A Study On The Development Of Cooperatives:from The Political Sociological Perspective

From the political sociological perspective, this dissertation employs historical, theoretical and institutional analysis to discuss the development of macroscopic (national or regional) cooperatives.Different from the combination of "capital" in company, cooperative is the combination of "people". So members are nuclear foundation of cooperative. Coordinating with the need of members, cooperative takes three functions, namely relative economic advantage, protective institution and public role in the society. It is in this respect that cooperative is benefit for both members and the society through self-service.To ensure the fulfillment of members’ needs and avoid their dissimilation, cooperative adopts the organizational principle of "capital under control of work", which not only assures "member-orientation" but also represents "distribution on the basis of work" in the organization. Besides that, the principle makes the property right of cooperative have characteristics, such as non-exclusiveness (due to joint ownership by members), non-stability (due to open membership), non-segmentation and exchangeability, and in this dissertation this kind of property right is named "vague property right". Since "vague property right" is the result of "capital under control of work", and the latter is the organizational foundation of cooperative,"vague property right" could be improved, but could not change in essence.However, orthodox economics, especially neo-institutional economists put forward criticism on "vague property right", and believe that it leads to the ineffectiveness of cooperative economy. They insist that the development of cooperative should be guaranteed by the reform which promotes the distinction of property right.Review of the literature on mentioned institutional economics, this dissertation proposes that cooperative is a combinational organization, which connects market factors and inner organizational factors. According to the form and degree of cooperative in the aspect of collective or independent operation, this dissertation divides cooperative into bargaining, marketing and producing cooperatives. It indicates that "vague property right" in bargaining and marketing cooperatives has no significant influence on the development of cooperative, but in producing cooperative, especially worker collective producing cooperative, it surely has some negative influence. But total distinction of property right is not a choice, because it changes the "nature of cooperative".Since cooperative could promote vulnerable people’s benefit through profit returning, and take the role of public role in the society to solve "market failure", it is reasonable and necessary for government to support cooperative. On the basis of analysis of the historical development and the institution application, this dissertation shows that government supporting cooperative development mainly has five types: traditional model, nationalism model, corporatism model, market-orientation model, and hybrid model of corporatism, market-orientation and traditional models. For the long term development of cooperative, the hybrid model is the best choice. The conclusion is as following:First,"capital under control of work" is the nature of cooperative and the base line to judge whether an economic organization is cooperative or not.Second,"vague property right" of cooperative is not only the result of "capital under control of work", but also the necessary measure to ensure the organizational behavior of cooperative to avoid deviate from the objective of the organization. So the higher organizational cost brought by "vague property right" would be reduced by adjusting institution. It is impossible to eradicate it and to reform it fundamentally, or it is not cooperative.Third, cooperative and private enterprise have their own advantage in the respect of economic efficiency and social justice, and it is improper to judge which one is better. That is to say, it is unscientific to judge the reasonability of the institution of cooperative by economic efficiency. So the opinion of "the distinction of property right reform" by economist could not solve the problem in the development of cooperative totally.Forth, the development of cooperative needs more efforts, especially the good relationship between cooperatives, and between cooperative and government.It has two implications:first, for cooperative, the prerequisite of its development is the good relationship with members, the good relationship among members (opportunism, property right), the cooperation between cooperatives and the good relationship with government. The priority of these relationships is as following:first, stable social foundation of cooperative (member-orientation, the cooperation between cooperatives), second, the promotion of economic efficiency (market-orientation, the adjustment of property right), third, the good relationship with government. What’s more, the order could not be changed, or cooperative will become a tool for middle class to acquire wealth, or become a tool for government.Second, it is acceptable for government to adopt hybrid model of corporatism, market-orientation and traditional models, which benefits both for the development of cooperative and for the achievement of its development objectives.