CommunityChapter heading and mutual ownership

A historical review

July 2010 Tom Woodin, David Crook and Vincent Carpentier This report surveys the history of ‘community and mutual ownership’ and considers the implications for policy and practice in this area.

In recent years, policy-makers have identifi ed community and mutual ownership as having a signifi cant contribution to make to the economy, welfare and society more generally. A historical analysis of social change can inform contemporary understanding, policy and practice.

The report:

• adopts a broad defi nition of ‘community and mutual’ as a way of exploring the history of ownership;

• identifi es fi ve models: customary and common, community, co-operative and mutual, charitable, and municipal and state forms of ownership;

• argues that systematic and values-based approaches are needed to develop community and mutual ownership to respond to current social problems;

• notes that time is needed to develop democracy, membership and belonging, all factors that have been historically important to the success of community and mutual ownership.

www.jrf.org.uk Contents

List of tables 3

Executive summary 4

1 Introduction 7

2 Historical overview 10

3 Models of community and mutual ownership 23

4 Conclusions and implications for policy and practice 43

References 49

Acknowledgements 58

About the authors 58

2 Contents List of tables

1 Models of community and mutual ownership 23–4

2 The scale of mutuality 35

3 The scale of general charities in the UK 37

List of tables 3 Executive summary

This report explores the history of ‘community by charitable impulses and by notions of and mutual ownership’ and draws out fi ve historic a ‘just price’ for goods and services. models of ownership which are examined in turn. The early modern period, from the sixteenth We use the concept of community and mutual to the eighteenth centuries, witnessed the ownership as an eclectic and exploratory device breakdown of feudalism. Individual freedom to uncover a range of different material over and liberty were increasingly connected previous millennia. This report is organised into to the ownership of private property. The three substantive chapters: a historical overview onset of enclosures was bitterly contested (Chapter 2); models of community and mutual by those, such as the Diggers and True ownership (Chapter 3); and conclusions and Levellers, who argued for the value of common implications for policy and practice (Chapter 4). and communal forms of ownership. In the historical overview, we provide a brief The rapid increase in land enclosure fuelled the outline of changing forms of ownership in development of capitalism. During the nineteenth general and pay specifi c attention to community century, industrial and urban development and mutual examples. The chapter is divided exerted great changes and stripped away older into fi ve key time periods: early societies; responsibilities inherent in ownership of the land. feudalism; early modern period; industrial One response was the formation of mutual and capitalism and post-1945. Each of these phases co-operative organisations which expanded gave rise to a distinctive array of communal throughout the century. In addition, charitable forms of ownership. impulses and organisations grew considerably Early societies were characterised by in response to the harsh conditions faced by the tribal and communal organisation in which poor. However, as inequality and social problems ‘ownership’ of land, if it existed at all, was extended into the twentieth century, municipal and temporary and contingent and served collective state ownership became increasingly prominent. needs. The Roman and Anglo-Saxon conquests Post-1945, state ownership was viewed as of Britain indicated the importance of war in a means of meeting common needs through establishing ownership rights to land, which universal welfare services and controlling the were distributed to loyal supporters. Private economy. It was to be undermined, especially ownership developed slowly and examples of during the 1980s, when many forms of public independent peasant farmers can be identifi ed. ownership were privatised, such as housing and During the feudal period, often dated from the nationalised industries. Although community and Norman invasion, land and property were owned mutual organisations were also marginalised, by the King and his lords who ruled over estates. more recent policy interests have focused on asset But relations were interdependent and peasants transfer to communities from public ownership and might be granted tracts of land on which they a role for the ‘third sector’ in public service delivery. worked in return for loyalty to their lord. Peasants The widespread enclosure of ‘the commons’ also had access to large areas of common and and the growing concentration of ownership waste land which served a variety of needs. The have been constant historical themes. But these Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, precipitated by a have not always been linear processes nor punitive poll tax, was indicative of the broader have they been inevitable ones. Other historic ways in which peasants viewed feudal ownership possibilities have been available at specifi c as unjust and exploitative. Limitations on times, and virtually all forms of community ownership were exerted by religious beliefs, and mutual ownership from the past are still which associated worldly wealth with sin, in existence and available for use today.

4 Executive summary Chapter 3 of this report refl ects on this long and federal structures. During the twentieth historical narrative by identifying fi ve models of century, however, their role was to be undercut community and mutual ownership: common by the growth of state welfare as well as a loss of and customary; community; co-operative and purpose in a more affl uent context. Recent signs mutual; charitable; and municipal and state of renewal have been complemented by the ownership. Each of these is considered in turn. growth of worker co-operatives, credit unions, Common and customary ownership was football supporters’ trusts and the spread of arguably an original form of ownership. Common mutual principles to a range of public services. land and group ‘rights in common’ were evident Businesses such as The Co-operative in feudal times and helped to facilitate economic and John Lewis show that community survival, wider social networks and a sense of and mutual ownership can expand out of moral economy. The state actively supported the the small-scale ‘community’ space. enclosure of the commons but began to protect Charitable impulses are found throughout common spaces, especially in the twentieth history and early examples of ownership include century. Signifi cant vestiges of common land almshouses and hospitals. Charitable organisation still remain in the form of village greens, public was given legal recognition at the turn of the parks and the right to roam. Community land seventeenth century. The number and size of trusts and the Community Right to Buy in charities increased signifi cantly in response to Scotland represent further attempts to enable the Industrial Revolution, including voluntary and communities, which may not have access to charitable hospitals. During the twentieth century fi nance, to take control of land and assets. the role of charities diminished as the state began Community ownership covers a wide range to play a dominant role in welfare. Some charities of initiatives that have frequently existed beneath were also criticised for holding a defi cit view of the radar of public discussion. Over the last 500 benefi ciaries. Since the 1980s, charities have years, examples have included communal living played a signifi cant role in contracting for welfare experiments carried out by religious sects, socialists services. Charitable ownership is likely to multiply and those seeking an alternative lifestyle. In the given that the charitable legal form carries tax twentieth century, the settlement movement and advantages and that the impulse to ‘help others’ development trusts worked to support deprived remains widely understood and practised. communities. The garden city, co-partnership Municipal and state ownership mainly and new town movements, initially at least, developed from the late nineteenth century focused on community ownership of housing and and was seeded within debates about organising public spaces. Smallholdings, allotments, village for the common good. Early municipal experiments halls and community land occupation provide took place in the ownership of electricity, gas, further continuing local examples of community sewers, transport, education and housing. ownership in which resources have also been held Common ownership became a central objective by individuals and families. Recently, communities for the political left, which crowded out other have bought village shops, pubs, farms and other community ownership models. After 1945, concerns through community share schemes. signifi cant nationalisation brought hospitals Community ownership remains an engine of and businesses, which were viewed as natural inventiveness which feeds into the wider society. monopolies, into state ownership. This lasted Co-operative and mutual ownership until the 1980s, when large-scale privatisations fl ourished in the nineteenth century by meeting were initiated. Although state ownership has people’s basic needs relating to saving, insurance, been criticised as being ineffi cient and food and housing through co-operative societies, unresponsive to community needs, it has been friendly societies, building societies and other relatively effective in ensuring that public services mutual enterprises. By the end of the nineteenth are widely available. In addition to owning resources century, these had grown into highly signifi cant in its own right, the state also regulates all forms businesses based on democratic member control of ownership.

Executive summary 5 These models represent an initial sifting of historical material and it is unsurprising to fi nd examples of both blurring and confl ict between them. At a local level, community, co-operative and mutual forms of ownership have been interconnected but became more distinct in the context of growth and expansion. New forms of ‘social enterprise’, as arrivals on an already existing scene, have also cut across divisions. In the long run, community and mutual ownership had the potential to make a signifi cant contribution to contemporary society. It can be identifi ed in all areas of the economy and society and has particular relevance to fi nance, rural and urban development, food, housing, public services, energy production and international development. ‘Learning from history’ is notoriously diffi cult and attempting to force the adoption of historical models would be short-sighted. However, historical analysis helps to identify issues that are pertinent to the current policy interest in extending community and mutual ownership. This report suggests that systematic approaches are needed if there is to be a staged growth of community and mutual ownership to respond to current social problems. The structural, social and subjective aspects of ownership must be recognised alongside a values-based approach to development. For community and mutual forms to succeed there needs to be recognition of the time taken to develop democracy membership and belonging and the tension inherent in state- or community-led approaches. In developing future policy and practice, however, there is the potential to adopt a structural and values-based approach that nurtures community and mutual ownership.

6 Executive summary 1 Introduction

Ownership is a concept with multiple meanings common ownership of property, nurtured democracy which have been bitterly contested throughout and self-control, and fostered a sense of common history. All forms of ownership are historically benefi t and social justice. We concentrate here on contingent and the outcome of human agency broad developments, placing changing forms of and struggle. Looking backwards in time helps ownership within a general historical narrative. A us to realise that diverse forms of ownership have diverse legacy of community and mutual ownership is existed in the past, that history is dynamic and traced and grouped into fi ve ‘models’: common and that new practices may yet emerge. Ownership is customary; community; co-operative and mutual; indelibly marked by the changing nature of human charitable; and municipal and state ownership. need, co-operation and confl ict; as such it has Each of these forms has survived to the present been central to major historical transformations. day in one shape or another. In this way the report Recurrent yet mutating debates have often aims to connect a historical account to more recent revolved around the key distinctions between preoccupations of policy-makers and practitioners private and public, individual and common, without over-simplifying the past. The implications natural and conventional forms of ownership. for our understanding and practice, as well as some This report aims to consider the role, of the contradictions and tensions revealed by contribution and signifi cance of ‘community community and mutual ownership, are drawn out. and mutual ownership’ in the past. It Case studies help to illuminate these issues through provides a historical overview of, and specifi c examples. This approach makes available a draws out implications and potential for, wide range of approaches to contemporary arenas contemporary practice and policy. It asks: of policy and practice while noting the dangers inherent in attempting to ‘learn from history’. 1 Which models of community and The term ‘community’ has a diverse range of mutual ownership can be identifi ed meanings. It usually refers collectively to people on and how have these developed? the ground rather than rulers, government or elites and may be based on a geographical place or shared 2 How signifi cant has each of these interests and characteristics. Community is frequently models been? What have been the assumed to be ‘tight-knit’ although it may in fact be reasons for their growth, achievements quite diffused. It tends to imply positive and warm and limitations in practice? human relationships as opposed to those found in public and business life. Communities are often 3 What are the implications of these divided so that the ‘gay community’, ‘working-class developments for contemporary community’ and ‘Brixton community’, for example, policy-makers and practitioners? will not only contain internal fault lines, but will also overlap. Community also carries considerable ‘Community and mutual ownership’ is a dangers of representation so that an arbitrary group contemporary notion that is used as a way of of people owning and managing a resource might exploring the past and highlighting an eclectic be claimed to represent the wider community. range of initiatives. Depending on the context, it ‘Mutual’ has a generic meaning in terms of may denote individual, collective and common reciprocal, common and interdependent relations ownership; private and public forms of ownership; between people. A more specialised meaning and ownership that may be based in statute law refers to mutual organisations that are owned or customary use rights. Community and mutual by members who are also the benefi ciaries. For ownership has often tended towards dispersed or example, in a fully mutual housing co-operative

