Cooperative Economics and Management and Abolitionist Relationality

This chapter explores Cooperative Economics and Management (CEM), connecting it with Relational Economics (RE) to highlight how both approaches contribute to understanding cooperation and cooperative enterprises. The paper aims to elucidate CEM’s addition to RE by emphasizing three epistemological bases: RE, moral economy, and abolitionism. These foundations are examined through their relevance to long-term stakeholder cooperation, the role of collective agency in social upheavals, and the abolition of unfree labor. The synthesis of these traditions fosters a humanist and community-oriented economic model, relevant to both the global cooperative movement and traditional enterprises. The paper details how CEM’s narrower focus on relationality, democratic self-governance, and moral economy enhances cooperative enterprise analysis. It differentiates CEM from RE by its abolitionist stance, emphasizing voluntary cooperation over coercive relationships. The integration of these concepts produces a robust framework for understanding economic and organizational cooperation, particularly within cooperative enterprises. Methodological approaches such as innovative accounting, organizational democracy measures, and social network analysis (SNA) are discussed to capture the dynamics of cooperative enterprises. The paper concludes by underscoring the significance of CEM in advancing cooperative and sustainable business practices.