Workers’ cooperatives redistributed surplus toward reserve funds, insurance, and labor

Evidence

Th e coop’s 300 workermembers were organized in a committee structure operating under an administrative board composed of elected coop members. Th e organization’s constitution included specifi cations for how surpluses would be reinvested, namely in the reserve fund (50 percent), social insurance and instruction (20 percent), and dividends among workers in proportion to their actual exercised labor (30 percent). A month into their experience of free management, the Castenaso coop members wrote a manifesto for other Italian workers: “We wish and hope the story of the Castenaso workshops can serve as an example to all Italian workers— still oppressed and exploited by capitalist gluttony [ingordigia]— so that they can once and for all redeem themselves from the servitude of the boss to set out courageously towards a Communist Society!” — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 423

Categorization

• SHARE: A concrete blueprint (50/20/30 surplus split) for how postwar cooperative wage workers themselves in Italy structured their organization.
• ADDENDUM: Cooperatives as workers owning means of production echo the alternative production-for-use economy relevant to sacrifice and production regimes.
• XREF: connects to: Workers pursued a use-value economy through state-aided cooperatives alongside capitalism — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 420; Cooperatives redirected surplus from capital owners to the workers themselves; Cooperatives defined profit as benefiting workers, not invested capital — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 425

Broader Connections

• Cooperatives redirected surplus from capital owners to the workers themselves #expands (0.85)
• Cooperatives defined profit as benefiting workers, not invested capital #qualifies (0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 425