Introduction 7 all tenants would be members and all members and mutual organisations has been stimulated by would be tenants. The two meanings may the production of a set of values and principles overlap, as in cases where a mutual ethos and enshrined in a ‘Statement of Co-operative Identity’ purpose pervades an organisation but might as well as the application of mutual ideas and not meet a narrow defi nition of mutuality. practices to a range of welfare services and public According to the Oxford English Dictionary activity (MacPherson, 1995; Hargreaves, 1999; (OED) the term ‘ownership’ stretches back to Rodgers, 1999; Birchall, 2001; Co-operative the late sixteenth century although ‘own’ and Commission, 2001; Commission on Co-operative ‘owner’ are much older terms. The most common and Mutual Housing, 2009). The recent defi nition of ownership refers to ‘proprietorship, growth of ‘social enterprise’ represents a dominion; legal right of possession’ (OED). Early further concern with forms of ownership which defi nitions of ‘own’ include the extension of having blend trading with social and environmental ‘control or direction’ over a person or thing; in other purposes (Borzaga and Defourny, 2001; words, ownership is connected to the control of a Department of Trade and Industry, 2002; Paton, resource. Ownership has extended over tangible 2003; Pearce, 2003; Nyssens, 2006; GKH, things such as land and buildings as well as over Johnson and Spear, 2006). While ownership people in slave-based societies. The extent of has been a central issue underlying these things that can be owned has greatly expanded developments, it has not always attracted the over time and now includes copyright and patents, attention of researchers (Hansmann, 1996; DNA, community knowledge and hypertext links. Hargreaves, Mills and Mitchie, 2001). This may In addition, a more recent innovation derived from be starting to change. The Commission on the United States in the 1970s and 1980s when Ownership, sitting from 2010–11 and chaired religious and educational groups developed a by Will Hutton, has been set up to explore the notion of ‘owning’ a problem or issue, such as meaning and importance of ownership in Britain a child’s development or homelessness. Many and to consider changes that might be made. It community groups also express strong feelings has been supported by Mutuo and Co-operative of ownership over their organisations. These Financial Services and will further fuel debates on shifting emphases refl ect a tendency inherent the value of community and mutual ownership. in the idea of ownership to extend beyond the The embrace of a ‘third sector’ by policy- specifi c, legal issues into wider relationships. makers has bundled together a variety of Indeed, subjective meanings, feelings and community and mutual forms which are emotions are often closely tied into the notion increasingly being presented as a solution to a of ownership. James O. Grunebaum defi nes wide variety of problems – the desire to nurture ownership as ‘a right constituted relationship, and support a vibrant civil society, to improve or set of relationships, between persons with public services, to meet targets and to improve respect to things’ (Grunebaum, 1987, p. 4). economic competitiveness, for example. The major These meanings have also been expressed in political parties have all intimated that community renewed contemporary debates on community and and mutual organisations should have a greater mutual ownership. The Quirk Review (Department role to play in the economy and public services. for Communities and Local Government, 2007) On the left, the abandonment of Clause IV of the highlighted the potential for community ownership constitution of the Labour Party has opened up and led to the establishment of government a re-engagement with alternatives to the state funding for asset transfer. Reviews of charitable as a vehicle for the ‘common ownership of the and voluntary organisations highlighted a growing means of production, distribution and exchange’. international interest in the notion of a ‘third On the right there has been a growing recognition sector’, illustrated by the establishment of the that public services might be complemented government Offi ce of the Third Sector (World by mutual forms of employee ownership. The Bank, 2000; Cabinet Offi ce and Her Majesty’s credit crunch of 2008 and the ensuing recession Treasury, 2007). The renewal of co-operative has added urgency to these arguments.

8 Introduction Understanding the past can contribute to this agenda by raising awareness of previous experiments and initiatives in community ownership and in attempts to support them. The renewed interest in communities taking a greater control of assets is helping to stimulate a dialogue between the present and the past (Leadbeater and Christie, 1999; Hirst, 2001; Yeo, 2002; Wilson and Woodin, 2003; Wyler, 2009; Aiken, 2010; Leadbeater, 2010).

Methodology

This report represents a literature review complemented by interviews and some documentary and archival research. We searched various bibliographic databases, including the British Library, Copac and Athens, to identify key texts and documents and identifi ed a number of primary sources relevant to our research. In addition, activists and researchers with an involvement in the recent history of community and mutual forms of ownership were interviewed and consulted and are listed in the acknowledgements. What follows is a picture in the making. Given the timescale and scope of this project it is necessarily a broad and general study which identifi es overall themes and issues. It cannot hope to offer a complete historiography and the Reference section is indicative rather than comprehensive. It does not provide detail on all historical caveats and nuances; as such there are omissions. The models outlined in Chapter 3 represent an initial sifting of the material and seek to shed light on the overall historical picture and its resonance for policy-makers and practitioners today.

Introduction 9 Chapter2 Historical heading overview

Ownership has not been a universal presence, do not signify common stewardship or a form but arose through historical development. The of ‘primitive communism’ but serve a mythical specifi c forms it has taken have constantly function based on collective longing. They have changed throughout history and this is likely to pointed to territoriality among animals, identifi ed continue into the future. The development and forms of ownership in all human societies and justifi cation of ownership has revolved around claimed that (private) property is a universal force a number of central issues, including ‘Rights, (Pipes, 1999, p. 5). But in arguing for the essential needs, labouring capacities, divine injunction, continuity of private property, the defi nition of effi ciency, harmony, liberty and justice’ (Reeve, ownership is being broadened considerably, 1986, p. 75). Many of these historical explanations almost to the level of being meaningless. still resonate today and connect to our concern with ‘community and mutual ownership’. Here we Early history chart the historical development of community and mutual ownership in relation to other, often Ownership over land, personal possessions, tools more dominant, forms of ownership. Locating this and weapons was closely tied to the development history within mainstream historical development of early population groups. The introduction avoids the danger of marginalising it. of agriculture, as opposed to hunter-gatherer Historical debates about human existence societies, is often taken to be a moment in which have been tied to contested notions of ownership ownership of specifi c areas of land evolved. over the land and its resources. Understandings This was not necessarily a distinct ‘stage’ of of ownership and belonging have become central development in early Britain and agriculture to debates on the changing human condition. existed alongside hunting, gathering and other Many religions, which themselves appropriated activities. Mining for fl ints, as well as the building ideas from pagans, have an idea of a ‘golden age’ of sacred sites, burial grounds and temples, pre-dating modern ideas of ownership. The Bible suggest the existence of laws and possibly an claimed that God gave the world to humanity early priesthood which established rights of in general. Whether or not this Garden of Eden ownership over these sites. Hill forts, such as constituted an early form of collective ownership, that at Cissbury Ring near Worthing, point to the in which everything was held in common, has been importance of invasion and war in establishing the cause of much disagreement. Ownership had and re-establishing ownership over land. to develop over time – according to this view it Tribal ownership was widespread, with private was neither natural nor a given aspect of human ownership being limited to personal possessions existence. Such ideas have provided sustenance such as tools, clothes and weapons. Land for visionaries keen to re-make practices might be allotted for individual or family use but of ownership, from radical initiatives of the ownership would be temporary and tied into seventeenth century to contemporary community specifi c collective purposes, balancing individual, land trust schemes. Other biblical references family and social needs. Celtic organisation was have also bolstered these claims, such as that often quite hierarchical, and the ownership of found in Leviticus 25, which invoked the ‘jubilee’ cattle could confer status, but, again, there was whereby, every 50 years, land was re-distributed a very restricted sense in which ‘ownership’ back to its original dispersed owners, thus helping was exerted over the land. Celtic communities to avoid the dangers of large concentrations of cultivated small fi elds and lynchets well into Roman ownership (Chase, 1990). Critics of this view times (for example, Morton, 1938; Denman, have argued that such religiously inspired claims 1958; Kiernan, 1976; Cunliffe, 1988, 2005).

10 Historical overview In the early years of the fi rst millennium, the powerful land-owning organisations. By the expanding Roman Empire affi rmed the importance tenth century, groups of dependent tenants of conquest to the development of ownership were a feature of many estates. Prior to the rights. In theory, emperors appropriated land Norman Conquest in 1066, England had been which was then leased back to tenants or given unifi ed under a single monarch with rights of to loyal subjects and soldiers in the Roman army. property increasingly protected. An expansion of This enabled taxes to be levied and helped the population and trade stimulated the development empire to establish control over vast geographical of towns (Campbell, John and Wormald, 1991; areas. Ownership could be bestowed as a favour Pipes, 1999; Blair, 2000, 2003; Hindley, 2006). to ensure obedience and authority and a means to generate an income. As the empire waned, Feudalism these rights of ownership and control were increasingly challenged by those at the margins With the Norman invasion William the Conqueror of the empire (Cunliffe, 1988; Salway, 2000). appropriated all land which was to be held The gradual emergence of more complex by tenants on feudal terms. He ordered the communities that traded with one another gave compilation of what came to be called the rise to a division of labour and merchants began Domesday Book in order to survey the extent to amass wealth. In time, a new ‘ruling class’ and value of ownership for the purposes of tax would organise a militia to protect their property, collection: it was claimed that ‘there was no single and rules would be developed to justify this hide nor a yard of land, nor indeed one ox nor one ownership. Land itself increasingly became a cow nor one pig which was left out’ – including private commodity that could be inherited, bought land, buildings, woodland, animals, machinery and sold, although examples of common land and and fi shing waters. In future years this would give collective production would endure. In this way rise to arguments about a ‘Norman Yoke’ which the right to bear arms, secure justice and protect shattered the image of a wide-ranging Anglo- property were interrelated in their development. Saxon distribution of ownership and concentrated The origin of the state was, indeed, closely related it in the hands of William’s lords. This claim would to these roles and represented a response to inspire radical ideas right into the nineteenth emergent class relations (Engels, 1942). century (Hill, 1958; Domesday Book Online, 2010). From the middle of the fi fth century, with the As ownership was vested in lords, a feudal breakdown of the Roman Empire, Angle and system developed. Feudalism covers a wide Saxon invaders laid waste to many settlements variety of practices over a long time span but, and formed kingdoms in which clan ownership for the majority of the population, the crucial developed. Uncleared common lands existed experience revolved around the power of the lord alongside cultivated arable fi elds, some farmed over his estate. In order for lands to be exploited by the free peasant, or ‘ceorl’, who was most effectively, a measure of unequal reciprocity had prominent in the sixth and seventh centuries. to develop. Although lords might exert absolute ‘Hides’ of land could be owned individually but and arbitrary power, they also depended upon also worked co-operatively by sharing oxen and effectively harnessing the labour and skills of ploughing open fi elds. At a time when populations their dependent peasants. These interdependent were dispersed across the countryside, co- relations enabled the poor to extract gains, for operative arrangements could help to meet instance, in the form of land which they could common needs. Ownership of land increased work for themselves in return for labouring on as monarchs began to distribute ‘manors’ to estate and Church property. By the thirteenth their supporters and to the Church following century, there had been some development of the conversion to Christianity from AD 597. Early individual landed property and Norman rulers monasteries were established so that clerics would gradually become subject to the powers of could develop their work in the countryside property-owning commoners. The entanglements and these would later expand into much more and arguments which resulted from disputes over

Historical overview 11 ownership were closely related to the development of common law and the proliferation of a legal also carried out charitable work. Membership profession (Schlatter, 1951; Macfarlane, 1978). of a guild could confer signifi cant benefi ts. The Church became a powerful institution The more wealthy merchant guilds attempted which owned considerable amounts of land and to limit excessive taxation and control property. Although clerics served their lords, commerce and trade, by ensuring that a Christian doctrine helped to establish a set of travelling merchant was not dispossessed social expectations and constraints in relation of his goods by local leaders. Some English to the rights and responsibilities of property merchant guilds developed into local ownership, which involved both stewardship government, and guild members became and accountability to divine authority. Gratian’s involved in civic affairs. Guilds came to Decretum, a highly signifi cant twelfth-century legal dominate manufacturing, marketing and document, held that the origins of private property trade in many areas. Larger guilds also arose from sin and iniquity. Christians used the owned property that still exists today as in idea of original communal property, given by God the guildhalls that can be found in places to all, in justifying charitable acts and giving alms such as Windsor and Cambridge. to the poor. Charitable ownership of such assets Many guilds were deeply religious and as land and buildings was established, usually members viewed them as a collective vehicle as a result of endowments made by wealthy for salvation and eternal redemption. For individuals. Such bequests were often the result example, the livery companies of London, of a desire to prove one’s personal worth to God started in the thirteenth and fourteenth and to fulfi l one’s Christian duty to help the poor centuries, were a means of helping members but may have served more earthly and prosaic through the perceived dangers of purgatory. interests as well. The education and care of those Alongside work, religion and politics, guilds ‘in need’ were key motivations that resulted in also fulfi lled a fraternal function and were charitable ownership of hospitals, almshouses and involved in religious festivals and social schools. The case for charity was also integrated occasions. Guilds could serve as a form of into daily life. Augustine developed the notion of extended family, especially after the Black the ‘just price’ in the sixth century, but it would Death, which decimated many families. not become prominent for another 500 years, Guilds would endure into the nineteenth when it was credited to Albertus Magnus and St century, although by then they had declined Thomas Aquinas. There were many interpretations considerably. In the late eighteenth century of a fair exchange but the idea in part depended the political economist Adam Smith had upon enabling the poor to live reasonably within complained of their ‘usurped privileges’ and a given social hierarchy. Ownership brought argued that they inhibited ‘free competition’ social duties and responsibilities so that prices (Smith, 1776, p. 227). Critics of industrial could be agreed according to labour and other capitalism would also come to question necessary costs that were associated with the the way in which guilds embedded fi nely graded hierarchical relationships and managed labour markets to the detriment Case study: Guilds of their subordinates. In a changing social and economic context guilds could also Medieval craft guilds are generally considered become inward looking and focused on to have developed in England during the fi ghting other guilds for a declining territory twelfth century They established norms and – a problem that would be faced by some standards in terms of prices, employment, mutual organisations in the twentieth century apprenticeships and sickness benefi ts, and (Thrupp, 1942, 1989; Richardson, 2008).

