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    Illusion and Reality: The Cooperative Idea: A Constant Companion Throughout the History on Mankind.
    Illusion and Reality: The Cooperative Idea: A Constant Companion Throughout the History on Mankind.
    Illusion and Reality: The Cooperative Idea: A Constant Companion Throughout the History on Mankind.
    Ebook85 pages44 minutes

    Illusion and Reality: The Cooperative Idea: A Constant Companion Throughout the History on Mankind.

    By Wilhelm Kaltenborn

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    Germany sees its cooperative system as being at the heart of the international cooperative movement. It even actually believes that Delitzsch, Flammersfeld and Weyerbusch, the towns associated with Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch and Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen, are the birthplaces of the cooperative idea. Such claims are completely unfounded, as Kaltenborn proves with the aid of a wealth of documents. The idea and practice of cooperatives have always existed throughout the evolution and history of mankind. Neanderthal man already demonstrated cooperative behaviour when hunting big game, and cooperatives actually existed in a variety of different forms in Europe during ancient history and the Middle Ages, a fact well-known to Schulze-Delitzsch.
    The beginning of the modern era marked a growing rise in literary and theoretical interest in the cooperative idea in Europe. Its practical application took on a wide variety of forms. This development culminated with the founding of a consumer cooperative by the “Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers” in the English town of Rochdale in 1844. The principles defined by this society are still those of the International Co-operative Alliance today.
    Schulze-Delitzsch and Raiffeisen each formed their own cooperative concept shortly afterwards, based on the ideas in discussion and practice at that time. Both also pursued much wider socio-political goals, of which cooperative interaction was just one element.
    Germany has now requested that the cooperative idea be declared intangible cultural heritage of humanity by UNESCO in Paris. There could be no objection to this if it were not for the false justification that the cooperative idea was of German inspiration and first implemented by Schulze-Delitzsch and Raiffeisen. The cooperative idea is in fact a universal idea – and therefore ultimately naturally belongs to the intangible cultural heritage of humanity, without the need for any UNESCO declaration.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBooks on Demand
    Release dateJun 10, 2016
    ISBN9783741221644
    Illusion and Reality: The Cooperative Idea: A Constant Companion Throughout the History on Mankind.
    Author

    Wilhelm Kaltenborn

    Wilhelm Kaltenborn, geboren 1937 in Berlin; seit 1991 beim Verband der Konsumgenossenschaften (heute: Zentralkonsum eG) in Berlin; dort seit 2002 Aufsichtsratsvorsitzender; Funktionen in verschiedenen auch internationalen genossenschaftlichen Gremien, diverse Veröffentlichungen zur Idee und Geschichte von Genossenschaften.

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      Book preview

      Illusion and Reality - Wilhelm Kaltenborn

      Germany sees its cooperative system as being at the heart of the international cooperative movement. It even actually believes that Delitzsch, Flammersfeld and Weyerbusch, the towns associated with Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch and Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen, are the birthplaces of the cooperative idea. Such claims are completely unfounded, as Kaltenborn proves with the aid of a wealth of documents. The idea and practice of cooperatives have always existed throughout the evolution and history of mankind. Neanderthal man already demonstrated cooperative behaviour when hunting big game, and cooperatives actually existed in a variety of different forms in Europe during ancient history and the Middle Ages, a fact well-known to Schulze-Delitzsch.

      The beginning of the modern era marked a growing rise in literary and theoretical interest in the cooperative idea in Europe. Its practical application took on a wide variety of forms. This development culminated with the founding of a consumer cooperative by the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers in the English town of Rochdale in 1844. The principles defined by this society are still those of the International Co-operative Alliance today.

      Schulze-Delitzsch and Raiffeisen each formed their own cooperative concept shortly afterwards, based on the ideas in discussion and practice at that time. Both also pursued much wider socio-political goals, of which cooperative interaction was just one element.

      Germany has now requested that the cooperative idea be declared intangible cultural heritage of humanity by UNESCO in Paris. There could be no objection to this if it were not for the false justification that the cooperative idea was of German inspiration and first implemented by Schulze-Delitzsch and Raiffeisen. The cooperative idea is in fact a universal idea – and therefore ultimately naturally belongs to the intangible cultural heritage of humanity, without the need for any UNESCO declaration.

      Martin Bergner

      This book is dedicated to all those, known and unknown, who have developed and participated in cooperative human interaction around the world over the centuries.

      Contents

      The issue in question

      The cooperative idea is a universal idea

      Anthropological findings on cooperatives

      Cooperation in prehistoric times

      Cooperatives in written history

      Cooperatives in ancient history

      Cooperatives in the Middle Ages

      Historical forms of cooperatives in Germany – past and present

      Three centuries of cooperative history in modern times: The beginning

      Chronology of further developments incooperative history

      Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch

      Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen

      Schulze-Delitzsch and Raiffeisen seen by early cooperative historians

      The broad interpretation of the term ‘cooperative’ before 1933

      The socio-political dimension of cooperatives

      The fundamental shortcomings of the nomination

      Summary

      Bibliography

      The issue in question

      In spring 2015, the German Commission for UNESCO nominated the cooperative idea for inclusion in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity at UNESCO headquarters in Paris (see German UNESCO 2015a). It has already figured in the German inventory of intangible cultural heritage since 2014, alongside the Rhineland Carnival, the Pied Piper of Hamelin, German bread culture and other mostly regional customs and traditions. So why not the cooperative idea? Why should it not be declared cultural heritage of humanity? So let us look at the reasons why it should. What does the cooperative idea actually mean and where it does come from? The German Commission for UNESCO offers a justification for its nomination. This includes the very serious claim that the idea and practice of cooperatives spread from Delitzsch, Weyerbusch and Flammersfeld (where German cooperative founders Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch and Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen began their work) to other parts of Germany and beyond. Today it is practiced nearly worldwide. (German UNESCO 2015a).

      This is simply inaccurate and untrue, and the claim is reason enough to examine the matter in more detail: how did the idea and practice of cooperatives actually develop? This is what the following pages aim to answer, in an unavoidably abridged manner. The most important findings are listed in the summary.

      In the nomination by the German Commission for UNESCO, the German word Genossenschaftsidee (cooperative idea) was translated into English as the idea and practice of organizing shared interests in cooperatives (see German UNESCO 2015b). Let us start with the actual idea. It was none other than Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch who labelled the idea of the cooperative, of cooperation, as the "association of separate small individual forcesin the interest of common aims¹" (Schulze-Delitzsch 1858: 68). This definition in fact covers all forms of human cooperation, all of which could be given the name cooperative, and does not just concern economic goals. Indeed, Schulze-Delitzsch also called the workers’ educational associations that he initiated and sponsored ‘cooperatives’, regardless of their legal form.

      ¹ Vereinigung atomistisch vereinzelter kleiner Kräfte zur Erreichung gemeinschaftlicher Zwecke

      The cooperative idea is a universal idea

      Another important cooperative figure, this time from our century, can also be quoted: Ivano Barberini, President of the

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