The Political Economy of a Successful Cooperative Movement : A Kerala Experience

• Main Author: Ashique, Ali T.
• Other Authors: YSI Asia Convening 2019
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: H. : ĐHKT 2020
• Subjects: Political Economy; Cooperative movement; Political culture; Kerala
• Online Access: http://repository.vnu.edu.vn/handle/VNU_123/70547
• Institution: Vietnam National University, Hanoi

The case of Kerala proves that the sustainability of cooperative movement also depends on the political economy of it and the political culture around. The three cooperatives studied are contextualised in three different points of time. One in a Keynesian age, one during the anticolonial struggle and the third one emerged as a response to the agrarian crisis in the neoliberal era. What is common about all three is that their emergence is strongly linked with the working-class resistance or social reform movement. The vibrant and dynamic local tradition of public action, adequate state support and higher density of grassroots social organisations (Isaac and Williams 2017) transformed the cooperative movement in Kerala into a social and political movement as well. And these political and social dimensions help the cooperative movement in Kerala to overcome various limitations like a) its inner contradiction while facing the competitive market b) Its self-exploitation of own labour c) low capital formation etc.