12 Historical overview production of a given commodity. The right of King, the leaders were executed and feudal the poor to subsistence in times of famine was powers were re-established. But the Peasants’ widely accepted and, in some cases, this even Revolt was indicative of widespread anger justifi ed the poor appropriating what they needed. at the underlying relations and distribution Medieval guilds would also attempt to control of land ownership. It signalled a gradual production and trade through a range of regulatory ‘freeing’ of peasants which would, in time, mechanisms (de Roover, 1958; Claeys, 1987). mark the slow demise of the feudal system. Religious sects were to challenge what they In the process of the breakdown of feudal perceived to be watered-down Christianity. relationships, ideas about ownership of the They demanded a return to the original state land and other natural resources would continue of common property; for example, across to surface in various guises. With the decline Europe, Manicheans, Albigensians, Vaudois of feudalism came the increasing enclosure and Lollards each propagated this idea. The and ‘improvement’ of land for private purposes, Lollards, under the sway of the ideas of the which became an enduring area of contention. Oxford theologian John Wyclif (1324–84), For example, Thomas More’s Utopia (1516) challenged the perceived extravagance of church drew attention to the injustices of land enclosures wealth and argued that ‘dominion is of grace’ which stole the people’s wealth and argued and that power should reside with God rather that private property was the cause of sin. than in worldly goods which the Church was More held that land should be common property seen to be amassing. The distribution of his and believed that, ‘… where nothing is private … vernacular Bible would enable wider constituencies [men] seriously concern themselves with to participate in such debates and ‘poor priests’ public affairs … where everything belongs to were sent out to preach this popular message everybody … the individual will lack nothing for his although, after a failed rebellion in 1414, the private use … Though no man has anything, yet all Lollards were forced to organise through informal are rich’ (p. 238). Such ideas also fed into underground networks. continuing rebellions against the enclosure of The ideas of the Lollards had also been common land, such as that led by Robert Kett infl uential during the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, in 1549 when the city of Norwich was captured. which was not just a response to the punitive Kett claimed that peasants were imprisoned by the poll tax but was fought more generally around dual forces of land ownership and state issues of ownership and control. After the Black authority, stating that: Death (1348–50) peasants had benefi ted from the shortage of labour and improved conditions Rivers of riches ran into the coffers of your resulted. But many feared the loss of land granted landlords, while you are pair’d to the quick, and to them and resented having to work on Church fed upon pease and oats like beasts. You are land. They reacted against being tied to particular fl eeced by these landlords for their private estates: some attempted to move in search of benefi t, and as well kept under by the public better conditions, thus potentially upsetting the burdens of State wherein while the richer sort feudal balance. Rebels demanded the end of favour themselves, ye are gnawn to the very serfdom, the confi scation of Church land and bones. (Kett 1549) the removal of wage and other restrictions on labourers. In their demonstrations, under Wat While Kett’s rebellion was put down and Tyler and John Ball, they purposely destroyed the leaders killed, it refl ected a widespread land registers and protested against serfdom, dissatisfaction at the concentration of wealth tithes and game laws. Demonstrators were active in the hands of the rich at the expense of across much of southern England including peasant proprietorship and the common Cambridgeshire, Essex, Herefordshire, Kent, ownership of land (Hilton and Ashton, 1984; Norfolk, Somerset and Suffolk. Ultimately, the Hanawalt, 1986; Fletcher and MacCulloch uprising was quashed by the full force of the 1997; Hilton, 2003; Wood, 2007).

Historical overview 13 Early modern period In A Declaration from the Poor oppressed People of England, Directed To all that call themselves, New ideas about ownership emerged with the or are called, Lords of Manors, through this Reformation. The dissolution of monasteries in the Nation, Winstanley complained that land had sixteenth century marked a decline in property been appropriated through violence and theft: ownership by the Church and its redistribution to landlords. Gradually, medieval constraints on … the earth was not made purposely for you, to property ownership were modifi ed, for example, be Lords of it, and we to be your Slaves, in arguments that augmenting the wealth of Servants, and Beggers… For the power of the community as a whole could confer social inclosing Land, and owning Propriety, was and political benefi ts. In the years following the brought into the Creation by your Ancestors by English Civil War, property was again redistributed the Sword; which fi rst did murder their fellow to landlords and notions of private property Creatures, Men, and after plunder or steal away became more prominent. The growth of trade their Land, and left this Land successively to you, and larger settlements and increasing circulation their Children. (Winstanley, 1649) of money accompanied the concentration of ownership of resources (Schlatter, 1951). In The Law of Freedom in a Platform (1652), The tumultuous economic, religious and Winstanley would propose a community based political contexts of the sixteenth and seventeenth upon a combination of individual and collective centuries, prior to the English Civil War, generated production. In the immediate aftermath of further radical ideas and practices relating to the English Revolution, however, there was a collective and common ownership. The Levellers reaction against these ideas and persecution became inspired with constitutional ideas and forced radical groups underground (Hill, 1975). challenged the inequality of ownership in the Theories of property and ownership were Putney Debates of 1647. Although they wished also developed in the seventeenth century, to ‘set all things straight’, private property and notably by John Locke, now considered a ‘natural rights’ were still defended. Others would classic liberal thinker. His Second Treatise of push this position further. The Anabaptist Ranter Government, published in 1690, grappled with Abiezer Coppe looked forward to the overthrow Christian notions of ownership of land and, of all forms of hierarchy and property. Ranters although he claimed that God gave the earth were highly spiritual and aimed to connect to humanity in common, he downplayed social with God by forming a direct communion with obligations and defended secular notions of the people. Other well-known examples were private individual ownership which he conceived the Diggers and True Levellers who favoured of as a ‘natural right’. The origins of property lay common property. They had served in Oliver in the labour of humans in making land and other Cromwell’s New Model Army, an experience which resources productive. Exclusive ownership was led Gerrard Winstanley, a cloth merchant, and considered to be necessary to the production others, to question emerging forms of ownership. of wealth. Originally, the accumulation of Winstanley argued that the land had been created property had been limited by the amount that by God as a ‘common treasury’ and was not to an individual could utilise productively: be used for the benefi t of private individuals. In 1649, at St George’s Hill in Surrey, a small group As much as anyone can make use of to any symbolically occupied the land and proceeded advantage of life before it spoils, so much by his to grow crops. They hoped to establish a model labour he may fi x a property in. Whatever is that might generate further experiments and beyond this, is more than his share. ultimately transform society. Their actions were (Locke, 1988, p. 290) copied and adapted in many other settlements and their writings established an enduring vision ‘Enough and as good’ property was to be that the land should be available for common use. available for others. This became increasingly

14 Historical overview less possible with the concentration of ownership Certainly there was an active agrarian capitalism and Locke recognised the growing role of the in operation by the eighteenth century, a period state as a necessary evil to defend property which also saw the early growth of industrial and rights: ‘The great and chief end, therefore, urban spaces that would expand signifi cantly of men’s uniting into commonwealths, and over the following century. In the process, putting themselves under government, is the landed wealth fused with capitalist ownership Preservation of their Property’ (Locke, 1988, to create new social formations. For centuries, pp. 350–1). These ideas on ownership were colonial exploits had provided considerable closely connected to the development of capital to invest in infrastructure, agriculture ‘freedom’. Ownership of property came to be and new forms of production such as textiles. associated not only with possession but also The enclosures of common land, which those ‘inalienable rights’ with which people were dated back to the medieval period, had greatly ‘naturally endowed’, including one’s life and liberty. accelerated in the eighteenth century, and would Both radicals and conservatives would draw be supported by acts of Parliament. Harnessing sustenance from these claims in future years. technical inventions and new forms of power, Notwithstanding these changes, historical particularly steam, facilitated economic production continuities were evident in informal traditions and and social relationships based on waged labour. customary experiences. After the seventeenth Labourers would experience continuing bouts of century, ideas of ‘fair price’ were increasingly deskilling and dispossession as some ‘cottage’ marginalised, but persisted at a subterranean level industries, notably weaving, were replaced by and occasionally surfaced in times of famine. For factory production. The spread of capitalist example, E. P. Thompson identifi ed a notion of ownership was matched by a re-organisation of ‘moral economy’ in eighteenth-century agrarian welfare, graphically evidenced by the 1834 Poor society, when rural labourers exercised certain Law which abolished outdoor relief and instituted rights and invoked notions of fairness. When faced a draconian welfare regime based on workhouses with economic hardship, some farmers attempted (Thompson, 1968; Hobsbawm, 1969). to sell their produce abroad, but were prevented by The introduction of capitalist social relations groups who seized the produce and sold it at a fair was a complex and continuously evolving process price in the local market, returning the income to that would re-confi gure the nature of ownership the farmer. Implicitly and explicitly such practices and cause major social and economic dislocation. operated as a critique of emerging capitalist Indeed, the resulting social relationships could relations. Thompson also speculated that the appear as a fl agrant breach of personal and social moral economy continued to resonate in working- expectations to those whose lives were being class organisations throughout the nineteenth turned upside down. Radical and working-class and twentieth centuries, and was lingered on for movements emerged in response to this new years in the bowels of the Co-operative Wholesale situation and identifi ed ownership as a pivotal Society (Thompson, 1971, p. 136; 1975, 1976). issue. Land remained a crucial factor for many critics of industrialism. The infl uential radical Industrial revolution and capitalism schoolmaster, Thomas Spence, argued that making ‘…all the land … the common stock or During the nineteenth century, ownership would property of the parish’ would render landlords be transformed with the development of an extinct and transform them ‘from nests of industrial capitalist society. Capitalism developed worthless devouring drones to families of wealthy over many centuries and was predicated upon active citizens’ (Spence, 1982; Chase, 1988). By the break-up of feudal relations that had been contrast the journalist and radical conservative dominated by the Church and landowners. The campaigner, William Cobbett, eulogised a emergence of ‘free’ individuals who traded in a traditional image of the small, independent marketplace and developed new forms of factory yeoman farmer but also viewed private property production was achieved in a piecemeal fashion. in contingent and partial terms. If families found

Historical overview 15 themselves destitute through no fault of their own, were run by grounded visionaries who connected Cobbett argued for a return of ‘the law of nature’ in the detail of economic and organisational which ‘men possess things in common’ (Cobbett, development to wider visions of economic and 1829, letter 1). This was the moment when the social change. Friendly societies enabled the French Revolution was impacting across Europe poor to contribute to funeral, unemployment and it stimulated radical proposals as well or sickness expenses, while co-operatives as conservative reactions in relation to ownership. distributed unadulterated food at fair prices and From these beginnings, a long set of contested building societies made it possible for a group of debates about the nature of industrialism would people to build themselves houses. Trade unions develop (Williams, 1958; Thompson 1968). also emerged in the early nineteenth century, Similar doubts occupied the mind of developing from a position of illegality but achieving Robert Owen, an enlightened capitalist-turned- a level of respectability by the middle of the century. socialist who helped to establish communities Taken together, these forms of union enabled on the land in Britain and America in the early members to pool fi nancial resources, property nineteenth century. ‘Villages of co-operation’ and labour. In doing so, they began the process of were to provide a model for the re-making of humanising harsh lives and fraught social relations. human relations based on communal ownership. Such societies were initially most successful in Although short-lived ventures, as with other such the industrialising towns and cities where, after experiments of the early nineteenth century, these 1850, more regular forms of employment would communities contributed to a radical ferment of develop. Mutual enterprises experienced almost ideas and practices that questioned prevailing uninterrupted growth so that, by the end of the ideas about ownership. Owenism not only century, the co-operative movement could be looked to the past as a source of ideas but also described as a ‘state within a state’. Working embraced a sense of the potential that was being men’s clubs had also been formed across the unleashed by new forms of power and social country, many of which federated into the Club organisation. Harsh criticisms of the way in which and Institute Union, formed by Revd Henry Solly industrialism was developing were accompanied by a recognition that new possibilities were emerging (Harrison, 1969; Claeys, 1987, 1989). Case study: Early growth In fact, the fi rst half of the nineteenth century of co-operative societies was marked by a myriad of social and political experiments by marginalised communities From the late eighteenth century there were searching for solutions to the economic and social many experiments in co-operative production, crises they faced. In the late 1830s, a number consumption and agriculture. But it was not of initiatives fused into the Chartist movement until 1844 that the fi rst successful model was which fought for democratic political reform while created by the Rochdale Pioneers when a retaining ideas of access to the land. The latter group of weavers began selling unadulterated impulse found expression in the Chartist Land food in contrast to other shopkeepers who, Plan, that aimed to settle individuals and families for example, regularly added chalk to fl our. on smallholdings. Although political solutions The dividend enabled profi ts to be returned were blocked, as the Chartists found to their cost, to members according to their purchases. social and economic avenues gradually became In this way they established a stable available as successful forms of collective self-help organisation which aligned self-interest with were established to meet needs and assuage the common purposes and collective growth. effects of poverty, unemployment and exploitation. Co-operatives thus built trust among their Co-operative and mutual associations pioneered members. In some co-operatives, women new structures of ownership based on pooling were able to join in their own right and the individual shares that could be paid gradually over Pioneers would pay the dividend to women. a period of time. These democratic local societies The attention to detail also connected to

