Co-op News (August 2019)

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“ROGER’S FAITH GIVES HIM A STRONG BELIEF IN EQUALITY. CLEARLY, THERE ARE CROSSOVERS BETWEEN A RADICAL CHRISTIAN POSITION AND CO-OP PRINCIPLES” as a student at Cambridge, where he met an American missionary and experienced a transcendental moment. This made him realise that he had to find ways to put his faith into action. In later life, his experiences in the workplace convinced him there was a role for Christians in business; but the structures where he worked did not allow him to do what he felt was needed. He proposed changes but the shareholders disagreed with him. But then came a visit to Israel, where he worked on a kibbutz making tools – and developed his ideas about worker co-ops. He says the Quaker business method helped his thinking on consensual decision-making – and he decided the co-operative model was the most suitable for putting his values into practice because it lacked the paternalistic dimension of Quaker businesses. Mr Sawtell was also one of the co-operators who helped to draft the rules of the Co-operative Production Federation, later known as the Industrial Common Ownership Movement (ICOM) rules. ICOM would merge with the Co-operative Union, forming Co-operatives UK – and the new rules were put to test at the Daily Bread Co-operative, which Mr Sawtell founded. Daily Bread opened its store in October 1980 and it has been seeking to live up to its original ideals ever since, providing quality, wholesome food at a fair price. Its continued success saw it win the Growing Co-operative category in the Co-op of the Year Awards 2017. Even today, almost 40 years later, Daily Bread has a strong Christian ethos, with u his congregation in Mondragon, the Basque Country, as the town tried to recover from the Spanish Civil War. In 1956, he created a social business based upon the principle of equality. He saw co-operatives as the perfect solution to the town’s unemployment crisis. Since then, Christian groups around the world have set up similar co-operative ventures. Among them was Roger Sawtell, founder of Northamptonbased Daily Bread Co-operative – recently given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Co-op of the Year Awards 2019. Talking to Nick Matthews, chair of Co-operatives UK, he explained how after a 20-year career as an engineer at Spear and Jackson in Sheffield, he started looking for ways to put his faith into practice. “Roger’s faith gives him a strong belief in equality,” says Mr Matthews. “Clearly, there are crossovers between a radical Christian position and co-op principles.” An Anglican, Mr Sawtell lives in a Christian community with his wife of 61 years, Susan, a Quaker. Although he attended church at Wortley, Yorkshire, during his childhood, the turning point in his faith came to him 30 | AUGUST 2019
prayers most mornings before the store opens and communion at least once a fortnight. The co-op is committed to giving away a percentage of its annual turnover to causes ranging from educational projects in developing countries to local schemes such as Northampton Soup and the Hope Centre. John Clarke, a current member of the co-op, says: “Daily Bread was founded from a Christian group that was part of a local church. This was similar to how some of the early co-operative societies were formed, with concern about people rather than profit. Supporting members and working together for a common goal are good social and Christian values. “Since Daily Bread was founded in 1976 and started trading in 1980, those values have always been present in our way of thinking and how we manage ourselves and conduct business. Of course, those values are not exclusive to the Christian faith, but our 40 years trading has been a demonstration that these values are strong enough for us – and many others in the worker co-operative movement – to survive the downs in the economy and enjoy the fruits in good times.” But if faith acted as an incentive for religious communities to develop co-operative businesses, so too did a lack of belief in religion. In his lecture at the opening of the Secular Hall in Leicester in 1881, George Holyoake talked about his vision of a secular society in which religion was based on “the simple creed of deed and duty”, with personal and society welfare at heart. Stephen Yeo, in his book Victorian Agitator – George Jacob Holyoake, tells how the co-operator’s outspoken secularism landed him with six months’ jail for blasphemy in Gloucester in 1843. Yeo describes how, for Holyoake, secular values of unity and tolerance could render co-operative efforts possible. Later in his life, Holyoake sought to engage with preachers, Quakers and other faiths in an attempt to involve them in the co-operative movement. An Owenite social missionary, he was also influenced by John Stuart Mill’s utilitarianism. He served as president of the first day of the 1887 Co-operative Congress and wrote about the history of the movement. Is co-operation like a religion? Prof Yeo writes: “I have watched many co-operators during the last 50 years living out their attachment to their societies and their movement as if to a religion, with a dynamic faith – often against the odds and after many defeats – as freely chosen, as open and voluntary and as binding, as any other religious faith.” And he suggests that modern advocates on co-operative and mutual enterprises could promote not just an economic model, but also a co-operative ethic and even spirituality. When he considers the lessons today’s co-operators can take from Holyoake, he says: “The first thing to take away from Holyoake’s work is to respect other people’s beliefs and be sceptical about certainties, and to see co-operative societies as societies which include differences of opinion in religion and party political terms, combined with unity around actions. Holyoake was always very sceptical about worldly certainties – he said he did not know.” Prof Yeo adds: “Co-operation is not an ideology, it’s a set of practices – because what we’re actually committed to is a set of values and principles in practice. What we are trying to do is prefigure a different way of producing ideas and goods, bread and knowledge.” While opinions vary when it comes to the question of considering co-operation as a religion, there is general agreement on the role co-ops play in bringing together a diverse mixture of people for common goals. “It’s a good thing to be actively recruiting to a social and moral set “CO-OPERATION IS NOT AN IDEOLOGY, IT’S A SET OF PRACTICES. BECAUSE WHAT WE’RE ACTUALLY COMMITTED TO IS A SET OF VALUES AND PRINCIPLES IN PRACTICE. WHAT WE ARE TRYING TO DO IS PREFIGURE A DIFFERENT WAY OF PRODUCING IDEAS AND GOODS, BREAD AND KNOWLEDGE” of values,” says Prof Yeo. “Partly because our set of values is all about forms of association and forms of organisation, we have a commitment to a very particular way of producing a future society. Organisations and associational forms are crucial to us. Just using the word ‘social’ doesn’t make you a co-op.” “We’re about a very particular way of arranging the powers of production, distribution, education and government. That was a Rochdale commitment and it puts education and government on same level as production and distribution – ideas as well as making and selling bread. So, if we are to be evangelical, then it has to be about particular forms of collective self-governing, not about ‘isms’ but about ways of getting together.” AUGUST 2019 | 31
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Co-op News (August 2019)

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