The Catalan Integral Cooperative: An Organizational Study of a Post-Capitalist Cooperative

Summary

What does a post-capitalist, cooperative and open source society look like? A full study on the Catalan Integral Cooperative.

Founded by an assembly of activists in Catalonia in 2010, the CIC’s revolutionary aspiration is to antagonize Capital by building cooperative structures in the Catalan economy. Its commitment to the principles of the Commons, Open Cooperativism and P2P, make it a prototypical example of a new generation of co-ops connecting the Commons and cooperative movements. Their position is that a truly collaborative economy can only develop when it’s commons-based.

The Cooperativa Integral Catalana (CIC) is one of the most interesting cooperative projects which have sprung up during the age of crisis in Europe. First of all, it is notable on account of its revolutionary character: the main objective of the CIC is nothing less than to build an alternative economy in Catalonia capable of satisfying the needs of the local community more effectively than the existing system, thereby creating the conditions for the transition to a post-capitalist mode of organization of social and economic life.