16 Historical overview in 1862. Their early philanthropic aims included larger purposes and visions. For example, education and political representation, and they the Objects of the Pioneers stated their aim eschewed alcohol. This gradually changed as to ‘re-arrange the powers of production, clubs evolved into social organisations (Cole, 1944; distribution, education, and government, or Price, 1958; Bonner, 1961; Gosden, 1961, 1973; in other words to establish a self-supporting Birchall, 1994; Cordery, 2003; Chase, 2007). home colony of united interests’. Self-help In addition to self-help, charitable means of and social change went hand-in-hand. ‘helping others’ also grew signifi cantly. In the They devoted 2½ per cent of their profi ts to eighteenth century, voluntary hospitals were educational purposes including libraries, established and frequently operated as charitable reading rooms, classes and laboratories. organisations. During the nineteenth century, Co-operative development was to depend on the number of charities multiplied in the face of the education of members themselves – this increased levels of visible hardship. Reforming was their key resource. Leaders were elected the character of the working classes in order to democratically by members; irrespective foster independence and respectability became a of shareholdings, all had only one vote. In growing preoccupation of the churches and local this way, power in co-operatives was shifted elites, whose philanthropy rewarded the ‘deserving from capital, which received fi xed returns, to poor’ and served as a means of regulating members who wielded collective control. labour. However, the way in which charitable After the mid-nineteenth century, co- work was carried out on the ground could vary operative and mutual enterprises would expand considerably. Charity offered middle-class women, exponentially; by the early twentieth century in particular, a way of engaging with public activity, there were 1,500 independent co-operative and it has been estimated that, by the end of the societies. As a whole the ‘co-op’ became nineteenth century, half a million women were Britain’s most popular retailer, backed up by a regularly involved in some form of charitable work. lifelong loyalty among members. Nor had the Some charities developed through a branch hopes of widespread social and economic structure and derived income from subscriptions transformation dissipated; these movements and donations (Owen, 1965; Alvey, 1995). gave rise to confi dent claims that all institutions, The problems of industrial capitalism increased the whole of society, could be re-made along in scale as the century progressed. The late democratic co-operative lines in which the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries witnessed consumers owned and controlled resources. a growing concern about the moral and social The co-op utilised a branch structure and effects of what Arnold Toynbee termed the developed a vertically integrated chain of ‘industrial revolution’. Poverty, inequality and businesses to great effect. It developed a highly exploitation all exercised an increasing number of innovative business organisation engaged in concerned middle-class commentators. They met production with a chain of factories, transport the burgeoning working-class movement with a networks – including international shipping – mixture of fear and respect. From the 1880s, social wholesaling through the Co-operative concerns were exacerbated by the development Wholesale Society, banking through the of militant trade unionism and openly socialist Co-operative Bank, insurance through the movements, which further questioned structures Co-operative Insurance Society, agriculture of ownership. The gradual enfranchisement of and other business operations. This was wider sections of the population, from 1867, achieved through aggregating the buying had led to calls to ‘educate our new masters’, power of individual consumers into societies a phase commonly attributed to Robert Lowe. that in turn federated with one another – for Moreover, the voluntary impulse was to come example, Scotland had its own wholesale under increasing scrutiny in the early twentieth society. At the base of this structure was the century. Critics would argue that the voluntary individual member who shopped at the co-op. effort of charitable organisations was inadequate

Historical overview 17 to address the needs of the poor, who were also example, translating the medieval system of guilds not always in a position to make the required to modern conditions became a preoccupation fi nancial contribution to mutual organisations. of the National Guilds League, formed in 1915. New developments in ownership would Guild socialists argued for a greater level of become apparent in the twentieth century. workers’ control of industry through trade- Capitalism had expanded signifi cantly through based guilds, as outlined in books by G. D. H. the proliferation of the joint-stock company. Cole, including Self-Government in Industry Control and ownership of industry were becoming (1917) and Guild Socialism Restated (1920). separate in large integrated companies (Berle In addition, the distribution of land ownership and Means, 1968; Gamble and Kelly, 1996). In continued to exercise Liberals in the early twentieth the place of owners, managers were appointed century. For example, Winston Churchill, as a to run companies. Their primary focus became Liberal, would propose taxes on the ‘unearned the extraction of value for shareholders, and increment’ of landed wealth where the owner investments were increasingly made on fi nancial simply sat on derelict or unused land but benefi ted grounds alone. In addition, the greatly expanding from the uplift in value created by others: imperialist state imposed British ownership over considerable swathes of the globe as A portion, in some cases the whole, of every part of the late-nineteenth-century ‘scramble benefi t which is laboriously acquired by the for Africa’ and other colonial adventures. community is represented in the land value, and Mounting social problems and the poor fi nds its way automatically into the landlord’s health of working people, exposed during the pocket. (Churchill, 1909) Boer War (1899–1902), contributed to a growing body of opinion which supported greater state Churchill here picked up on a common theme – action. In politics, the Liberal governments after that absolute rights of ownership should be 1906 introduced social insurance, pensions, limited according to public need and the school meals and other welfare measures; common good. This approach sought to divorce these represented a shift from the liberal ownership of land from ownership of other forms individualism of the nineteenth century to a of activity such as housing. It fed into a number of sense of collectivism and ‘new liberalism’ of the continuing small-scale experiments on the land, early twentieth. Although these reforms did not some of which were supported with legislation. intentionally inhibit voluntary effort, this was, in Notably, co-partnership and the garden city part, the effect they had, and community and movement attempted to bring investment and mutual modes of thought and practice would be membership together in the construction of gradually marginalised. Welfare legislation also new housing (Buder, 1990; Meacham, 1999). connected to lively debates about the role of Despite the constraints on these ideals, co- the state among socialists: in opposition to the operative and voluntary principles were extended revolutionary thinking of groups such as the Social to many new areas of life. In education, the Democratic Federation, the ‘Fabians’ had adopted Workers’ Educational Association was established a more incremental mode of change and became by a former co-operative employee, Albert interested in effi ciency and planning in social and Mansbridge, as a mutual network of learners economic life (Harris, 1993). But this was actively who regulated themselves democratically and debated by co-operators as well as anarchists, gained state funding for university-level seminar such as Peter Kropotkin, who were wary of groups. Residential colleges were established for encroaching state action (Kropotkin, 1987/1902). working people, most notably Ruskin College, Morevover, the industrial workplace was as well as labour colleges which offered more also a strongly contested fi eld during the inter- politicised forms of adult education. Although war years, epitomised by the 1926 General leisure became increasingly commercialised and Strike, and one aspect of this was a resurgence professionalised, musical, theatrical and sports of interest in workers’ control of industry. For clubs would proliferate across the country. The

18 Historical overview co-op would also organise cultural groups and agencies took on many of the roles previously venture into fi lm, theatre and even pageants that played by charities – this was one answer to the fi lled Wembley Stadium. However, this profusion unevenness and lack of co-ordination within of voluntary, charitable and co-operative activity the voluntary system which had depended was not to be incorporated into initiatives relating upon legacies and donations as opposed to to ownership in the aftermath of the Second a universal contributory system (Abel-Smith, World War (Williams 1977; Roberts, 2003; 1964; Gorsky and Mohan, 2001; Judt, 2007). Wilson and Woodin, 2003; Woodin, 2007). The nationalisation of ‘natural monopolies’ was also a feature of the post-1945 period and Post-1945 led to state control of what would later come to be called ‘the commanding heights’ of the economy, The context of the Second World War and for instance, telecommunications, railways, the widespread impetus for signifi cant social electricity, water and gas, although other sectors, democratic transformation to address the ‘fi ve such as the steel industry, would be the cause of giants’ of ‘Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor ongoing division and debate. This was referred to and Idleness’, dominated debates about post- as ‘common ownership’ on behalf of the people war society. William Beveridge’s Social Insurance as a whole. Nationalised industries were to be run and Allied Services (1942) is typically presented in the ‘public interest’ and, in many cases, came as a key document leading to the ‘welfare state’, to be perceived as ‘public services’ rather than a phrase which came into widespread use after businesses. Indeed, many of these industries 1945. Beveridge was a liberal who advocated that would struggle in the face of the dismantling of services should provide a ‘national minimum’ but the empire and the growing power of America also actively supported voluntarism and did not and other European nations such as France and foresee the role that state would come to play. Germany. In some cases the state took on what One of three ‘guiding principles’, heavily gendered, were failing industries and, for a number of years, was that ‘social security must be achieved by it was argued by sympathisers that they were co-operation between the state and the individual’: being run effi ciently. Critics on the right tended to emphasise that they represented an unfair form of The State should not stifl e incentive, opportunity, competition for private industry which, if given the responsibility; in establishing a national minimum chance, would operate them more productively. it should leave room and encouragement for Certain sections of the left also came to argue voluntary action by each individual to provide that this form of nationalisation was too centrally more than that minimum for himself and his driven and merely mimicked capitalist industry family. (Beveridge, 1942, pp. 6–7) rather than developing popular participation (Robson, 1960; Sked and Cook, 1993). The state was to be the central player in the Further challenges and opportunities for reconstruction of the post-war world. The years community and mutual ownership would become after 1945 until the 1970s are often referred to apparent as the post-war consensus came as a period of political ‘consensus’ in terms under strain in the late 1960s and 1970s. Critics of managing a mixed economy through both from both left and right questioned the post- state and private means. There had been war settlement. Major inroads against absolute growing calls to regulate and plan capitalism poverty had been made but, by the late 1960s, during the inter-war years but now ownership it was being ‘re-discovered’ in new guises. The solutions came to the fore in order to help avoid radicalised generation of the late 1960s developed economic depression and provide universal an interest in the idea of alternatives and libertarian services. Labour governments established experiments which would have a widespread social services and the National Health Service, infl uence in the coming years. Feminist groups which had the effect of taking voluntary hospitals pursued a number of social, self-help and political into state ownership. As a result, state welfare objectives, such as alternative living experiments

Historical overview 19 and childcare co-operatives, based on a mixture to lift restraints on the ownership of private capital of social engagement and an expanding sense and ‘roll back the frontiers of the state’ in order to of personal expression and entitlement. Self-help encourage competition and deregulation across was often connected to extracting benefi ts from society. This facilitated the further ‘fi nancialisation’ the state and transforming public services along of British capitalism and encouraged fi nancial more democratic and accountable lines. The capital to play a greater role. At the same time idea of being ‘in and against the state’ became regulatory activity was increasing in scope through popular and a ‘vision of democratic forms of the strategic use of ‘quangos’. As state activity social ownership’ fl ared up in the imaginations of was reconfi gured, the debate between ‘public’ activists, for example, devolving resources and and ‘private’ was often not subtle enough to power from welfare services to staff and the public capture the complexities of ‘a strong state and – ideas that would briefl y fi nd a home in the radical a free market’ (Gamble, 1994; Hutton, 1995). years of the Greater London Council during the These developments also contributed to 1980s (London Edinburgh Weekend Return Group, a process of globalisation in which powerful 1980; Rowbotham, 1983; Wainwright, 2003). transnational corporations would actively infl uence The 1960s and 1970s also witnessed the governments to pursue neo-liberal market policies growth of environmental ideas and ‘green’ and reduce the ‘social wage’ and public benefi ts movements concerned to conserve and which were perceived to be a drain on resources. protect the world’s natural resources such as From 1989, mutual organisations received a Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. The Limits critical blow with the demutualisation of many to Growth, commissioned by the Club of Rome building societies. At the same time, public service in the early 1970s, argued that increasing levels hierarchical organisations have increasingly of population would exhaust the world’s fi nite concerned themselves with the effi cient ‘delivery’ resources. It would not be possible to produce of services in order to meet targets, maximise limitless wealth. This represented a fundamental effi ciency and gain investment. In the process challenge to the assumptions of capitalist the social purpose and ability of the public to accumulation and creation of wealth. It focused infl uence those services has become a hotly attention on systematic and global approaches contested issue. Certain geographical locations as well as longer-term historical trends that have suffered more than others and it is often have become a familiar part of contemporary in those areas most affected that ‘community debates on climate change. The approach ownership’ may be seen as a panacea to a range would challenge many post-enlightenment of problems that have causes elsewhere. assumptions on ownership which placed human activity in sharp contrast to nature. Conclusion However, these concerns would not command widespread attention for decades. The political Contemporary forms of ownership took a long trend to the right in the 1980s re-focused upon time to develop. Each historical phase outlined other issues and refl ected a number of shifts in above reveals a wide array of community and relation to ownership. State ‘common ownership’ mutual ownership: was undermined by the privatisation of utilities such as trains, telecommunications, gas and • Collective and common ownership was electricity which were sold off at a discount and widespread in many early societies, including dissipated into individual and institutional share tribal organisation and the communal use of ownership. For a time the idea of a ‘share-owning land. The meaning of ‘ownership’ here implied democracy’ received attention and a greater a temporary right of access and use rather number of people became shareholders, although than absolute control or an authority to ignore this was a short-lived phenomenon as the shares wider communal needs. Appropriation, war tended to be bought up by institutional investors. and invasion by Romans and Anglo-Saxons Margaret Thatcher’s governments were also keen helped to establish rights of ownership. Legal

