WHAT LINKS WORKERS, MAFIA, INTELLECTUALS, THE NOOSE & HOUSING CO-OPS?
Organised cooperation for the benefit of those providing a public good or service — often in response to others seeking to exploit them — can be seen throughout history. Akkadian guilds in ancient Sumeria (c. 2200 BCE), collegiums in ancient Rome (c.800 BCE), the universities of Bologna (1088 CE) and Paris (1150 CE) which originated as student guilds and, nearer to current times, Freemasonry (14th Century) and the Cosa Nostra and 'Ndrangheta (18th Century) in Italy, all exhibit fraternal action for a specific purpose.
The idea of modern cooperative action is often associated with the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers founded in 1844 in the town of Rochdale, Greater Manchester, England. The focus of the Rochdale Society on egalitarian principles is no surprise given that at least 15 of the estimated 28 original members were avowed followers of ‘Owenism’ — the social philosophy of 19th Century social reformer Robert Owen. Widespread poverty in Britain after the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815) came to a head in Scotland in April 1820 in the form of the Radical War (also known as the Glasgow Revolt and Scottish Insurrection). Contrary to the moniker, the Radical War was about one week of industrial strikes and calls for constitutional and labour reform — ideas that had emerged in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland during the early period of the French Revolution but were repressed during the Napoleonic Wars and the economic downturn which followed. The root issue was the Industrial Revolution (the exploitation of labour and unfair working conditions), high unemployment and food prices, and laissez-faire government. Local weavers James Wilson, John Beard and Andrew Hardie, were singled out as leaders of the unrest, rounded-up, hanged and beheaded — simply for their efforts to improve the lot of their fellow countrymen. They were heroes facing up to exploitation, greed and power.
Due to unease at the incredibly brutal treatment of the leaders, County of Lanark officials commissioned industrialist Robert Owen to produce a report for poverty relief — which became his utopian rural ‘cooperative village’ plan. Owen already had a reputation as a social reformer through his ownership of the New Lanark cotton mill — originally founded by his father-in-law, Scottish cotton merchant and philanthropist David Dale. Approximately 2,500 people worked at the mill, many from workhouses in Edinburgh and Glasgow and, building on social reforms already introduced by David Dale, Robert Owen continued to improve working conditions and established the first school for children there in 1817.
Owen’s ideas had been influenced by prominent thinkers in sociology — some who had preceded him as well as those of the same era — and drew on a wide body of ideas including economists David Ricardo and Adam Smith (the axiom labour is the source of all wealth), utilitarian Jeremy Bentham (the greatest good for the greatest number) and social philosopher and trade union advocate William Thompson (balancing scientific materialism with rational morality). Owen’s work accompanied a surge in social activism and altruism manifested through experimental communities, as well as trade unions and labour exchanges championed through the efforts of contemporaries William Thompson and Thomas Hodgskin.
These ideas all follow a sociological tradition and timeline dating back thousands of years. From the musings of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle on individualism, social organisation, stasis and decay through cycles of growth, prolonged conflict, military and authoritarian control, moral decay and revolution — and on to philosopher and economist Karl Marx (capitalism vs socialism) and, more recently, those of the same ilk as economist Thomas Piketty (economic inequality). Consistent themes evident in the sociological writings of these philosophers, economists and writers are social cohesion, equality, improvement as distinct from growth, and alternative systems to the status quo — especially for lower income members of society for whom the predominant system is not working well. The tradition of sociological thought itself embodies the historic and ongoing tensions in society between those who control capital and resources and those whose labour it is built on. Such tensions are unlikely to be resolved anytime soon (if ever).
The vigorous philosophical and sociological discourse in the mid to late 1800s directed at re-balancing the ‘friction’ between ‘capital’ and ‘labour’ (i.e. improving the living conditions of low wage workers), attracted intellectuals from throughout Europe and Manchester in England seemed to be de rigueur for anyone interested in studying some of the best and worst labour practices and living conditions. One such German intellectual was (the then 21 year old) Friedrich Engels, who was sent to Manchester in 1842 by his textile industrialist father to study the latest factory management systems — how to extract maximum value from low wage labour. The family succession planning spectacularly backfired. Engels was so appalled at what he saw this laid the foundation for a lifetime of socialist writings, including his famous collaboration with Karl Marx — ‘The Communist Manifesto’ — which introduced their ideas of socialism as a result of the conflicts inherent in capitalism.
Engels also entered the fierce housing debate raging during the mid to late 1800s with his provocative series ’The Housing Question’ published in Der Volksstaat between 1872 and 1873. He didn’t see a ‘housing crisis’ but he did see a ‘crisis of capitalism’ — manifested in the exploitation of low wage workers and poor living conditions. From Engels’ perspective there was only one solution — working class revolution and property expropriation. The rest is history.
The vexing issues associated with how to improve the standard and cost of housing for the poorest in society has not only occupied the minds of the many intellectuals with the time and money to be able to contemplate and write on them — but also professionals involved in delivering housing. The Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM), founded in Switzerland in 1928, helped bridge the gap between the ideological discourse and the practical realities of execution. Ideas emanating from CIAM on architectural and urban theory and design are often closely associated with French architect Le Corbusier and have attracted much criticism. However its membership came to include many of the leading architects and planners of the era, such as Walter Gropius, Alvar Aalto, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The first CIAM meeting resulted in the La Sarraz Declaration, backed by 24 European architects, which stated that architecture should be linked to the general economic system and design focused on rationalisation and standardisation of building components. The 1929 meeting was convened to focus on the theme of ‘affordable housing for the lowest income wage earners’ with an emphasis on efficiently designed apartment housing, including the need to site buildings for maximum light and sun, and repetitive low-cost construction. The advent of World War 2 disrupted CIAM’s momentum, but its aftermath arguably laid the foundation for the emergence and success of the cooperative housing movement in many European countries scrambling to recover and rebuild their societies.
Suddenly the idea of cooperative housing made sense and was given urgency by the sheer enormity of the rebuilding programmes required for many countries and this together with the social cohesion that immediately followed the war (and for that matter follows any adverse event), coalesced to provide the perfect environment within which to extinguish the political laissez-faire and deference to 'the market’ that had pervaded western economies (at least temporarily). How quickly good ideas become eroded by the fog of time and the opportunity of untaxed capital gain and here we are again!
2026 © Níall Mayson