Cooperation: A Political, Economic, and Social Theory

311 Pages·2023·28.065 MB·English

by  Bernard E. Harcourt

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COOPERATION
Also by Bernard E. Harcourt
Critique & Praxis: A Critical Philosophy of Illusions, Values, and Action (2020)
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COOPERATION
A Political, Economic,
and Social Theory
bernard e. harcourt
Columbia University Press
New York
Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
cup.columbia.edu
Copyright © 2023 Bernard E. Harcourt
All rights reserved
Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 9780231209540 (hardback)
ISBN 9780231557993 (ebook)
LCCN 2022046588
Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent
and durable acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America
Cover design: Elliott S. Cairns
Contents
Getting Started vii
1 The Urgency of Cooperation 1
Stuck in a Rut 1
The Crux of the Problem 9
Another Path: Cooperation 12
Toward a Political, Economic, and Social Theory and Practice of Coöperism 22
A Word on Language and a Road Map 26
2 The Ubiquity of Cooperation 31
The Global Reach of Cooperation 34
Cooperation in Conventional Economic Domains 39
The Resilience and Productivity of Cooperation 51
3 The Simplicity of Cooperation 54
The Basic Building Blocks 55
The Corporate Finance of Cooperation 60
The Crucial Difference of Cooperation 68
Incentivizing Cooperation 70
Toward Coöperism 72
4 The Political Theory of Coöperism 73
The Three Traditional Justifications 74
Grounding a Political Theory of Coöperism 92
(1) Concentrated and Compounded 94
(2) Deliberate and Chosen 98
(3) Open and Inclusive 105
vi Contents
5 The Economic Theory of Coöperism 106
The Whiggish History of Capitalism’s Triumph 107
The Misleading Label Capitalism 109
The Problem with the Label Communism 121
Getting Beyond the Cold War 125
Coöperism Economics 128
A Final Thought on Growth 132
6 The Social Theory of Coöperism 135
A Social Theory of Crime and Punishment 137
The Implications for the Notion of Harm 151
Some Models for the Paradigm of Coöperism 157
The End of the Punishment Paradigm 161
7 A Defense of Coöperism 163
On Capital Markets 164
On the Return on Capital 167
On Historical Criticisms from the Left 172
On the Challenge of Utopianism 179
On the Reformist Alternative 181
8 Cooperation Democracy 186
The Paradox of Democratic Theory 188
The Relationship to Abolition Democracy 190
Toward Cooperation Democracy 197
The Age of Coöperism 198
Acknowledgments 203
Notes 205
Bibliography 257
Name Index 279
Subject Index 285
Getting Started
S
cientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies report that
the average global temperature on planet Earth has increased by at least
1.1° Celsius (1.9° Fahrenheit) since 1880. The trend lines on all the graphs
and plots rise upward in an oscillating linear fashion. The overwhelming consen-
sus among scientists is that any warming beyond an additional 0.4° Celsius, or
beyond a total increase of 1.5° Celsius from 1880, would threaten human existence
on Earth.1
The overwhelming scientific consensus, also, is that humans have caused the
planet to warm through industrialization and the emission of heat-trapping
greenhouse gases.2 Despite the consensus, there are some who deny that global
warming is caused primarily by human activity. But even if there are nonhuman
factors contributing to global warming, there is no question that it will take
coordinated action by everyone on planet Earth to avoid imminent catastrophe.
Humans have become interdependent in a way that could not have been imag-
ined by earlier political thinkers, economists, or social theorists, even forty years
ago. As a result, most of our inherited political ideas and economic models are now
outdated or not up to the task. Enlightenment ideals of individual autonomy, of man
mastering nature, of growth maximization, of the wealth of nations—all those polit-
ical, economic, and social theories have proven to be illusory and deceptive, if not
perilous, in the face of the new reality of complete human interdependence.
The two dominant responses oscillate between rugged individualism and gov-
ernmental coordination: at one extreme, many argue that we can solve the cri-
ses only if the government leaves us to our own devices and ingenuity; at the
other extreme, many argue that only governments working together can control
the developing crises. But as new crises pile on, such as the rise of pandemics
1.1
1.0
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
us 0.4
elsi
C
es 0.3
e
gr
e 0.2
D
0.1
0.0
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1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020
Year
Annual difference from 1951–1980 average Smoothed multi-year trend
Figure 1 Temperatures are rising: Global land-ocean temperature index (1880–2021)
Data source: NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). Credit: NASA/GISS.
This graph uses data from the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies to compare the annual average
surface temperature each year from 1880 to 2021 with the long-term average surface temperature 1951–1980.
The data shown in the bar chart are the average surface temperature for each year; the line shows the
LOWESS regression (smoothed multiyear trend) for the same period. “Global Temperature,” NASA
Global Climate Change, accessed September 15, 2022, https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs
/global-temperature/.
Getting Started ix 
and increasing threats to democracy, the dueling positions have hit an impasse.
They have reached a point of polarization that has become paralyzing in many
countries. Interdependent, and now gridlocked, we desperately need a different
way of thinking and acting: a new political, economic, and social model for the
twenty-first century.
That model is hidden in plain sight. It rests on cooperation: on people cooper-
ating and working with one another, throughout all aspects of their lives, for the
well-being of all the people and the environment. It has been around for decades,
even centuries, but receives scant attention by contrast to the two polar extremes.
In a concentrated, combined, and compounded form, it offers a new political,
economic, and social theory and practice that might be called “coöperism.”
Coöperism allows us to embrace our newfound interdependence and, together,
to confront the shared threats to humanity. It is time to embrace it—before it is
too late. Please join me in thinking through its theory and practice, and its larger
implications for cooperation democracy.
Bernard E. Harcourt
New York City
November 10, 2022