20 Historical overview ownership of land and resources that could be would itself be undermined by criticisms that traded and inherited would emerge over time, the state was unresponsive to public needs yet, in some historical instances, ownership and an ineffective manager of resources. The could remain diffused and widespread. A continuing growth of community and mutual particular type of communal ownership ownership in a number of areas was marginal evolved in monasteries under the framework to mainstream developments but has received of the Church. Overall, considerable variations a growing recognition in a number of areas. in land ownership persisted for centuries. By the twenty-fi rst century, social and economic • The theory of feudal relations hid many changes had created a situation where public complexities of ownership and belonging. services had been stripped back while the The dominion of the lord over his estate dominance of the capitalist fi rm had been was tempered by the availability of common enhanced. In the pursuit of shareholder value, and peasant-cultivated tracts of land as other concerns and priorities have been well as by notions of stewardship, charity disregarded. Even a company such as and responsibility to the poor. The poor Cadbury, with a long local history in the West themselves also challenged what they Midlands, succumbed to a hostile take- perceived to be inequitable forms of ownership over bid – the fi duciary duty to shareholders and increased their freedom of movement confl icting directly with a long-term sense and ownership of land where possible – at of social responsibility to employees and times this erupted into open rebellion. communities. Structures of ownership may not always be visible or signifi cant, yet, at • During the early modern period, ideas of particular historical moments, they are crucial. freedom and property went hand in hand The concentration of land ownership and with the gradual enclosure of common land of other assets has been a constant historical as well as radical proposals for common theme. Through conquest, war, enclosure and widely distributed ownership of land. and capital accumulation, common forms of ownership were gradually whittled away until • The spread of capitalism and industrialism relatively few people controlled the vast majority was based on the ownership of capital that of resources. The long-term consequences of could be invested in industrial and other this are not yet clear. The reduction in spaces speculative concerns. One response to and resources commonly available, and the the harsh conditions that ensued was the prescription of ‘the commons’, is an indicator growth of autonomous charitable and mutual of growing inequality which has lessened the organisations, many of which utilised the capacity available for improving society as a ownership of capital and land for collective whole. In addition, the contraction of the commons and mutual benefi t. This represented an has now extended across international borders and application of the notion of ‘the commons’ inequality between countries has become marked. to a changed historical context. However, But it is a process that may be unsustainable as the scale of social problems grew, calls in the long term. Unless the accumulation of for state intervention would become more ownership is halted, then further collapses, on a prominent by the early twentieth century. much greater scale than the recent credit crunch, may be expected in the future. There are some • The role of charitable and co-operative forms signs of a realisation that alternative forms of of ownership was to be undercut, especially ownership offer a way out of this impasse (Gates, after 1945 with the development of ‘common 1998; Jackson, 2009; Blond, 2009; Wilkinson and ownership’ and ‘public services’ as a way of Pickett, 2010; Mulgan, 2010). A limited number meeting social and economic needs. But, of companies have transformed themselves into from the 1970s, the faith in ‘public ownership’ community interest companies, of which there

Historical overview 21 are approximately 900 with a turnover of £300m (NCVO, 2009). Recent proposals have even suggested that all companies might eventually transform themselves into social enterprises (Blond, 2009) and it has been advocated that:

It’s not only the right thing to do morally, it’s also a good thing to do for business. You have incredible intelligence from people at all different levels of an organisation and if you can really build their loyalty and their motivation for the benefi t of the company, then you will have a market advantage... (Holbrook, 2010)

Although this development is not likely to occur in the short term, history does offer resources for hope and understanding. This report presents some broad-based historical changes in the nature of community and mutual ownership. But it would be a mistake to see this as inevitable at all stages, whether negatively, as with the inexorable destruction of the commons or, more positively, with the rise of parliamentary democracy. Indeed, if we focus on any particular period of history it is possible to identify countervailing forces to the dominant developments outlined above. In addition, there is currently a wariness of grand schemes of unrestrained capitalism and state- directed socialism, both of which have paid limited attention to popular participation and ownership. The contemporary historical juncture is marked by a search for alternatives that can combine democratic control, economic effi ciency and social justice. This is no small task. The next section of this report identifi es a means for the wider dissemination and discussion of these historical transformations in relation to current debates on community and mutual ownership.

22 Historical overview 3 Models of community and mutual ownership

The diversity and long history of ownership ideas and practices which are still in constant mean that community and mutual forms cannot fl ux. Each of them is summarised in Table 1. be charted in a straightforward way. As already stated, it is not a neat category with crystal Common and customary ownership clear meaning but rather a mechanism to identify the broad historical terrain of ownership. The existence of common land is in some ways Based on the foregoing historical narrative, we a residual category of ownership which relates outline fi ve models of ownership which might back to a manorial and feudal organisation of be characterised as ‘community and mutual’ in society. In the sense of common implying ‘no one sense or another: common and customary; ownership’, it could also be considered an original community; co-operative and mutual; charitable; form from which other variants of ownership and municipal and state ownership. Some of derived. ‘Rights in common’ have been held these models bundle together a wide range of by groups of people, in some cases benefi ting

Table 1. Models of community and mutual ownership

Form of Purpose/drivers Scale Control and Timeline ownership democracy

Common and May be ‘common’ Access to land, Essential to the Legal ownership Dates from early customary with no owners and use rights to land livelihood of often separate human existence, ownership rights in common owned by others. the bulk of the from use rights especially established by Economic and population for which were manorial custom or law. social purposes. centuries. Much established organisation. Assets owned by Contemporary reduced since through practice Residual form of individuals/groups forms from late c18. Still current, and precedent. ownership but but which allow c19 to provide e.g. national and Now regulated by still signifi cant. wider access and access to public parks, law. Volunteers Recent changes use, e.g. parks, common heritage 2,300 sq miles may have a role in ‘right to roam’ village greens, and recreation. of common land in managing national parks Strong feelings (England and of ownership Wales 2007)

Community Eclectic. Small- Self-help groups, Community Informal control, Long history of ownership scale local community groups by often by small informal groupings ownership e.g. development, far the most groups within which met for allotments, as alternative living numerous form of communities. social, political, well as larger- and regeneration. organisation but Participation self-help reasons. scale projects, May meet specifi c generally small- in community Communal e.g. development individual and/or scale. c21: over development living from early trusts. Range collective needs 600,000 informal and charities population groups of community as well as acting organisations to the present initiatives, e.g. as alternatives Owenites, Chartists, settlements. Also short-lived and individual ownership in particular contexts Continued on p. 24

Models of community and mutual ownership 23 Continued from p. 23 Co-operative Aggregated Self-help, meeting Highly signifi cant Direct member Older and larger and mutual individual members’ needs, from late c19 control in smaller organisations ownership ownership in based on values, and early c20. societies; larger from c19 as well collective, voluntary e.g. co-operative By 1940s mutuals with as many newer and democratic, statement of membership of professional staff forms. Legal e.g. consumer, identity. Some friendly societies and representative recognition worker, housing distribution of about 14m and democracy. from mid-c19. and agricultural co- dividends to co-ops 8m. Members may be Decline in c20 but ops; building and members and/ Total mutual workers, farmers, recent renewal friendly societies; or collective membership 59m consumers, football supporters’ purposes and over 23m tenants and others trusts, employee individuals (2009) ownership Charitable Ownership To support those Widespread form Range from Long history – ownership by charitable in need. Religious, utilised by voluntary informal, small charity organised or voluntary altruistic and groups. Charitable groups to informally for organisation, often social drivers. status also structured and millennia. with asset lock. May Increasingly being popular because professional Charity law be on behalf of a re-defi ned by of tax situation. charities. from c16/c17 wider community the participation 171,000 general Separation of and related to a of benefi caries charities (2007) trustees and particular issue or themselves. benefi ciaries related to parent Service provision (and staff). May business, e.g. and self-help. involve deliberative charities, foundation, Philanthropy democracy and welfare and diversifying participation educational initiatives

Municipal and Local/central state Deliver services, Signifi cant areas Indirect public Municipal state ownership ownership, e.g. e.g. security, include health, control through experiments from public services, defence. education, periodic elections. late c19; growth nationalised Universalism and security, defence. State regulation of state services industries. common good. Regulatory and and/or direct and nationalisation Regulation of other State-run industry legal role in relation control. Scope for after 1945. Recent forms of ownership and utilities in to all forms of further democratic retreat from direct c20 ownership control and ownership. participation of users/public

from land that might be owned by others. For denying wider access left a deep scar in the centuries, common land helped to facilitate mentality of the ‘people’ throughout history. The economic survival and social networks through sense of injustice resulting from enclosure was fairs, markets and other events. At times these considerable and fed into alternative practices, relations surrounding ownership constituted notably during the seventeenth and early nineteenth a moral economy in which socially benefi cial centuries. The eighteenth- and nineteenth- expectations about the use of property for common century enclosure movement and highland benefi t were pervasive. These rights were not clearances in Scotland are still seen as examples always enshrined in statute law and a constant of illegitimate expropriation which reverberate battle of attrition took place over their boundaries, widely. Allotments were intended to compensate with many rival claims being pursued. The limited for the loss of common land although only a availability of land and resources meant that groups limited amount would be made available for this had to compete and co-operate in using it. purpose (Hill, 1975; Neeson, 1993; Mingay, 1997). The prevailing historical transformation, During the late nineteenth century, an interest in for at least the last 500 years, has been the common land emerged from a number of sources. encroachment of direct private ownership over Henry George advocated replacing taxation with a areas of once-common and ‘waste’ land. single tax on land values which might help to make Parcelling up land into private ownership and land ‘common property’ (George, 1880). Octavia

24 Models of community and mutual ownership Hill, a social reformer, artist and teacher, was a co- founder of the National Trust in 1895 and supported Case study: The National Trust the protection of historic buildings and open spaces so that they might be available to all: she The National Trust was founded in 1895 by asserted the common good over individual benefi t. the philanthropists Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Enclosures of remaining common land in her Hunter and Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley. own day added urgency to her cause as did fears Conservation was a major fi n de siècle about ‘the short-sighted cupidity of one generation theme, which also found expression in of rural commoners’ who might receive a ‘few the establishment of the Society for the coals at Christmas … in lieu of Common rights’: Protection of Ancient Buildings (1877), the National Footpaths Preservation One quarter of the land in England is owned by Society (1884), and the Royal Society only seven hundred and ten persons … is there for the Protection of Birds (1889). The to pass away from our people the sense that they organisation saw itself as a trustee for have any share in the soil of their native England? land and property made over to the nation I think the sense of owning some spaces of it in for the use and enjoyment of its citizens. common may be healthier for them than even the Octavia Hill had been the leading fi gure in possession of small bits by individuals and a campaign to save London’s Parliament certainly it now seems more feasible. Hill from property developers, and she (Hill, 1877, pp. 13–15) believed that the same spirit of support ‘would save many a lovely view or old The state had directly facilitated the enclosure ruin or manor-house from destruction of the commons but also came to play a wider and [preserve them] for the everlasting role in the recognition and regulation of common delight of thousands of the people of these land. Hill’s proposals fed into this development, islands’ (Hill, 1894). The National Trust’s as did those of the Land Nationalisation Society initial acquisitions were a cliff overlooking established by Alfred Russel Wallace and the sea at Barmouth, north Wales, and others in 1881 following his pamphlet, How several ancient and medieval remains. The to Nationalise the Land. This argued that the Times commented with satisfaction that: land should be held by the state in trust for the people (Land Nationalisation Society, 1892). The constitution of the National Trust is The drastic decline in common land has given such as to render its purchases secure to rise to continuing concerns to preserve what is the public for ever, and to place them even left. It is apparent that this residual presence is outside the control of municipal nevertheless signifi cant. Public parks, the national administration. No trees can be cut down parks and many common spaces still exist in except by legitimate forestry, no buildings Britain, in addition to approximately 5,000 town can be erected, no hideous and village greens in 2006. In total, there are advertisements for tooth powder or approximately 2,300 square miles of common land cigarettes can disfi gure the fair face of in England and Wales. In many areas, concerned nature. (The Times, 1901) local people battle to get collectively used land re-designated as a village green in order to protect A National Trust Act of 1907, expertly it from the ambitions of developers and secure drafted by Sir Robert Hunter, clarifi ed the its future use. In addition, in the year 2000, the legal process and was followed by further ‘right to roam’ was introduced and it has been legislation in 1937 which enabled the announced that public access will, in time, be Trust to accept the gift of country houses, granted to the whole British coastline. The state which, if accompanied with endowments in has been especially prominent in designating land or capital, would be free of tax. Such and managing larger areas of land such as arrangements were benefi cial to owners

