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2025: International Year of Cooperatives!

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2025: International Year of Cooperatives!

The United Nations has declared 2025 the International Year of Cooperatives. The declaration comes at a time when the negative consequences of the lack of participatory ownership models in the economy are becoming more and more visible. In the West in particular, economic inequality is rising rapidly, threatening the normal functioning of democracy, while the Global South remains a case study in the interests of the richest countries. Despite rising productivity, real incomes are stagnating, especially outside the major urban centres. As a society, we are also lagging far behind in taking action on climate change, partly due to the short-termism and excessive focus on profit that dominate today's economy.

These challenges look set to intensify in the coming years. In the context of financialisation and globalisation, ownership of an increasing number of businesses - including Slovenian businesses - is flowing into the hands of nameless financial owners who are both physically and emotionally distant from the local communities in which the businesses are embedded. Companies with a long tradition of responsible business conduct, which have hitherto been renowned for their concern for the local environment, are thus being transformed into vehicles for the maximisation of the wealth of an economic elite which, when making business decisions, has no regard for the well-being of other stakeholders, such as employees and the local community. All this leads to extractive business practices, in extreme cases even to mass redundancies and relocation of production to less regulated areas.

It is high time we changed our understanding of our role in the economy and started working towards a more democratic vision. We are pleased that the United Nations is also aware of this and that in recent years more and more attention has been paid to alternative models of ownership in politics and business.

As we launch the International Year of Cooperatives, the Institute for Economic Democracy pledges to play our part in creating a more inclusive and people-centred economy by promoting progressive models of employee ownership. We believe that workers' cooperatives and other forms of employee-owned enterprises show us the way forward. The path of social responsibility. A path of stability for local economies. The path of decentralised economic development. The path of a fairer distribution of added value. The path of sustainability and democracy.

You can read more about this route in the #KateraPot campaign contribution, where we highlight the already visible negative consequences of the lack of participatory ownership models in the Slovenian economy and offer a more democratic and sustainable alternative.

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