Building a Just and
Sustainable Economy
One co-op at a time
About Wellspring
The Wellspring Cooperative Corporation is a community-based cooperative development organization with a mission to create a network of worker-owned companies in marginalized neighborhoods in Springfield, Massachusetts that provide on-the-job training, employment, and wealth creation opportunities for low-income and unemployed residents of the city.
Equity
Equity usually appears in courts of law as a term related to justice or proportional fairness, or in financial offices to property or one’s share of a company. The derivative root of the noun, which gained stability in the English language during the 1300s, is Latin aequus, meaning “even,” “fair,” or “equal;” however, to be fair, it was introduced to English by the French, whose adaptation of the Latin was equité.
Democracy
Democracy contrasts with forms of government where power is either held by an individual, as in autocratic systems like absolute monarchy, or where power is held by a small number of individuals, as in an oligarchy—oppositions inherited from ancient Greek philosophy.[8] Karl Popper defined democracy in contrast to dictatorship or tyranny, focusing on opportunities for the people to control their leaders.
Sustainability
Sustainability is a normative concept that stresses intergenerational equity and is commonly considered to have three dimensions (also called pillars): the environmental, economic and social dimension. The concept can be used to guide decisions at all scales: at the global, national and individual consumer level scale. A closely related and overlapping concept is that of sustainable development.
Our Work
Cooperative
Network
A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is “an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned enterprise”.[1] Cooperatives are democratically owned by their members, with each member having one vote in electing the board of directors.
Co-op
Development
The International Co-Operative Alliance defines a cooperative, or co-op, as “an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically controlled enterprise.” In other words, cooperatives are created by people who have a specific need and who are willing to work together to operate and organize a company that will meet that need.
Building A Just And Sustainable Economy
The economy cannot be separated from society, it is an integral part of it, but the fact that the economy is just one part of a society has been largely forgotten. The economy and economic thinking should not drive society but rather, support society in it’s aims.
Why Cooperatives?
Kawano says a solidarity economy offers participants a way of existing that isn’t tied to profitability and productivity, but instead “embraces all those things that are not formal, and maybe don’t involve money, or aren’t incorporated,” the traditional market value of which has perhaps been negligible.
