Autonomy and democratisation through cooperatives

Abstract

This essay suggests that there is a need to evolve and perceive institutions like cooperatives as property institutions that build capacity and value through a bottom-up approach. Such institutions that evolve out of the community bring change the people desire through their own actions than as a right that is guaranteed by the state apparatus through its own institutions. In the pursuit to achieve autonomy – economic, political and social – an institution needs to enable people with the independence of choice with a framework that gives them the liberty to navigate between choices that bring self-authorship. The realisation that property institutions are at the core of friction and its ability to control others by creating relations that can be stratified, commodified and excluded by various methods make it fundamental. Any democratic institutional framework that doesn’t guarantee control over property rights could hardly achieve autonomy in the real sense that permeates to the common man. This essay suggests that communities that seek autonomy can instrumentalise economic institutions like cooperatives that effectively enable political and social autonomy through a democratic process that reflects people’s desire for self-authorship.