An Integral Cooperative is a tool to create a grassroots counterpower departing from self-management, self-organization and direct democracy, and one that would help overcome the actual state of dependency on the structures of the system, towards a scenario of liberty full awareness, free of authority, and in which everyone could flourish under equal conditions and opportunities. It is a constructive proposal for disobedience and widespread self-managment to rebuild our society in a bottom-up maner (in every field and in an integral way) and recover the affective human relationships of proximity based on trust.
- Cooperative, as a project practicing the economical and political self-management with the equal participation of all its members. Also, because it takes the same legal form
- Integral, to bring together all the basic elements of an economy such as production, consumption, funding and a local currency. And at the same time, because it wants to integrate all the activity sectors necessary to survive: food, housing, health, education, energy, transport…
- Catalan because it is organized and works mainly in the territorial scope of Catalonia.
General Principles
Social Transformation
- Concern for common good and for one’s own good
- Getting rid of materialism
- Cooperation and solidarity in social transformation
- Day-to-day social transformation and getting closer to making utopia a reality.
- Direct relation between practical action and theorization
- Inclusive cooperativeand encompassing the whole society
Society
- Social justice and equity
- Equality in diversity
- Self-realization and mutual support
- Commitment and self-evaluation
- Sharing our practices throughout society
Economy
- Addressing the needs of people above any other interest, everyone contributing according to their means.
- Money as a measure of the trading system between the people of a community, but without seeking accumulation as an end.
- Encouraging other non-monetary forms of exchange: free economy, direct exchange, communal economy.
- Establishing economic relations between producers and consumers: the cooperative regulates the estimation of fair prices based on their costs, its own needs and those of the consumers.
- The cooperative informs the producers of consumer needs to regulate production.
- The ECOcoops can never be converted into euros and we do not agree on any form of interest on your loan.
Ecology
- Ecology and permaculture
- Degrowth and sustainability
Political organization
- Democracy: direct, deliberative, participative
- Self-management and decentralization
- Transparency
- Subsidiarity: form local to global
- Based on assemblies
In addition to our general principles, we also embrace the idealogical bases of the call for integral revolution
To visit the Cooperativa Integral Catalana website click here!