Cooperatives as a tool of resistance

UESCOOP 2025 positions cooperativism and the social and solidarity economy as strategies of global resistance to the far right, precariousness and fascism.

The social and solidarity economy is not only a productive alternative. It is, above all, a strategy of resistance . This was evident in the round table ' Cooperativism and anti-fascism ' held within the framework of the Summer University of Cooperativism ( UESCOOP ), moderated by Jordi Garcia , from the Roca i Galès Foundation . During the session, two experiences were presented that combat authoritarianism through self-organization and cooperation.

From the United States to Barcelona, initiatives like Cooperation Jackson , Mississippi, Cooperation Vermont or Mujeres Pa'lante put into practice that cooperating is not just about working together . It is about building sovereignty , defending rights , generating decent living conditions and resisting capitalism and fascism from below.

From the United States to Barcelona, initiatives like Cooperation Jackson , Mississippi, Cooperation Vermont or Mujeres Pa'lante put into practice that cooperating is not just about working together . It is about building sovereignty , defending rights , generating decent living conditions and resisting capitalism and fascism from below.

These experiences are especially relevant in the face of an increasingly worrying social context. Material and emotional discomfort , fueled by precariousness , lack of a future and social isolation , is transformed into resentment. And this resentment is channelled towards the most vulnerable people: migrants , women , trans people , environmentalists or impoverished groups . This feeds a 'psychological wage of hatred': a false sense of power based on the humiliation of others, which generates 'negative solidarity ' and favours hate speech and magical solutions, as discussed during the round table. 

The data confirms this: today's Catalan youth is one of the most right-leaning generations since 1932, where 70 % of Catalan men between 16 and 24 years old do not believe in taxes and consider that rich people should not pay so much.

Rights, care and migration

In 2002 , Colectivo Maloka was born in Barcelona , a Colombian diaspora organization committed to the defense of human and collective rights, and with a clear commitment to a political solution to the armed conflict in Colombia. In 2006, as a result of Maloka's tireless work, Mujeres Pa'lante was created , a feminist and anti-welfare project to accompany migrant women in the migration process and offer legal assistance , especially in contexts of precariousness and exploitation to change the situation of double discrimination they suffer: as women and as migrants. 90% of the collective is currently Latin American.

They work with women who mostly do care or cleaning jobs , where rights violations and sexual assaults abound. "One of the first needs that these women found was that many do not recognize cleaning products in Catalonia because they are called differently from their countries of origin," explains Wendy Espinosa , one of the current partners. This is how they also began to offer adapted occupational risk courses , which they have been teaching for sixteen years with the support of the public administration. In 2018, with a subsidy from LliurESS from Òmnium Cultural , they transformed into a dual structure: a more political association and a labor cooperative .

Currently, they have three founding members and sixteen workers with the aim of guaranteeing the right of migrant workers to have decent work . "We started by offering a comprehensive home care and attention service for people in a situation of dependency, but now we have grown and have a babysitting service for babies and children , a cleaning service for companies and individuals, and our own professional catering team ," says Espinosa.

Although their situation has improved with the cooperative form, because they now have a formula to make the recognition of the rights of domestic and care workers effective, Convention 189 still does not equate domestic workers, Espinosa explains that they have current challenges, such as breaking with the figure of the 'boss' and building more horizontal relationships ; practicing self-management and real assembly work and digitalizing their work system without losing the collective soul.

Cooperativism as a revolutionary strategy

In Jackson, Mississippi , Cooperation Jackson is promoting an urban solidarity economy project "to make the Jackson-Kush Plan a reality : building a democratic city, with popular assemblies, cooperatives and economic sovereignty," explains Kali Akuno , co-founder of Cooperation Jackson. Inspired by Mondragón , the thinking of WEB Du Bois and the legacy of the Black Panther Party , they are committed to a network of cooperatives, training, mutual support and direct action.

Since their creation in 2014, they have projects such as ' Freedom Farms ' for urban agriculture ; ' Green Team ', gardening services; ' The Center for Community Production ', a printing house and manufacturing laboratory with 3D printers or the ' Balagoon Center ', a training and assembly space dedicated to Kuwasi Balagoon , black activist, black panther and anarchist. They also promote a model of sustainable communities , with ecological cooperatives , solar energy and cooperative housing .

Starting in 2021, they will expand the project to Vermont, purchasing a grocery store and several plots of land to create an agri-food cooperative . "This is how Cooperation Vermont was born , also conceived as a refuge from climate displacement ," explains Akuno. Its main axes are collective ownership of the means of production , food sovereignty , political education and decolonization , mutual support and care networks , and a just transition to non-extractive economies . Kali Akuno makes it clear: "Before Trump consolidates his private army, we must prepare to survive a civil war, never to submit."

Resisting authoritarianism in a globalized world

Faced with the advance of the far right , militarization and fascism , cooperativism is not a luxury or an alternative. It is a form of organized resistance. And it must be internationalist. "From the United States to Colombia and Catalonia, they want us fragmented because they want us to be manipulable . That is why we need popular self-organization , alliances between cooperatives and movements, emancipatory education and economies rooted in the territory," explains Jordi Garcia of Fundació Roca i Galès.

The two projects, both Cooperation Jackosn and Mujeres Pa'lante, explain that we need to come out of our shell and that means stopping talking only among ourselves and demonstrating that we are already the practical alternative to the precarization of life. How?, showing the real impact of cooperatives , working with anti-racist, feminist and environmental movements; building collective power from below and extending the values of economic democracy. "The social and solidarity economy is not the end, it is the means to begin building a new, fairer, more dignified and more alive world," said Wendy.