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The Myth of Mondragon: Cooperatives, Politics, and Working-Class Life in a Basque Town (Anthropology of Work)

by: Sharryn Kasmir
en

9780585043067  9780791430033  0791430030 

The Myth of Mondragon: Cooperatives, Politics, and Working-Class Life in a Basque Town (Anthropology of Work)
By Sharryn Kasmir




Summary: A good counter-balance
Rating: 4

I recently read Roy Morrison's "We Build the Road As We Travel" to gain a better understanding of cooperatives in general and the Mondragon cooperative system in particular. After reading Morrison's book I wanted to know more about Mondragon and so I picked up Kasmir's book.

After reading "The Myth of Mondragon" I have a very different idea of Basque Spain throughout the Franco years and the developmental years of the Mondragon cooperative system. While Morrison's book mentions the complexity of the region and the cooperative system itself Kasmir actually digs into both and produces quality thought-provoking information helping the reader to find a broader conclusion base.

While it is true that the cooperatives have pred job stability and health care - things that all folks ought to be guaranteed - Kasmir also points out that globalization has exacerbated class issues within the cooperatives as well as created an atmosphere in the cooperatives that is less distinct from the local private firms than it maybe once was.



Summary: A Twisted View of Reality
Rating: 2

There is no myth in Cooperative Mondragon if you have lived in Mondragon in 1960's, if you grow thru an artificially induced process of 40% unemployement, and sharing day to strugle of been lucky to get minimum wage and abuses of dictatorship under industrialism of General Franco.
The priests who funded the Cooperative (today with 60,000 employee owners) althought no perfect found a better solution.
Mondragon is perfect in front of the Enrons, MCIs, not a single person in the cooperative is yet to lose a pension or health coverage, or security of live, that beats 99% what Kasmir tries to compare Mondragon against other forms of ownership.



Summary: New insights into the Mondragon cooperatives
Rating: 4

The book contains many new insights into the internal working of the Mondragon cooperatives and their economic, social and political problems. Ms Kasmir's meticulous field-work and her studies of different historical archives of the Mondragon community offer a realistic picture about the Mondragon cooperatives unique experience