Invitation: the Reflections of Mondragon founder Fr. Josemaria Arizmendi
Join our reading group (starts Tuesday May 27, 1-2 PM EST) for this little book containing the "atomic secrets" (Arizmendi's term) behind the creation of the world's largest worker-owned business.
A priest working in a war-town, impoverished Spanish village, he collaborated with local working people to eventually become perhaps the most successful social entrepreneur of the twentieth century. From its modest start in the early 1950s, Mondragon today is an interlocking ecosystem of 95 autonomous worker-owned cooperatives, with annual sales of €11 billion ($12.5 billion).
To get at the roots of this organization’s rise, let’s read and discuss together Arizmendi’s little 120-page book called Reflections, an inspirational “management text” like no other you’ve ever read.
We’ll meet over four Tuesday Zoom sessions: May 27, June 3, June 10, and June 17. All sessions will be at 1 PM EST.
To register for the Arizmendi reading group, please use this doc in order to receive a Zoom link before each session.
A quote from the Introduction by Nathan Schneider: “Arizmendi inherits the Basque people’s long practice of democracy and their struggles for independence. He was a journalist during the Spanish Civil War, when entire regions of the country operated under a well-organized anarchism of workers’ assemblies, which were highly anti-clerical. His cooperative spirituality depends upon no particular religious or national identity, while it draws from many.”
And a quote from the book’s “Afterword: Cooperation and Liberation"“, by historian Jessica Gordon Nembhard: “Both the Basques of northern Spain and African Americans experience contradictory relationships in their societies as national minorities—citizens without full citizenship rights, experiencing long histories of exploitation, inequality, and social ostracisim. Father Arizimendi taught that subaltern people do not have to live subaltern lives. They can take charge of their own lives, be warriors for change…Not many people understand economics as a project of human liberation. Fr. Arizmendi showed many that it is—or can be.”
A free PDF of the English translation of the book, published in 2022 by Solidarity Hall, will be provided to everyone who registers (donations appreciated).
If you’d like to purchase a print paperback copy of the text, it’s available here.
See you next time—peace.
How interesting! I’m in! Thanks
Very exciting! I signed up and also purchased a digit copy but haven't received anything yet.