Cooperation: A Political, Economic, and Social Theory

by Bernard E. Harcourt

Liberal democracy is in crisis around the world, unable to address pressing problems such as climate change. There is, however, another path—cooperation democracy. From consumer co-ops to credit unions, worker cooperatives to insurance mutuals, nonprofits to mutual aid, countless examples prove that people working together can extend the ideals of participatory democracy and sustainability into every aspect of their lives. These forms of cooperation do not depend on electoral politics. Instead, they harness the longstanding practices and values of self-determination, democratic participation, equity, solidarity, and respect for the environment.

Bernard E. Harcourt develops a transformative theory and practice that builds on worldwide models of successful cooperation. He identifies the most promising forms of cooperative initiatives and then distills their lessons into an integrated Coöperism. This is a political theory grounded on recognition of our interdependence. It is an economic theory that can ensure equitable distribution of wealth. Finally, it is a social theory that replaces the punishment paradigm with a cooperation paradigm.

A creative work of normative critical theory, Cooperation provides a positive vision for addressing our most urgent challenges today. Harcourt shows that by drawing on the core values of cooperation and the power of people working together, a new world of cooperation democracy is within our grasp.

Genres: Politics

461 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 9, 2023

About the author

Bernard Harcourt is the Julius Kreeger Professor of Law & Criminology and Chair and Professor of Political Science at The University of Chicago.

Professor Harcourt's scholarship intersects social and political theory, the sociology of punishment, criminal law and procedure, and criminology. He is the author of Against Prediction: Punishing and Policing in an Actuarial Age (University of Chicago Press 2007), Language of the Gun: Youth, Crime, and Public Policy (University of Chicago Press 2005), and Illusion of Order: The False Promise of Broken-Windows Policing (Harvard University Press 2001). Harcourt is also the coauthor of Criminal Law and the Regulation of Vice (Thompson West 2007), the editor of Guns, Crime, and Punishment in America (New York University Press 2003), and the founder and editor of the journal Carceral Notebooks.

Professor Harcourt earned his bachelor's degree in political theory at Princeton University, his law degree at Harvard Law School, and his PhD in political science at Harvard University. After law school, Professor Harcourt clerked for the Hon. Charles S. Haight Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and then worked as an attorney at the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, representing death row inmates. Professor Harcourt continues to represent death row inmates pro bono, and has also served on human rights missions in South Africa and Guatemala.

Professor Harcourt has been a visiting professor at Harvard University, New York University, the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Université Paris X–Nanterre, and Université Paul Cézanne Aix-Marseille III, and was previously on the faculty at the University of Arizona.
Education:

AB ,1984, Princeton University; JD, 1989, and PhD, 2000, Harvard University

Reviews

[JRT · Rating 4 out of 5]

With “Cooperation,” Professor and critical theorist Bernard E. Harcourt makes the compelling case for total social transformation from the individualist and statist dichotomy the Western world has grown accustomed, to a political, economic, and social theory of “Cooperism.” Cooperism seeks to integrate all forms of cooperative enterprising and organization—worker, consumer, producer, retailer, financial, etc.—into a cohesive and interactive unit that enshrines the democratic, sustainable, and mutual aid-based nature of cooperative organization. This book does a great job detailing why such socioeconomic organization is preferable to the traditional systems revolving around “capitalist” exploitation and profit motive. Ultimately, “cooperism” seeks to create a network of cooperative entities, leading to “compound cooperation,” which in-turn leads to the institutionalization of democratic and sustainable organization (i.e. “cooperative democracy”).

Harcourt does a solid job weaving in numerous examples of successful cooperative organizations, both in history and in contemporary times. In doing so, he explains how Cooperism works as a comprehensive theory of organization, and characterizes its ultimate goal as “concentrating cooperation”—and this democracy—across all levels of social life. Harcourt’s framing of cooperative organization is as compelling and attractive as I have seen, as he does a great job juxtaposing it from other methods of organization (and their underlying theories) that he considers to be unfit.

The case for cooperation is made compellingly clear, but how to actually get there—specifically as it relates to addressing the fundamental nature of American racial capitalist society—is left unaddressed. This is the most frustrating part of the book. It’s easy to say what should be done, but far more difficult (and important) to explain how one can get there. All this talk about the existence of cooperative corporate forms in various imperial cores in Europe and America, but very little was said about restorative justice or decolonization. Cooperative “solidarity economies” within the confines of Euro-American neo-imperialism doesn’t seem very transformative to me. An example of how Harcourt missed the opportunity to address this issue is how he explained (in great detail), then lazily dismissed the agenda of cooperative building as a means of “separatist self-determination.” Harcourt does a great job summarizing W.E.B. Du Bois’ position and political agenda as it relates to cooperative self-determination, only to quickly reject it as not amenable to the overarching goal of all people “working together at the intersection of our identities.” This is odd, considering Du Bois specifically and Black folks more generally wouldn’t pursue Black self-determination if there was any real hope for non-hierarchal multi-racial solidarity within American society. Harcourt makes the mistake of assuming that just because white nationalism is exclusionary and isolationist, so too is Black nationalism (or self-determination).

Despite the above critique, this book is undoubtedly one of the best I’ve read on the mechanics of cooperative socioeconomic organization in America. I hope this field of study continues to blossom and organizers keep leading the way in trying to build a more cohesive, egalitarian society.

[J Earl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cooperation by Bernard E Harcourt is a dense but accessible work that suggests we can make a better, more equitable society through Coöperism.

Coöperism is made up of political, economic, and social theories that highlight mutually beneficial cooperation on every level. The explanations and examples given do a good job of making the benefits clear but, for me, I had a hard time thinking through exactly how we might begin down this path. Let me be clear, I do think Harcourt explains ways to start this transition, I am personally having a hard time imagining the process(es).

I did find that discussing abolition democracy and relating cooperation democracy went a long way toward helping me grasp the ideas better. I am going to sign up for a webinar that is taking place in May of this year where he will discuss this book and his ideas. What I would really enjoy would be a conference where various thinkers and activists get together to both fine tune the ideas and debate steps to be taken. Something like that would help take this from theoretical idea to practical action.

I would recommend this to those wondering how we can work through the many crises we seem to be dealing with and come out the other end with a more equitable long term solution and not simply short-term patches. Additionally, those inclined toward the theory rather than the activism will find a lot here to consider, and maybe move them toward making change rather than just talking about it.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

[Zack Rearick · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Roxy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Social Theory section feels a little contrived, otherwise fine but it sorta reads like a manifesto. Some useful things out of it, but not the foundational text on cooperatives I was looking for