, I think that will be the direction we’ll be going, to do some more serious marketing of the co-operative model and of the I.C.A. as an organisation.  We have to do that, we have no choice.  This is the modern world, we can use the technology, we can use all the methods that investor owned business use. We have to be more aggressive, we have to shout our own case. So, I think that’s what will happen.

Swisslatin/ Alberto Dufey (10.08.2009)