Various forms of local community based enterprises exist throughout the world, and many are organised along cooperative lines (Kleer 1985). Such alternative modes of organising have existed throughout history but in advanced capitalist societies they have tended to be viewed as deviant and alternative organisations. Some such processes and practices of organising have become so prevalent that they could be said to have achieved some economic significance in modern societies (North 1995). In considering the potential for self help through community based activity it is worth reflecting upon the argument of de Bettignies (2000) – reflecting and also lamenting Fukuyama’s (1992) argument concerning the end of history – that globalisation has led to the dominance of the market as a mode of engagement to such an extent that no alternative exists. Community based cooperative activity tends to evolve somewhat organically and informally, with ‘like-minded’ individuals within a local community (usually within a small geographical area) entering into a small-scale enterprise. However, as such enterprises grow, they tend to adopt more formalised modes of organising and operating, although this is not necessarily the case. Even though more formal modes of organising tend to occur these are very often different from those adopted by economic enterprises within the formal economy.
According to de Bettignies (2000: 171) the current era is one of totalitarian liberalism in which the economics of the market dominates and:
‘….has taken over the progress for the planet, the modernity en marche (against which it is vain to resist). There is no alternative. It is the market which is now hailed as capable of producing a classless society (the utopia is coming back) comprising an extended middle class – prosperous, apolitical, excluding both the poor and the very rich.’
He describes this as ideologically fundamentalist and contrasts it with the concept of community which he considers (p177) ‘…could help fellow men to cope with the present and contribute to building a better society for the future’. For de Bettignies these are mutually exclusive alternative modes of engagement which he characterises as opposing poles of a dialectic.
One reason for the dominance of the market is based upon the primacy given to consumerism. Marcuse (1964) argued that consumerism was becoming increasingly pervasive in society, leading to the creation of the ‘One Dimensional Man’, a theme he explores in the book of the same name. An earlier theorist of consumerism, Veblen (1970), coined the term ‘Conspicuous Consumption’, which described the way that the ‘Nouveau Riche’ consumed particular items in order to denote their social status. In recent years, the emergence of post-modern thought has elevated the discourse of consumerism to centre stage in social theory. In terms of attempting to make sense of consumerism, work by a number of commentators points to how goods can act as communicators (see for example Bourdieu, 1998, Douglas & Isherwood, 1980). Other aspects of the dominance of the market are epitomised in the focus upon short termism (Marsh 1990; Coates, Davis, Longden, Stacey & Emmanuel 1993) and the concentration of power within globalised corporations.
According to de Bettignies (2000) an alternative to the market is the concept of community. The concept of community building is very much a feature of alternative modes of organising and Crowther & Cooper (2001a, 2001b) have documented the same feature among New Age travellers. The concept of community has been widely used to enable understanding of the structure of society but the meaning of the concept tends to be elusive (Plant (1974, 1978). A central image of community has been that of the small, homogeneous entity, rooted in custom and sharing both physical place and commonality of interest; the ideal model here is that of the pre-modern Rural village, characterised by a spiritual bond to place, friendship , kin and blood relationships- affective and emotional ties of the kind to be found in Tonnies’ (1957) ideal type, Gemeinschaft. Arguments that community has been lost in modernity stem from such views and a belief that a concentration upon rationality and individual rights , along with the dislocation caused by urbanisation and industrialisation have led to the loss of emotive ties. In turn, the search for community turned to new settings- in the urban centres and workplace- via sociological investigation. Communities now could for example be identified in city neighbourhoods.
It seems clear from the many disparate, and often contradictory, views concerning community that the notion of a commonality of interest is the paramount factor in identifying a community. Furthermore it would appear that the idea of belonging is vital to the individual members of any particular community, who identify with that community through this sense of belonging. Indeed this sense of belonging is a vital part of any individual’s sense of identity, with individuals depicting themselves and their identity through association with various groups and communities. It is however unclear whether any other attributes of community are of significance to the individuals belonging to a community; indeed these attributes are often used by outsiders to describe the features of a community rather than by the members of that community.
It is however when we consider the WWW that the potential for cooperative enterprise as a form of self help becomes apparent. Moreover the WWW creates the potential for self help which is truly sustainable and bypasses the market as a mode of activity. Examples of this kind of cooperative activity abound throughout the world but if we focus upon Ghana alone we can see examples of this kind of activity. For example a large number of African artists and crafts people (including many from Ghana) have joined together to promote their activity in a cooperative manner. Furthermore there are many cooperative enterprises in the country which have all joined together into a loosely organised network to promote themselves using the WWW.
Further opportunity is provided to such organisations by the use of a portal which brings together, in a coherent manner, a set of related websites to increase the chance of the sites being accessed. That access is of course vital for the trading which is necessary to sustain such forms of enterprise. An example of such a portal is the Ghana portal. Thus the potential of the WWW is being realised by many local inhabitants but these examples merely serve to underline the potential for such forms of organising.
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This page was created by David
Crowther on 16 August 2001