Models of community and mutual ownership 25 The ‘enclosure of the commons’ has been a facing diffi culties in meeting the running costs persistent historical development. Common land for their estates and by relatives of former was eroded as part of agricultural ‘improvements’, owners, now facing death duties. sometimes to create landed estates for hunting and By the mid-twentieth century, the National other social reasons. However, the residual status Trust had become a major landowner, of common land should not blind us to the fact that benefi ting from the munifi cence of a then- it remains highly signifi cant, both in terms of the dwindling class of rich donors. Its interests now amount of land over which some form of common extended to sites dating from the industrial ownership exists, as well as the subjective feelings age, including mills and locomotive lines, as of ownership connected to that land. It also offers well as exercising protection over a number the potential to nurture a sense of the common of entire villages. With these responsibilities good by locking in the ownership and value of came criticisms that the Trust was sometimes land for community benefi t. In many of these behaving more like a Whitehall department than historical examples, rights of common have been a charity incorporated by Act of Parliament. held over privately owned land, an indication of the The signifi cant growth in National Trust contingent and provisional nature of ownership, as membership, from 226,200 in 1970 to well as the ways in which ownership and use could 500,000 in 1975 and one million in 1981, be separated in order to enhance a notion of the accompanied a more commercial strategy. common good. This perspective might be applied The Trust promoted sales of souvenirs, holiday to all forms of property and ownership in order lettings and consultancy work that provided to scrutinise whether there should be limitations a springboard for sustainability. The current on the ways in which an asset can be used or be membership totals around 3.5 million and visitor made available to a broader constituency. Building fi gures have been boosted by many further a sense of community ownership over resources high-profi le land and property acquisitions, could help to release new ideas and practices including the Victorian Tyntesfi eld Estate in about how they might be put to best use. Somerset (2002) and the Liverpool childhood homes of former Beatles’ band members Community ownership John Lennon and Paul McCartney (2002). The Trust now cares for over 612,000 acres Community ownership is our most eclectic of land in England, Northern Ireland and category of ownership, which encompasses a Wales. A similar organisation, the National wide variety of informal groupings that merge Trust of Scotland, has operated since 1931. into other models of ownership as well as the domestic and private sphere. Certainly at a local level, common, co-operative and mutual, and the national parks, coastline and other assets charitable ownership can be hard to distinguish. (Cabinet Offi ce, 2010). Intervening in a distorted Community ownership includes the formation land market on behalf of those who do not have of new communities, initiatives located within access to fi nance has been a further signifi cant geographical communities and communities development. Recently, the Community Right to of interest. Community ownership may refer to Buy in Scotland has given small communities, common and collective forms of ownership, who register an interest, fi rst refusal on the sale of as proposed in Thomas More’s Utopia (1516), land in order to bring it under community control as well as widespread individual ownership, in certain circumstances. Community land trusts as in James Harrington’s Commonwealth of have created a new form of common ownership Oceana (1656). Both aimed to avoid the dangers upon which a range of activities, such as housing of a single class of men controlling resources to and workspaces, may take place (Worpole and which others had little access. This oscillation Greenhalgh, 1995; Department for Environment, between individual and collective ownership is a Food and Rural Affairs, 2006; Clayden, 2007). recurrent theme.

26 Models of community and mutual ownership Continuing examples of communal living have years, the National Land Company had 70,000 been a feature of human existence. Practical shareholders who provided the capital to buy concerns for survival, the desire to live a ‘good over 1,000 acres with approximately 250 plots religious life’ and broader impulses for social on fi ve estates (Yeo, 1982; Chase, 1996). change have all motivated community living. For Moreover, communities were set up for artistic, example, tribal populations lived communally with mystical, idealistic and practical reasons in order to high levels of reciprocity. Within early monasteries pursue social purposes and alternative lifestyles. Benedictine Rule contributed to communal forms John Ruskin’s St George’s Fund, established in of ownership which forbade personal ownership 1871, bought land that could be used for affordable of possessions, bodies and even personal housing and to help revive fl agging rural industry. choices. Early Christian sects also established A number of initiatives took place, including one communities where they were able to devote on the hills above Sheffi eld, which started as an themselves to God and live without the burdens allotment scheme but turned into a land colony, of individual property ownership. The seventeenth recalled by the socialist Edward Carpenter: century saw the establishment of new approaches and demands for communal living in the Digger about a dozen … men calling themselves communities that sprang up across south-east Communists, mostly great talkers, had joined England during the seventeenth century. together with the idea of establishing themselves In the nineteenth century, socialists would on the land. emphasise the development of more equal human relationships, based on common and While many of these experiments proved dispersed patterns of ownership. Robert Owen short-lived, they have helped to sustain an and the Owenites established a number of interest in more collective ways of living. A ‘villages of co-operation’ as a means of contemporary example includes Laurieston Hall collectively re-making and humanising society. community in Scotland (Bunker, Coates and Communities were established at Orbiston in How, 1990; Coates, 2001; Whitefi eld, 2004). Scotland, New Harmony in the USA, Queenwood The interest in community building fed into the in Hampshire as well as Ralahine (1831–33) settlement movement of the late nineteenth and in Ireland, where tenant farmers established early twentieth centuries. To some extent these successful democratic committees until the estate were charitable initiatives but also refl ected a was lost to pay for gambling debts. In Owen’s frustration with the limitations of charity. University ‘New Moral World’ the social environment would settlements were established in such areas as form the basis for fairer human relationships. the East End of London and Manchester in order Communities struggled to live up to these high to ‘assert fellowship with the poor’ and move expectations and suffered from the paternalistic away from ‘old forms of benevolence’ that ‘were overtones of wealthy investors and donors as often patronising in character’ and, when run well as the diffi culty in equalising relationships on sectarian lines, fostered a ‘party bitterness’ between men and women (Harrison, 1969; (Barnett, 1898). These early conscious attempts Garnett, 1972; Taylor, 1983; Claeys, 1989). at social mixing were partially successful and At a similar time the Chartists, a working- established forms of dialogue across social class movement which fought for democratic divides which have persisted to the present day. political change, established a land plan by which They also led to the formation of the federal body members subscribed capital through small regular Bassac and stimulated the creation of settlements payments with a view to settling on the land. across the world (Freeman, 2002; Parker, 2009). Smallholdings were distributed democratically The early twentieth century witnessed the by lottery, irrespective of the amount of capital spread of co-operative ideas to community housing subscribed. However, it was closed in 1851 in schemes. The way in which the co-operative the face of legal barriers and complaints that movement helped to generate examples of subscribers were being exploited. Over four community ownership illustrates how the historical

Models of community and mutual ownership 27 1901 and 1912, 14 societies were formed in Case study: Laurieston Hall – Brentham, Hampstead, Letchworth and elsewhere, building a community and 6,595 dwellings were built for a population of about 35,000 people. Although collective identity In spite of the diffi culties of gaining access to grew in many societies, the fact that voting rights the land, communities have been established were allocated according to share ownership in recent history. For example, during the 1960s meant that private investors would eventually and 1970s many collectives and co-operatives recoup the rising house values and were happy to experimented with alternative ways of living. see properties sold on the open market. Only in a Laurieston Hall community was established in few places, such as Keswick and Manchester, did 1972 at Castle Douglas in Scotland. The Hall was tenants eventually gain control (Birchall, 1988). bought by three members and eventually re- After 1945, given the widespread destruction of mortgaged so that all members could participate urban residential areas, housing became a pressing equally. They have experimented with communal issue. Following the 1946 New Towns Act, the domestic arrangements as well as co-operative expansion of Harlow, Peterlee, Milton Keynes and living in smaller units. Agreement through other towns would draw upon the earlier example consensus has given way to delegated decision- of the garden cities in bringing together a range of making with sub-groups based on trust and interests. Initially, most housing and public assets, shared understanding. As far as possible they including shopping centres, were owned by local generate their own power and grow their own development corporations but, in many cases, food, although the main source of income derives ownership then passed to local government and from catering for groups who visit for events and eventually to private individuals and business. meetings. Members work on the community Colin Ward noted how such developments for half the week and may also work elsewhere. marginalised potential co-operative solutions: The mortgage is long paid off and the success of the group means that it is relatively stable I vividly remember from the 1970s a visit from the with a low turnover of members, so the average chairman of one of the New Towns who sought age tends to be creeping upwards as a result. my advice on the organisational details of tenant (Coates, 2001; Whitefi eld, 2004) co-operatives, because he wanted to spare his corporation’s tenants from the bureaucratic neglect that he knew would await them once models outlined here overlap somewhat. Ebenezer ownership had been transferred to the local Howard initiated the garden city movement, authority. His hopes came to nothing. symbolised by his book To-morrow: A Peaceful (Ward, 1993, p. 103) Path to Real Reform (1898), which outlined the need to plan ‘garden cities’ by bringing together In the post-war world, on the whole, energies the best of town and country. Garden cities were became focused on council houses built by the developed in locations such as Letchworth, local state. Indeed, council housing had developed Hampstead, Bourneville, New Earswick and Port from the late nineteenth century but expanded Sunlight, where communities were designed on after 1945, particularly under the Conservative a human scale and industry, public buildings and governments of the 1950s. Co-ownership housing housing were zoned in a manner that sought experiments were established from the 1960s, to re-connect nature with the built environment by which partial owner occupiers could claim (Buder, 1990; Meacham, 1999; Hardy, 2000). tax relief and thus benefi t from an alternative to The co-partnership movement, which renting. It tended to be a top-down initiative with brought together external investment and worker extremely limited member development and little participation, also extended into housing with the sense of ownership or meaningful participation in formation of Ealing Tenants in 1901 and, in 1907, the governance: ‘… it was often easier for both parties Co-partnership Tenants’ Housing Council. Between to lapse back into the mind-set of landlord and

28 Models of community and mutual ownership tenant rather than to do the work of creating a Closely related are Community Land Trusts new identity as co-owner and managing agent’ (CLTs) which have enabled communities to (Conaty et al., 2003, p. 19). Even though a acquire assets and hold them in perpetuity for l wave of successful housing co-operatives was ocal benefi t, providing housing, workspaces, established in the 1970s, it failed to attract the allotments and other uses. Users of buildings sustained support of governments that were and services pay rent but the value of the land keen to encourage individual private ownership. and subsidies are locked in to community benefi t. The ensuing decades would witness a surge In part, these ideas were developed by Walter of interest in community development, notably Segal, who championed self-build housing after development trusts (Wyler, 2009). An early 1945. In the early 1990s, CLTs were revived in twentieth-century predecessor was the Brynmawr Britain by crofters in Scotland who bought land experiment in 1930s south Wales, where two collectively from absentee landlords, such as Quakers established community enterprises. occurred on the Isle of Eigg. The Land Reform Indeed, work camps had been established in (Scotland) Act 2003 created the potential for many areas to carry out socially useful labour Scottish communities to own resources under during the depressed inter-war period (Field, 2009). the Community Right to Buy initiative and, in 2008, In 1935 the Quaker Land Settlement Association a Community Land Trust Fund was established began to acquire land for market gardening, to to facilitate community ownership. Though be hired out to unemployed workers and was to progress has not been as great as originally hoped continue in existence until 1982. During the 1970s for, it has been claimed that almost two-thirds and 1980s community development initiatives of the western Islands and Highlands of also fed a growing concern that communities Scotland are now under community ownership should lead efforts at regeneration through (Wyler, 2010; see also Wightman, 1996, 2009; acquiring assets and enterprise. For instance, Wightman et al., 2003; Wightman and the Coin Street community campaign led to Perman, 2005). the transformation of a derelict 13-acre site in Community land occupation developed not south London into a ‘mixed use neighbourhood’ only in planned ways but through squatting, with co-operative homes, shops, galleries, entrepreneurial and other ad hoc activity. After the restaurants, a park, sports facilities, family First World War, ‘plotlanders’ built smallholdings services and learning opportunities. Steve in a number of areas, often located on marginal Wyler of the Development Trusts Association strips of land, which facilitated cheap holidays and has also noted that community ownership can provided a means of livelihood. For a mixture of frequently ‘transform the relationship with the speculative and visionary reasons, land was bought local council’, resulting in a growth of confi dence and sold off in plots. Plotlands were developed and transfer of power: ‘the approach need no in the wake of agricultural decline dating back to longer be simply adversarial, or cap in hand, but the 1870s and the increase in colonial imports, rather becomes a negotiation around common as well as the growth of leisure time and available goals, based on bringing something to the table’ transport networks. A number of communities (Wyler, 2010). Development trusts reveal a range were established, mainly in south-east England, of ownership and governance options, in some in such places as Canvey Island, Jaywick Sands cases involving member control and, in others, and Dungeness. Many plotlanders had limited the participation of users and benefi ciaries in the services and so organised them collectively. design of buildings and community resources. The unfi nished nature of these estates generated Today the Development Trusts Association boasts considerable disquiet, especially within local over 450 development trusts with a combined authorities which attempted to undermine them. income over £260m and £490m of assets in Councils gained increased powers under the 1947 community ownership. Sister organisations have Town and Country Planning Act and were able also been established in Scotland and Wales to force many of the plotlands out of existence, (Peel and Bailey, 2003; Wyler, 2009, 2010). although some, such as those at Laindon Hills in

