The Challange of Mondragon. In the Beginning . . . . The Basque region of Spain has, in recent years, seen the rise of a system of cooperatives that is unparalleled in its dynamism, growth, and economic impact on a region. The system, which spreads throughout the surrounding Basque region, is named after Mondragon, a town in the mountains of Guipuzkoa Province near Bilbao, the place where the first cooperatives started. Since its start over thirty years ago, it has gained an international reputation, with similar models now being developed in England, Wales, and the United States. While its explicit connections to the anarchist tradition are unclear, the Mondragon system is an example of liberatory [sic] organization which, like its predecessors in the Spanish Civil War, has achieved success on a scale unequaled in any other part of the world. The Mondragon network was founded by a Catholic priest, Don Jose Maria Arizmendi, a man who had narrowly missed being put to death by Franco as a result of his participation in the Spanish Civil War on the Republican side. With the help of collections from citizens of Mondragon, he founded an elementary technical school in 1943. The first graduates numbered among them five men who, in 1956, founded a small worker-owned and managed factory named ULGOR, numbering initially 24 members, and given to the manufacture of a copied kerosene stove. This cooperative venture proved successful and developed into the flagship enterprise of the whole system which later was to come into being. At one point ULGOR numbered over 3,000 members, although this was later recognized as too large and was reduced. The structure of this enterprise served as the model for the latter enterprises forming the system. Following the Rochedale principles, it had one member-one vote; open membership; equity held by members and hence external capitalization by debt, not equity; and continuing education… Mondragon Corporación Cooperativa 17/06/2002.- MCC increased sales by 14.7% in 2001 and created 6,800 new jobs In a year like 2001, characterised by an acute slowdown in the economy all over the world, made worse in the second half of the year by the tragic events of 11 September, MCC companies performed reasonably well. They increased their sales by 14.7%, with significant international expansion in the industrial area and 6,800 new jobs created, although overall profitability fell somewhat. For 2002, the forecasts are for a 14% rise in sales and 5,000 new jobs… http://www.makethemaccountable.com/