The creation of new entities: stakeholders and shareholders in nineteenth-century Italian co-operatives

As a result of strong links with the most important socio-cultural issues of the 19th century, both the definition and promotion of co-operatives are interwoven with the development of the socio-political movements of that period. For this reason discussion of such issues was never confined to purely academic circles and a great deal has been written about the relationship between co-operation and ideologies or cultural and political stances. In Europe the focus has been on the influence that the various forms of Christianity have had on the co-operative movementi and on the impact of socialist ideology on the setting up of worker and consumer co-operativesii. In the United States scholars have analysed the role played by the Grange (or Patrons of Husbandry) and the Farmers’ Alliance in the promotion of insurance and farmers’ co-operatives.iii The growth of co-operatives has been the subject of theoretical analyses by famous economists such as Walras and Mill, and has enjoyed support from a growing school of thought embodied in the creation of socialist-inspired institutions (ranging from the Trades Councils to the Resistance Leaguesiv), and from a section of the Catholic world (parish priests and parish associations) that associated this new form of enterprise with a more ethical approach to society and the economy. The numerous studies made of the persistence of the co-operative movement during the course of the 20th century, have often distinguished between economic efficiency and the ethical values (or ideologies) in questionv, as if the two were separate phenomena moving in parallel directions. However, over the past fifteen years at least two different approaches have been adopted by economists investigating this question. This has led to an interweaving of the cultural aspects of co-operation with the question of economic efficiency. The first of the two approaches is that of Putnam’s concept of social capital, while the second is that of property rights based on the work of Henry Hansmannvi. ` In particular, the idea of social capital, understood as sustained group-level co-operative behaviourvii, has been utilised to explain the non-homogeneous territorial distribution of co-operatives in Italy. This is true of two interesting studies, one by Galassi and the other by A. Hearnviii. Both papers conclude by pointing out how the inefficiency of the southern co-operatives, and the impossibility of their remaining in the market, were the result of purely economic factors which, nevertheless, were deeply rooted in the cultural heritage and traditions of the Italian South. In associating myself with this approach, where efficiency is linked with “culture”, I wish to examine the cultural components of the Italian co-operative movement which emerged from three different socio-cultural traditions: liberalism, catholicism and socialism. Despite their differences, all three seem to share what we refer to here as the “ideal of community happiness”, that is the ideal of a collaboration among citizens for the improvement of the standard of living of the whole community. In this paper we will measure the popularity of this culture in the various Italian regions by per capita welfare expenditure in 1880 and 1900. As we will explain in paragraph 1.3, at that time everything spent for helping people in need was given by friendly societies, catholic charities and local councils and nothing came from the central state. Therefore only the spreading of non-profit societies and a pro-active attitude by local councils could generate high per capita welfare expenditure. Indeed, such indicator would seem to be closely linked to co-operative expansion during the second half of the 19th century, and would thus appear to provide an explanation for the non-homogeneous geographical distribution of co-operatives. We still need to identify what it is that links efficiency with the presence of the “community happiness” ideal. At this point, it ...