Models of community and mutual ownership 29 Essex, persisted into the 1980s (Hardy and Ward, of community ownership. In addition, the idea 1984; Ward, 1993, 2002; Crouch and Ward, 1997). of communities buying shares in social and Beneath the radar of such visible community environmental businesses is opening up a new action, there have been a myriad of smaller and signifi cant avenue for community ownership. instances of alternative communities and collective Examples include Fordhall Farm Community forms of ownership. Authors such as Colin Ward Land Initiative in Shropshire which raised over have illustrated how individuals and friends have £500,000 by selling shares to people interested in utilised small spaces and a range of resources to seeing the farm continue as a going concern and build houses and grow food on smallholdings as an educational and environmental resource. and allotments which offered a limited Local initiatives such as this have attracted people independence. These initiatives might lead to nationally and internationally who have bought the development of community- and familial- shares out of a sense of connection to the area based informal support networks organised and a commitment to the ideals being expressed around sharing and bartering. For example, in in practical ways. Energy co-operatives and the nineteenth century, the growth of capitalist community-owned wind farms are also being ownership had been a gradual development developed. The ‘transition towns’ movement and, by the 1850s, much industry remained has attempted to generate local solutions based small scale (Samuel, 1977), while a ‘ribbon’ on self-suffi ciency and autonomy as a way of pattern of urban development made it possible addressing the twin problems of climate change to establish smallholdings or at least keep a pig and the depletion of oil reserves. This promises to in one’s back yard. This provided a source of be a signifi cant growth point and has encouraged food and income as well as a link between rural local groups to think more systematically about the and urban lives (Crouch and Ward, 1997). potential for sustainable development (Hopkins, Legislation could facilitate micro examples of 2008). In the wider rural economy, community community ownership. The Small Holdings and ownership has enabled local residents to club Allotments Act 1908 enabled county councils to together to save local shops, post offi ces and other provide smallholdings and allotments for rent. services from closure. The Plunkett Foundation The 1919 Land Settlements (Facilities) Act was lists over 230 community-owned shops. intended to provide smallholdings for returning Clearly, community ownership is a diverse and servicemen, but the scheme ended in 1926 potentially expanding area of activity. Autonomous having failed to meet the needs of families, many community organisations and networks, which of which found the holdings too small. Over have arisen organically from the needs and time, local authorities would be forced to make concerns of local people, can be a highly effective provision for allotments and the 1925 Allotments way of meeting needs while also experimenting with Act stipulated that the Secretary of State must give new ideas and approaches. Community organising permission before such land can be sold off by has done more than simply deliver social benefi ts local government. From a high point of 1.4 million through direct action. By fostering participation, plots in 1943 the number declined to 500,000 in individuals have also been empowered to pursue a the 1970s and 297,000 in 1997. However, given range of educational, social and economic options the recent interest in allotments, along with the that might not otherwise have been available. realisation of the importance of reducing food miles However, community ownership reveals a number and increasing access to fresh food, this number of dilemmas. The contested nature of ‘community’ might be expected to increase in coming years. means that it may be used to refer to quite These localised initiatives have persisted different levels of organisation, including informal on a relatively widespread scale although they networks and individuals as well as professional are hard to detect in the historical record, given service delivery agencies which may come to be their private and domestic nature. Village halls, seen as ‘representative’ of a wider constituency. community centres and church halls all represent Today it is estimated that there are approximately a further highly signifi cant and ubiquitous form 600,000 informal organisations and 104,000 sports

30 Models of community and mutual ownership clubs, some of which may own or be involved upon selling ‘unadultered’ food and distributing in the ownership of resources (NCVO, 2009). a dividend on purchases to members. Building ‘Capacity’ is often presented as a problem societies helped members to build houses for community groups and the pressure to ‘scale and provided savings accounts. Furthermore, up’ may present considerable barriers, especially feelings of ownership were expressed through in terms of the power of professional staff and the ethos of these bodies which emphasised low bureaucratic agencies at the expense of community subscriptions, democratic member control and activists. In the past, growth has been fostered participation in the business. As a result, great through federation and secondary networks loyalty and trust emerged, partly by virtue of the which play a supporting function, such as the fact that early mutual enterprises were educational Development Trusts Association, National Council and social centres. Meeting members’ needs for Voluntary Organisations, Employee Ownership could also be connected to ideas of re-organising Association and Co-operativesUK, each of which society along mutual and co-operative lines. offer various models of growth. But equally the From the 1830s and 1840s these societies question of capacity must be asked of funding stablised and expanded their operations. They agencies and local authorities: are they adequately championed innovative business forms based fl exible and skilled to create an enabling framework upon federal and branch structures as well as, for community ownership? In some cases, in the case of the co-op, vertically integrated relatively low levels of resources made available operations including banking, insurance, to communities can help to unlock creativity and production, agriculture and retailing. Among the inventiveness in meeting common needs. In other friendly societies large affi liated orders emerged cases more sustained support and guidance may with a central offi ce, districts and lodges: the be appropriate. By contrast, over-regulation and Oddfellows, Foresters, Rechabites and Druids a fear of experimentation by funding agencies – were all prominent. It has been estimated that risk-averseness – can lead to unfulfi lled potential. there were 925,000 members of friendly societies in 1815, a fi gure which grew to about four million Co-operative and mutual ownership by 1872 and,by 1892, approximately 80 per cent of the seven million male industrial workers Co-operative and mutual organisations were members. Similarly, most early building are voluntary, democratic and autonomous societies had been ‘terminating’ once they had enterprises, established to meet the needs of housed their members. From the 1840s the members who might comprise consumers in a permanent building society came into being consumer co-operative, tenants in a housing co- which offered savings accounts and, by 1860, operative, farmers in an agricultural co-operative, there were over 2,750 societies in existence. and savers/borrowers in a building society or Co-operative and mutual enterprises friendly society. The notion of collective self- would expand continuously throughout the help is crucial to co-operatives and mutuals. nineteenth century when there was a need for Mutual projects can be identifi ed in Roman their services. Economic growth during periods times and beyond. Medieval guilds have also of stability provided working people with limited been classifi ed as examples of co-operative but signifi cant resources to develop collective organisations. However, as we understand them self-help enterprises. By the early twentieth today, co-operative and mutual enterprises started century mutual enterprises would face increased to proliferate in the early nineteenth century, challenges from both the state and from capitalist partly as a response to the emergent forces of competitors. During the First World War, many industrialisation. Friendly societies were able to companies engaged in profi teering and actively offer members access to saving, burial costs and campaigned to increase tax upon co-operatives. support in times of unemployment and sickness. In turn, this created a major stimulus to the creation In 1844 the Rochdale Pioneers established the fi rst of the Co-operative Party, which provided an successful consumer co-operative model based element of political representation and would

Models of community and mutual ownership 31 help to bring the movement within the remit of the areas. The radical ferment of the late 1960s Labour Party. Although co-operative and mutual fed into the formation of worker co-operatives, ideas were fl oated within this arena, the broader especially in wholefoods. A signifi cant survival labour movement tended to be preoccupied with today is the wholesaler and distributor Suma, ‘capturing the state’ as a means to deliver social based in Elland near Leeds, with a turnover of change. In addition, broadening state welfare £13.5m (Co-operativesUK, 2009). Responses provision would whittle away the position of to this groundswell included the 1976 Industrial friendly societies. The 1911 National Insurance Common Ownership Act, the Industrial Common Act gave them a role in the state scheme of Ownership Movement and the Scottish Co- national health insurance but their infl uence would operative Development Committee. In addition, gradually decrease. Even though membership there were a number of abortive attempts to turn of friendly societies rose to 14 million by the around failing businesses through a co-operative 1940s, decline would be dramatic after 1945 model such as that at Meriden Motorcycles, a with the implementation of welfare reforms (Cole, so-called ‘Benn co-operative’, after the Labour 1944; Gosden, 1961, 1973; Yeo, 1988; Birchall, minister Tony Benn. Forcing mutual and co- 1994; Gurney, 1995, 1999; Cordery, 2003). operative ownership in a situation where there was During the post-Second World War period, limited co-operative understanding and experience, many mutual and co-operative enterprises allied with a shaky business case, ran the risk of struggled to compete with fl exible capitalist associating such initiatives with failure. However, businesses which nurtured hire purchase and following plans to rationalise Lucas Aerospace, started to make credit and debt socially acceptable. Benn’s support for the creative proposals from The Co-op continued to be the top retailer and to workers to develop ‘socially useful production’ command a signifi cant market share of groceries, illustrated the wide potential for broadly co- which increased into the 1950s. It would be stifl ed operative ideas (Wainwright and Elliot, 1982). though by the rise of capitalist conglomerates that Mutual enterprises were to experience yet developed retailing on new sites and used their more diffi culties in the 1990s. Legislation in the purchasing power to ‘pile it high and sell it cheap’. previous decade had been passed to enable The idea of membership also fell out of favour as building societies to compete with other fi nancial mutual organisations struggled to understand organisations but also paved the way to their their purpose in a rapidly changing world that was demutualisation into banks; the Abbey National, becoming increasingly prosperous. Some Halifax and Bradford and Bingley, among others, mutuals lost their sense of distinctive identity took this route. This development was fed by based on active member participation and new the interests of directors, the faith in the power members dried up. In the absence of effective of the market and the willingness of members, governance, small coteries of managers and the unknowing owners of these businesses, elected offi cers wielded excessive control. to receive a windfall payment from the historic Democratic organisations could stagnate in this reserves that had been built up out of the loyalty context and leaders clung to their positions and of previous generations. Most were subsequently managed their way into decline and stasis. A subject to further amalgamations with other shrinking market share and the need to compete banks. Prior to the credit crunch of 2008, Northern also led to many mergers and takeovers of Rock was the only independent demutualised failing mutual enterprises. At the turn of the building society remaining (Hunt, 2009). Thus, twentieth century there were approximately 1,500 across much of society, until recently, co- independent co-operative societies but, today, operative and mutual enterprises were viewed fewer than 20 remain and tend to be located in as a declining and residual business form. smaller towns and rural areas, serving a more These developments lent a sense of urgency affl uent clientele than was once the case. to existing attempts to reformulate a distinctive Throughout this period, co-operative and co-operative and mutual purpose. A renewed mutual initiatives sprang up in a number of new set of values and principles was agreed by the

32 Models of community and mutual ownership International Co-operative Alliance in the mid- 1990s – a ‘Statement of Co-operative Identity’ Case study: Credit unions which has served as a guide for co-operatives worldwide. It was followed by the Co-operative A new form of mutual is the credit union – a Commission in 2001 which highlighted the need fi nancial co-operative governed by a board for ‘successful co-operative businesses’ with directly elected by member owners. Credit the emphasis on all three words (Co-operative unions help to address issues of fi nancial Commission, 2001). The Co-operative Bank has exclusion by allowing members to save illustrated how ethical and co-operative policies and by borrowing small amounts of money could generate considerable customer support. and offering fi nancial advice and guidance. At the centre of this vision has been the They were only formally recognised in relationship with members and there have been 1979, although some of the pioneers who many attempts to ‘make membership meaningful’ helped to establish them in the UK had through the re-introduction of a dividend, events moved from the Caribbean and Ireland and social occasions and acting on member where credit unions were more prolifi c. expectations. In turn, the idea of ‘mainstreaming’ Credit unions face regulations that limit co-operative values and principles gave rise interest rates and charges among other to experiments in ‘new mutualism’ in areas things. They must recruit members from such as leisure, education, care and health. within a ‘common bond’ which could be The interconnection between new and old has those living or working in a geographical generated synergies, despite differences in area, having the same employer or being understanding and culture: community shops, members of a religious, trade union or other football supporters’ trusts, leisure trusts (Simmons, group. As a result, credit unions have tended 2003) and credit unions, to mention just a few to remain relatively small scale and directly examples, all now play a signifi cant role in the target the fi nancially excluded. In 2009 representative body, Co-operatives UK. This there were over 700,000 members of credit renewal refl ects the signifi cance of maintaining unions with savings of £556m and borrowing co-operative and mutual ownership even when totalled £450m (Association of British Credit they appeared to be indistinct from other forms of Unions, 2009). Larger examples tend to be business and ownership. The revival of mutuality focused on workplaces such as Leeds City has been based upon recognising the unique role Credit Union or Scot West Credit Union, of members in mutual enterprise as joint owners. based in the west of Scotland, both of which Moreover, co-operative and mutual models started in local government workplaces but have offered one possible avenue of development now serve a wider group of members. The for community-based projects. In the area of differences with the smaller credit unions food, the Plunkett Foundation has identifi ed is striking: one run informally by volunteers, potential for the growth of community shops, the other by uniformed offi ce workers and farmers’ markets, agricultural co-operatives and managed by professionally qualifi ed staff. other initiatives. Indeed, mutual and community There have been many calls for the networks might be expanded and sustained expansion of credit unions which include on a larger scale through building a ‘mutually plans to widen the common bond so owned food system’ in which groups could that it is easier to recruit members from support one another with advice, guidance and a broader constituency and also attract fi nance, perhaps contributing part of their profi ts more wealthy depositors as part of offering towards a wider purpose (Couchman, 2010). comprehensive fi nancial services such as These developments are at an early stage mortgages, ISAs and cash cards connected and the re-emerging meaning of mutual and into the national Link system. There is co-operative membership and ownership will considerable potential for growth but this take time to develop its full potential. The

