As you might guess, this is going to get a bit political.  The last two years have given us plenty of reason to grow weary of "politics" and lose faith in the political structures around us, but as a cooperative, Common Ground is inherently a political organization as much as it is an economic one, and in my opinion, it's high time that we engage politically with our owners.

As we look toward a new year amidst political and economic turmoil, I want to ask all of us to look back to our cooperative roots. We are a cooperative, but what does that really mean? Let's start with a simple question with a not-so-simple answer.

Are Cooperatives Socialist?

To get an idea of what answers this question might have, we'll need a little bit more context. What is a cooperative? When and where do they come from? And how are co-ops related to Socialism?  

There are many kinds of cooperatives which come from several traditions, but we're going to focus on the lineage that Common Ground and most co-ops come from.  

For this purpose, we're going to start right around 1800.  Revolutions in nearly every aspect of human life marked the turn of the 19th century as the rise of the Gilded Age ; the Industrial Revolution , the dying years of monarchy and feudalism, the rise of Capitalism, liberal democracy, and the enlightenment dramatically transformed society.

While developing capitalism and technology were able to create an abundance of material goods, they also created their own new forms of oppression and suffering--artisans' guilds (and skilled trades generally) lost a great deal of agency as their skills were replaced with automation, mass manufacturing, and low-skill repetitive labor, and at the same time, working conditions became more and more dangerous as working hours drew out ever longer in order to maximize the profits of factory, mine, and mill owners.

At the same time, enlightenment era idealists, philanthropists, and philosophers saw this suffering, and a few tried to do something about it.  This is where we meet the intersection of Socialism and the Cooperative movement.

Robert Owen

Born in Newtown, Wales in 1771, Robert Owen came to work in managing textile mills in Lincolnshire, and eventually to co-own the textile mill in New Lanark, Scotland in 1799-1800.  In working in and managing textile mills, Owen developed his own spiritual, social, and economic approaches to labor and community which ultimately led to reducing working hours, providing free education to all workers and their families, and emphasizing the needs and wellbeing of labor when he gained the power to do so.  Owens came to describe himself as both a socialist and a proponent of the Cooperative Movement, and later went on to found a planned utopian socialist/cooperative village in New Harmony, Indiana in 1825.  This later experiment ultimately failed economically in 1827, but the legacy Owen left continued into the Rochdale movement, and this is where socialism and the cooperative movement in Britain begin to part ways.

The Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers

In 1844, a group of 28 people who were largely displaced skilled tradespeople founded a cooperative enterprise known as the Rochdale Society . In the beginning, it was a very small worker-owned and managed retail business which carried only a few bare essentials such as butter, sugar, flour, and candles. Over just a few years, business boomed, and their selection expanded to include most consumables, and even tobacco and tea.  From such humble beginnings, they'd built a business that became renowned for their high quality, unadulterated goods.

What the Rochdale Society also produced were a set of guiding principles which has evolved into the Rochdale Principles that we still hold to this day. To put this into perspective with the development of Socialism in the sense we know it today, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published the Communist Manifesto in 1848.

Okay, so what does all of this mean?

The cooperative movement and socialism are distinct from each other, but they are close cousins. Socialism demands a whole-scale transformation of society's productive forces, and to immediately end Capitalism. Cooperatives are a little different--they seek to do the best they can democratically within whatever economic system is present. So, cooperatives aren't necessarily socialist, but they share a common root and are, in some cases, fully compatible with a Socialist society.

Cooperatives come in many different forms--from worker co-ops and consumer co-ops to producer - secondary - and hybrid co-ops, but each form shares critical features laid out in the principles by which they operate and the general structure of decision-making and governance within and between co-ops. For example--Common Ground does not have "shareholders," we have "stakeholders," and decision-making power is ultimately rooted in a democracy of consumers. That means you are in charge.

If you'd like to learn more about how to exercise your power as an owner of Common Ground, how to become an owner, or how to contribute to this newsletter, feel free to reach out to our board of directors ( [email protected] ) or our marketing team ( [email protected] ). Remember, this is your co-op and your participation keeps our collective faith in a better business model alive.

Most people are aware the percentage of our income that we spend for food is the lowest in the world. One reason is because our incomes are some of the highest in the world. I think most people would also recognize the low costs we see in food stores is not the true cost of our food. One hidden cost is taxpayer subsidiaries which mostly go to large industrial farms. However, by far the largest hidden cost comes from the ways we produce, process, and consume food. It will come as no surprise that the largest of these is healthcare costs resulting from our unhealthy diets; by some estimates as high as $1 trillion a year. Over-consumption of products with refined sugar contributes the largest share of these healthcare costs. Possibly of even greater concern is the costs associated with our industrial farming methods. It is not difficult to find research that reveals the damage done by our chemical usage or our large confined livestock operations for example. Our nation's farm policies have clearly been designed to support large industrial agriculture, processed food, and to keep our food costs low.

At Common Ground we occasionally hear from customers that the cost of our products are higher than our competition. I would like to share a few reflections on our food costs and what we are doing to control them. As you know most of my career was spent with a conventional supermarket, so I really understand their cost structures and pricing tactics. The 1st difference is, at this point in time organic and local products are more expensive than conventional products. I believe in the old saying "you get what you pay for". For example there is no comparison in the taste between locally grown tomatoes you buy in the farmers market and the ones that come from California. Many local products cost more because of processing costs. It just costs more to process one or two head of beef versus the thousands big Ag slaughters in a day. Is it worth it? If better quality, knowing where your food comes from and how it was produced, and supporting the local economy are important to a person, then it is absolutely worth paying more.

The costs of running an operation like Common Ground are also higher. In my old conventional store my produce or meat buyer ordered all of our product from one supplier. We would order today and it would show up tomorrow. In our produce department at Common Ground we've bought from over 20 different local producers in 2017. At my old store the produce manager spent maybe 6 hours a week ordering, but at Common Ground during peak season it is close to a full time job. Now spread that to every department in the store. Common Ground purchased local products from over 90 different producers in 2017. Over 18% of our store sales came from local producers in 2017, the conventional stores national average is less than 2%. This is one of the reasons it is so difficult for our big chain competition to do a good job with local food. No other food store in the C-U area does close to what Common Ground does with local producers.

Our Food for All program is one way Common Ground helps to make our food affordable for all families. The Co+op Basics line of organic food we carry is priced competitively with any of the organic products you will find at conventional stores. Everyday our buyers are looking for values for our customers. We are constantly looking at operations to see where we can reduce costs without compromising on quality or service. Since our owners are our customers and they care more about healthy food, we do not have to make huge profits as our competitors do. We do need to have some profits on the bottom-line though if we want to be here in 10 years. The net profits of the grocery industry as a whole are less than 1% of sales, so there is a fine line between making profit or going out of business.

Can we do better? Absolutely; we can work with local producers to help them lower their costs, expand their operations, promote them as a local food steward, and bring their products to you as efficiently and conveniently as possible. We can continue to improve our customers shopping experience which will attract more customers. Higher sales really does lower our costs by spreading our fixed costs over more sales. We can continue to explore ways to improve operational excellence in the store. We have a long list to work on in the New Year. It is work that never ends, and we hope that you will continue to share the journey with us.

Tim