The Cooperative Movement in the Midst of Economic Chaos: The Guyanese Experience
回顾了圭亚那独立后推行合作社运动以促进社会主义转型的经验，指出该运动消耗了有限的经济资源，并随政权更迭而改变政策。
The institution of cooperatives is one much-discussed means by which small business may be aided and the economy developed. Guyana plunged headlong into the movement following its rash into political independence in 1966. Cooperatives were the chosen vehicle for achieving socialist transformation with a view to making the man a real man. This article presents some reflections on the movement, which contributed to the draining of Guyana's limited economic resources. Guyanese survival has been a near miracle. It is not surprising that when political leadership changed, so did the policy toward cooperatives. Background Though geographically in South America, Guyana is English-speaking and culturally Caribbean. It is divided into three counties (Berbice, Demerara, and Essequibo) and bounded by three powerful neighbors (Suriname, Venezuela, and Brazil) as well as the Atlantic Ocean. A relatively large land mass (83,000 square miles), its population numbers less than three quarters of a million people. Prior to independence (May 1966), Guyana exhibited reasonably high annual growth rates in the production of its three primary products (7 percent in bauxite and sugar, 8 percent in manufacturing, and 10 percent in rice, over a seven-year period). The government promoted industrialization through Guyanese capital and protected Guyanese small businesses such as Continental Agencies Paint Factory, Banks Brewery, and the Chipboard Factory (PPP Manifesto 1992). In a political address, Executive President Jagan said that if the post-independence government had continued along the same road, Guyana would have become a model for the Third World (Jagan 1991). But it did not. Instead, the government adopted different economic ideologies, a major one being the development of the movement. In the words of the then Executive President L.S.F. Burnham (Ministry of Cooperatives 1974, p. 18): We identified the cooperative, the masses' economic organization, as the instrument for transforming our society and making the little man a real man. The Cooperative Movement in Guyana The Ministry of Cooperatives and National Mobilization of Guyana defines a as a group in which a number of people voluntarily join together to do something for their economic advantage. Cooperatives exist to provide services and savings for their owners, called members. These members finance and control the cooperatives, which operate on the principle of one-member-one-vote regardless of financial contribution. In return, the cooperatives help to improve the members' quality of life and reduce the cost of supplies and services (credit, recreation, health, transportation, and food purchases) to its members. The cooperatives also help to improve net returns to its members by marketing what they may grow or produce (Ministry of Cooperatives 1974). While cooperation was the traditional way of life of indigenous people and of slaves in Guyana, it was not until after World War II that formal cooperatives were promoted by a Cooperative Societies Ordinance under the Social Welfare Branch of the Department of the Local Government (Griffith 1975). In 1948, a separate Cooperative Department was established and a Cooperative Societies Ordinance was enacted the same year. Until 1954, the main sources of credit were the so-called cooperative banks. Despite the name, however, these banks were not genuinely in form. Organized and run by the Department of Agriculture, they only accepted share payments from members and loans from the government. From these funds they made loans on bills of sale or mortgages of property, and in emergencies, granted production loans. During 1954, these banks were all absorbed by a Credit Corporation which was responsible for issuing all short-, medium-, and long-term credit. It provided [TABULAR DATA FOR TABLE 1 OMITTED] agricultural and industrial credit to thrift and credit societies and was the main channel for short-term agricultural credit (Bascom 1970). …