COOPERATIVE GROWTH Mapping scaling strategies for new parameters of wealth

Eight minutes to eleven o’clock. I stand in front of a crossroad, where I can still see the striped tents of the large marketplace behind Oerlikon Railway Station as well as the bright orange logo of COOP Group right on Schwamendingerstr. The weekly market has a long tradition in Zurich due to the top-quality goods on sale directly from the producers, mostly organic from regional farmers, featuring a crowd of health-minded consumers. Right next to it, over 150 years of Swiss cooperative enterprise is illustrated by one of the 2,000 retail outlets of the COOP Group, which began as a small consumer cooperative and became an international retail and wholesale cooperative. Unique structures built on a common core. Both markets share the same economic environment identifying and evaluating potential alternatives to assess the social, technical, and environmental challenges of modern society. Both sum up - in a small local initiative and in an international enterprise - the perspective of different models of entrepreneurship oriented by the urge of a sustainable and democratic- centered economy. They translate the rise of new perspectives on how to do business. The scene I captured in Zurich is a small but significant sample of a bulkier movement that has been quietly growing around the world over centuries. Cooperative endeavors have a blueprint throughout human history. Nevertheless, the modern cooperative can trace its roots to Europe in the late 1700s as a response to changes brought by the Industrial Revolution. Closer to a new technological Industrial Revolution, cooperatives gain novel features and navigate through market pains and opportunities to remain competitive while growing in size and scope. Despite the long history of cooperative enterprises, its significant economic impact, and the substantial data available about these institutions, their vast potential has not been fully explored. They represent a significant portion of the agriculture and food industries, wholesale and retail sales, insurance cooperatives, banking, and financial services, health, education, and social care. Nevertheless, the choice for cooperatives is still shy in most endeavors and there is a profound lack of understanding about what this option truly represents among entrepreneurs, investors, consumers, and policymakers. A question that has always resonated in my mind since the bachelors is if Law is an emancipatory tool capable of designing in advance a better pathway for society and enticing fundamental changes or if our normative body is merely a foxtail - always behind - barely following the brisk development and kaleidoscopic nature of human experience. By the end of the doctorate and the profound dedication towards intellectual matureness, I had the fair expectation of answering this question. However, diving into the search for economic democracy did not provide me with a definitive answer. Still, the doctorate sparked hope of Law as a liberating tool and raised new questions that I am eager to respond to in future developments of my studies. Here I confess the naiveness coming to Italy years ago. My wrongful idea that a PhD would turn me into a subject expert. Little did I know back then that a doctorate serves only to remind us of how shallow our comprehension of the world is, and even individual research objects have a highly dynamic nature and hold a multiverse in itself with a myriad of reflections, beyond what I could anticipate when elaborating the research proposal. Law alone will never solve all the sores. The intricacy of the status quo calls forth a multifaceted approach guided by democratic values and respect for human and environmental wellness. Any ‘one size fits all’ resolution is doomed to failure. We obsessively search for revolutionary and unprecedented innovations when we already have the structural beams we need to support a new societal standpoint. Hence, it is a matter of hermeneutic recognition of the potential of what has already been built by generations. Cooperatives are a perfect example of an old remedy for novel pains. Many advocates in different times, cultures, and legal systems have pointed toward a more equitable life and economy, proving that it is possible to collectively create value and distribute wealth. The literature is rich and vast. So are the many cases and great stories made by people simply trying to reinvent the way of doing business and impact their community. While an undergraduate student, I joined an international conference on Human Rights and Business to discuss the harm of mining companies in Brazil and the recurrent violation of fundamental rights in the communities surrounding those operations in my home country. At the time, we analyzed the judicial attempt of a large mining company of avoiding bankruptcy. We evaluated the primary focus on financial metrics within the recovery plan, which marginalized the interests of many families directly impacted by the business activities. The financial safeguard of businesses over people has always been an unsettling idea for me. Money primacy is not quite over, but we have potent alternatives of subverting the logic behind profit at all costs. Here, I have compiled possible paths for cooperative growth and how they can meaningfully impact our prospects by nurturing new wealth parameters. I uphold that growth and business scalability have a unique denotation based on the pursuit of economic democracy beyond sheer financial metrics. We will indelibly frustrate the safeguard of our democracy if we perpetuate the great divide between the economy and our socio-political choices. Any attempt at building sustainable and perennial democracy in the economic sphere relies on a shift towards non-monetary values. A wise entrepreneur once told me that money is like the air we breathe or the food we eat, what allows the economy to be alive and fuels its operations. Nobody, however, lives to breathe or to eat. The purpose of life and our economic ventures must trespass the pursuit of money and fulfil a larger mission. Capital is a tool, not a self-centered goal.