The community. Vote negative to “reject institutions and organizations,” like the aff, that do not embrace the logic of care,” that’s Fotaki. At the community level, the alt uses debate to develop networks of care cooperatives that move away from neoliberal logics towards a solidarity economy—empirics from across the globe prove its effectiveness, but it’s mutually exclusive with the aff.

Cooperatives are an intentional choice for this paper. Community members who are privileged and are accruing wealth, yet not in a position of political power, may recognize the exploitative systems described above and want to help others. In this highly individualized society, organized around individual actions in the market, privileged individuals may see altruism, through donations to charities, foundations, or specific causes, as their best avenue to effect change. Privileged individuals may also want to extract themselves from capitalism and neoliberalism, yet not know how. I propose community care cooperatives as an actionable step individuals from various backgrounds – including middle- and upper-classes – can take in order to move toward a care-centered world.

A cooperative can take many forms, as it is any type of “autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically controlled enterprise” (Statistics on Cooperatives and the Wider Social and Solidarity Economy, 2019; International Cooperative Alliance, n.d.). While this is not always the case, cooperatives are often hyper-local and culturally-sensitive by design and are based on values of democracy, equality, equity, self-help, self-responsibility, and solidarity (International Cooperative Alliance, n.d.). Cooperative members actively participate in setting policies and making decisions. Members are in control of capital and decide collectively how to handle any potential surplus and ensure its equitable distribution. It is collective action with the purpose of contributing to the sustainable development of the community; cooperatives are by the members for the members.

The use of cooperatives to move toward a social and solidarity economy is an established practice globally. The tradition of formalized cooperatives can be traced back hundreds of years and the practices and principles of collective, cooperative, shared work flow throughout the history of humanity. While many cite the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers, a group of skilled workers and artisans in England who collectivized in 1844, as the first cooperative society, there are records of earlier organized cooperatives. The first recognized cooperative in the U.S. was a fire insurance company founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1752 – an enterprise that is still in existence today (Pitman, 2018). In 1895, the International Co-operative Alliance was founded to support and guide global cooperatives (Bakaikoa and Albizu, 2011). In 1916, the Cooperative League of the United States of America was formed to promote the use of cooperatives (Pitman, 2018). Many cooperatives were related to agriculture and farming as communities went through economic hardship during the 19th and 20th centuries, although there are also examples of coop grocery stores, retailers, and credit unions (Pitman, 2018). Today, cooperatives can be found globally; the International Labor Organization (ILO), part of the United Nations, has an entire branch dedicated to the research and support of cooperatives. Cooperatives are seen as legitimate business models and as tools for mutual benefit – with the caveat that they are also understood to be minimally profitable and thus still an alternative or unlikely choice for entrepreneurs.

Caring cooperatives are different than the user/producer agricultural cooperatives seen throughout history. Caring cooperatives, both formal and ad-hoc, happen in many ways. Many neighborhoods have informal groups on social media, such as “Buy Nothing” groups, where people can ask for and receive goods they need that others may own but not have use for – a concept that rejects the buy/sell binary of capitalism. There is a resurgence of farmer’s markets and local agriculture even in the face of increasingly convenient, large-scale grocery options and the pressure put on finances by inflation. Strong networks of biking groups advocate for safer transportation routes and the de-prioritization of cars, while also creating community coops that repair and reuse old bicycles. Mutual aid networks are popping up across the global north for healthcare, agriculture, and other needs. Local cooperatives provide more balance for citizens and are being implemented successfully across Europe. Ways of living and thinking communally are happening – and have been happening – across the continent of South America, leading to legal action such as in Ecuador, which was the first country to recognize the Rights of Nature in its constitution. In the U.S. specifically, these efforts toward caring cooperatives are on a small scale, especially vis-a-vis capitalism, but there is always the potential for these ideas to spread and grow in popularity as they have in other regions of the world.

The need for care solutions is urgent, and communities can look to caring cooperatives as a small, incremental step toward long-term political goals to transform and recenter value systems. Achieving a care-centered world necessitates a restructuring of democracy and citizenship (Glenn, 2000; Tronto, 2013), which will take significant time to come to fruition. Care cooperatives can be a stopgap measure during the political process, a way for communities to engage in collective problem-solving, and an active practice of building a future rooted in well-being. In fact, such efforts may even be an important key to change on a grander scale; Tronto (1995) writes that grounding political organization in “the practices of everyday life rather than in abstract principles such as justice or fairness is likely to result in more change” (p. 147). Academic thought supports the strategy of using community care cooperatives to recenter society from around markets to around care. Glenn (2000) notes that an underlying condition for full valuation of care in society is for care to be “legitimated as a collective (public) responsibility rather [than] purely a family or private responsibility” (p. 88). Feminist degrowth scholars Corinna Dengler and Miriam Lang (2022) note that “a communal, largely unpaid, yet socially recognized mode of reproduction can be a fruitful way of envisioning … caring activities beyond the deep separation structure between a visible and valued ‘productive sphere’ and an invisible and devalued ‘reproductive sphere’ on which capitalist economies rely” (p. 3). A common thread throughout the scholarship is that care must be reframed as a joint, public, communal responsibility in order for it to be truly valued in society. Community care cooperatives are a tool for that reframing.