CHICAGO–Last week credit unions around the world celebrated International Credit Union Week. As part of that, credit unions in their communications frequently noted they are cooperatives. At the same time, different types of cooperatives and cooperative organizations also highlighted credit unions’ structure as co-ops.
In this week’s edition of The Corner, CUToday.info features books that talk about cooperatives, their challenges, their strengths, their futures, and more.
The book descriptions below are drawn from their Amazon.com synopses.
Humanizing the Economy: Co-operatives in the Age of Capital
By John Restakis
At the close of the twentieth century, corporate capitalism extended its reach over the globe. While its defenders argue that globalization is the only way forward for modern, democratic societies, the spread of this system is failing to meet even the most basic needs of billions of individuals around the world. Moreover, the entrenchment of this free market system is undermining the foundations of healthy societies, caring communities, and personal wellbeing.
Humanizing the Economy shows how co-operative models for economicand social development can create a more equitable, just, and humane future. With over 800 million members in 85 countries and a long history linking economics to social values, the co-operative movement is the most powerfulgrassroots movement in the world.
Wired Differently: How to Spark Better Results with a Cooperative Business Model, Servant Leadership and Shared Values
By Vern Dosch, Wallet Goulet and Tracy Finneman
Wired Differently shares the compelling story of National Information Solutions Cooperative (NISC), a nearly 50-year-old technology business built on the cooperative model. NISC started out providing software and IT services for three rural cooperatives a half-century ago, and has grown to 14- million end-users in 49 U.S. states or territories, and in Canada. Here is an organization where cooperative principles blend with leading-edge technologies to exceed expectations repeatedly -- even those of Fortune 500 customers like T-Mobile and Walmart -- and to attract recognition from industry giants, such as Computerworld and HDI. What are the secrets to NISC's humble yet astounding success?
Wired Differently explores the unique business model and leadership principles behind NISC's impressive results.
Business Secrets of the Trappist Monks: One CEO's Quest for Meaning and Authenticity
By August Turak
August Turak is a successful entrepreneur, corporate executive, and award-winning author who attributes much of his success to living and working alongside the Trappist monks of Mepkin Abbey for 17 years. As a frequent monastic guest, he learned firsthand from the monks as they grew an incredibly successful portfolio of businesses.
Service and selflessness are at the heart of the 1,500-year-old monastic tradition's remarkable business success. It is an ancient though immensely relevant economic model that preserves what is positive and productive about capitalism while transcending its ethical limitations and internal contradictions. Combining vivid case studies from his thirty-year business career with intimate portraits of the monks at work, Turak shows how Trappist principles can be successfully applied to a variety of secular business settings and to our personal lives as well. He demonstrates that monks and people like Warren Buffett are wildly successful not despite their high principles but because of them. Turak also introduces other "transformational organizations" that share the crucial monastic business strategies so critical for success.
Cooperative Enterprise: Facing the Challenge of Globalization
By Stefano Zamagni
This eloquent book analyzes the theory of the cooperative form of enterprise from an historic perspective, while assessing its appeal in the current economic environment.
The authors show that cooperatives are enterprises acting in harmony in the market economy, and explore the following questions:
- How do cooperatives achieve solidarity in keeping together elements normally considered in conflict?
- Why is the cooperative enterprise not as widespread as the capitalist enterprise?
- What is its appeal in the present conditions of crisis of the world economy?
Alongside other related issues, the volume also discusses the theoretical foundations of the cooperative enterprise and offers an overview of the historical development of the cooperative movement around the world. Special reference is made to the Italian case, which is scarcely known within the international milieu.
Broad in scope while concise in elucidation, this book will be invaluable to students enrolled in economic, social, historical and political curricula, as well as leaders of the cooperative movement. People interested in finding a practical alternative to the capitalist form of enterprise will also find this book enriching.