Models of community and mutual ownership 33 heart of our commercial success’ (John Lewis shift is not without its dangers. While the Partnership, 2005). These giants have helped to foreign examples that are commonly quoted, embed mutuality across society, a fact revealed in such as those in Ireland and Canada, grew Table 2 which suggests that mutual membership gradually through self-help, fears have been corresponds to a fi gure just short of the UK expressed that this process of growth must population, including housing associations, be managed sensitively. Otherwise existing National Health Service (NHS) trusts and clubs groups of members may feel disempowered by and societies. Even allowing for individuals the sudden professionalisation and expansion holding multiple memberships, this remains a of their societies, which might dilute the striking fi gure. In total, over 23m people in the sense of collective feeling and good will. UK are estimated to be members of mutuals. At certain historical moments, such as the early twentieth century, or even after 1945, these Co-operative Group, with a turnover of just under ideas and practices might have been expanded £14bn (2009), owned by its individual consumer considerably had the wider context been more members, is crucial to the attempt to re-invigorate favourable. As mutual ownership extended into the co-operative movement. Although it is best mainstream society, it also generated considerable known as a retailer, it describes itself as a ‘family hostility from existing interests, including politicians of businesses’ which include funeral services, and capitalists alike. Mutuals were to witness agriculture, travel, pharmacy, legal services, prolonged periods of decline in the face of state motors, banking, travel and insurance. In recent and capitalist expansion throughout the twentieth years it has championed Fairtrade produce century. Reaching a limit to growth made it diffi cult which guarantees a fair price for producers and to adapt mutual organisations to a new context. nurtures co-operatives in developing countries. Nevertheless, these forms have had a tremendous The signifi cance of such a large and democratic impact across society in terms of providing stability business, based on co-operative values and and redistributing resources through loans, savings, principles, is an important feature of contemporary food, insurance and other services. In addition, mutuality and shows that mutual forms can the very fact of surviving diffi cult times refl ects a expand well beyond the small scale. Thus, despite strength of co-operative and mutual ownership. their decline for much of the twentieth century, Recent indications are that co-operative and consumer co-operatives are still a signifi cant force. mutual enterprises are likely to expand in coming A further related development has been in years, signalling the rediscovery of a sense of the area of employee ownership. In 1979 Robert values from history. The strength of this approach Oakeshott with the support of long-standing is its focus on democracy, membership and employee-owned businesses such as Scott participation. It offers a sustainable model of Bader and John Lewis, established the Employee growth for smaller-scale community initiatives. Ownership Association which supports a range of Co-operative and mutual enterprises can businesses wholly or partly owned by employees be found in all areas of the economy and are (Oakeshott, 2000). The John Lewis Partnership making a signifi cant contribution in welfare currently comprises Waitrose supermarkets, John services such as health and education. Lewis department stores, Greenbee services, a production unit and a farm. It is owned by its 70,000 Charitable ownership employees and has a turnover of approximately £7.4bn (2009). The company was gifted by trust Helping others is a persistent theme of human to the employees by John Spedan Lewis in the history, although the way in which it has found early twentieth century and aims to develop a tangible expression in charitable organisation ‘unique Partnership culture, which makes sure and ownership is a more recent development. we deal with our customers, suppliers and all The historical range of charitable ownership stakeholders with integrity and respect … at the includes: religiously inspired injunctions to help

34 Models of community and mutual ownership Table 2. The scale of mutuality

Sector Number Members Employees Assets Revenue (£) Building societies 52 22,000,000 42,300 341,000,000,000 4,000,000,000 Friendly societies 200 6,000,000 5,000 17,000,000,000 1,646,000,000 Mutual insurers 14 3,288,366 12,932 60,999,154,000 2,715,383,000 Other fi nancial mutuals 2 2,001,200 13,397 70,329,400,000 4,534,800,000 C o - o p e r ati ve s 4,6 3 0 10,6 50,3 3 8 167,519 7,872,9 4 8,119 24,4 8 8,18 3,181 Co-operative trust schools 28 Credit unions 487 747,230 950 592,000,000 63,000,000 Employee-owned businesses 200 110,000 25,000,000,000 Football supporters’ trusts 169 100,000 100 5,460,000 5,460,000 General practitioner co-ops 40 8,000 150,000,000 Housing associations 2,000 6,000,000 151,330 57,000,000,000 11,580,000,000 Leisure trusts 120 26,000 625,000,000 Clubs and societies 11,600 7,000,000 20,000 220,000,000 463,000,000 NHS foundation trusts 115 1,500,000 398,196 17,790,000,000 22,770,000,000 Total 19,657 59,287,134 955,724 572,808,962,119 98,040,826,181

Source: Mutuals Yearbook, 2009. Borehamwood: Mutuo

those in need; bequests and philanthropy; became more secular and regulated by the state, charitable action linked to business; charitable although religion would remain central to charitable foundations; and charitable service delivery activity. The fi rst legislative intervention was the agencies. It blended into voluntary organisation 1597 Charitable Uses Act, amended in 1601, in the twentieth century and connects to which outlined the main purposes of charity: other models of ownership outlined here. For millennia, charity was organised informally The relief of the aged, impotent and poor people; and referred to the process of giving to the poor the maintenance of sick and maimed soldiers rather than the action of specifi c organisations. In and mariners, schools of learning, free schools the Middle Ages, the Church was the dominant and scholars in universities; the repair of bridges, provider of charity as a Christian duty. Charity ports, havens, causeways, churches, sea-banks could be defi ned in terms of the rights of the poor to and highways; the education and preferment of nourishment and clothing, particularly during times orphans; the relief, stock or maintenance of of famine and need. Bequests by individuals were houses of correction; the marriages of poor often the result of a desire to prove one’s personal maids, the supportation, aid and help of young worth to God and fulfi l a Christian duty to help the tradesmen, handicraftsmen and persons needy. For instance, endowments might be made decayed; the relief or redemption of prisoners or to hospitals, such as the right to use wood from captives; and the aid or ease of any poor royal forests and other resources. Early examples inhabitants … of direct charitable organisation and ownership include St John’s Hospital in Malmesbury, which A broad notion of public benefi t and helping is mentioned in a charter given by Athelstan in those in need emerged from the legislation 939 (Nightingale 1973, pp. 5–6), the Hospital of St which, ever since, has allowed a great diversity Cross in Winchester, established by Bishop Henry of activity to be presented as charitable. State de Blois in 1136 and almshouses built to support intervention was also connected to the welfare parish residents in need (Doubleday and Page, of the poor – the 1601 Elizabethan Poor Law 1973). Following the reformation and the dissolution was introduced alongside charity legislation in of the monasteries in the sixteenth century, charity response to social and agricultural upheaval.

Models of community and mutual ownership 35 However, as charitable activity and ownership of welfare services in the twentieth century also was given formal recognition, it gradually became impacted upon charitable activity. On the one more marginal to dominant economic and public hand charitable organisations, such as voluntary action. Although some landlords who had benefi ted hospitals, were directly taken over by the NHS in from the Reformation made signifi cant charitable 1948, so demoting voluntary and charitable activity bequests, the scale of such activity receded over to a secondary, supportive and experimental role. time. Traditional social and charitable obligations However, the role of charities continued to expand inherent in property ownership were being severed as new needs were identifi ed. Starvation in post- and this had the effect of giving charity a more war Greece led to the formation of the Oxford autonomous organisational identity. The wealthy Committee for Famine Relief in the 1940s, which might choose to be charitable but it became evolved into Oxfam. Charities continued to carve less incumbent upon them to do so as the earlier out areas of activity related to social and obligations were relaxed. Complaints would also educational provision, for instance, in relation to be voiced that charity was, in fact, a harmful disability. In some cases, ownership of land and practice which fostered dependence. Later, the buildings related directly to charitable purposes, 1736 Mortmain Act would have the effect of curbing especially in terms of institutions such as children’s charitable bequests (Jordan 1964; Hill, 1968). homes, hospitals, schools and residential In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in centres for the disabled and victims of war the face of rapid industrialisation and urbanisation, (Abel-Smith, 1964; Gorsky and Mohan, 2001). charitable organisations multiplied. Growing However, the traditional role of charities was to social upheavals led to a considerable charitable come under pressure in the later twentieth century. response although charities were better In part, this resulted from the gap that existed represented in areas where they had traditionally between benefactor/trustee and benefi ciary. In existed, such as London and market towns, the nineteenth century, charity often appealed rather than the newly industrialising areas of to distinctions between the ‘industrious’ and the Lancashire and Yorkshire. Charitable societies ‘idle’, the able and the needy, which led to the increasingly served as an intermediary between stigmatisation and marginalisation of ‘lunatics’ the individual philanthropist and benefi ciary. In part, and others. More recently, defi cit approaches this was fuelled by the growth of subscriptions have also assumed the root of social problems to and donations. Charities developed signifi cant lie with people themselves, rather than in social social services and organised welfare, hospitals, structures. Critics noted the continuing signifi cance schools and a range of other services. Some of these assumptions as well as the danger of national charities were formed during this time, servicing the organisational demands of charity such as Barnardo’s, the National Society for the rather the needs of an external constituency. Prevention of Cruelty to Children and the Salvation Residential care in particular was scrutinised. Army, which would grow into property-owning This could nurture a dependency culture among organisations. Charitable action and organisation clients instead of fostering autonomy and would also be developed by enlightened and independence. Older organisations have had to paternalistic businessmen such as George reinvent themselves as their initial raison d’être Cadbury, Joseph Rowntree, W. H. Lever and has altered in new circumstances. Charities others who established charitable foundations such as Action for Children and Barnardo’s and communities run for the benefi t of their no longer run residential care homes and workforce (for example, Owen, 1965; Kirkman have shifted to other activities relating to child Gray, 1965; Williams, 1989; Alvey, 1995). welfare, including advice and campaign work. In the twentieth century, charitable activity From the 1960s, many older assumptions became increasingly intertwined with the notion would come under pressure with the emergence of of ‘voluntary service’, which itself developed into radical campaigning charities, such as Shelter and ‘voluntary organisation’ and, eventually, a ‘voluntary the Child Poverty Action Group, which attempted sector’ (6 and Leat, 1997). The further development to avoid stigmatising the poor themselves.

36 Models of community and mutual ownership Other charities were set up to combat poverty to be a part of the British landscape (Anheier, internationally, such as ActionAid, which started 2001, 2005). In addition, there is a profusion as a child-sponsoring agency and later extended of smaller and medium-sized charitable its interests to support educational and social organisations covering a wide variety of issues projects. Change has impacted upon disability and tend to be run informally by volunteers. charities, which have had to rebrand themselves Some larger charities have been creative in and attempted, with varying degrees of success, to developing volunteering schemes based on the embrace a ‘social defi nition’ of disability in response enthusiasm of members. The Royal Society for to the criticisms of disability rights campaigners. the Protection of Birds (RSPB), for example, has Charitable activity has also been brought back mobilised volunteers not only in interest groups into the mainstream. Since the 1980s there have but also utilising them to collect information and been repeated attempts to reduce the role of the campaign for changes. In the last few years, state through the use of voluntary and charitable the number of charities has increased by over organisations which have seen their grants 5,000 each year. Table 3 indicates the wide replaced with contracts. Charities have become signifi cance of ownership by general charities. one type of agency, alongside other public and However, charities are currently under pressure private service providers, which deliver services on from a number of directions. Charitable models are behalf of the state. This recognition has impacted often confi ned by structured differences between upon their autonomy and ability to campaign trustees, benefi ciaries and staff, and have been for wider social changes. Such developments criticised as inhibiting democratic participation, can make it diffi cult to ‘bite the hand that feeds’, especially by those they were established to in criticising government policy, for example. help. The growth of social enterprise, with its This is a familiar tension for many charitable emphasis on independent income through and voluntary groups that actively engage in trading, has further challenged the dependence delivering services while also campaigning and of charities on grants and donations. In spite of organising self-help initiatives (Handy, 1988). these drawbacks, charity has a long history and Today there are a small number of highly continues to have a popular resonance in twenty- signifi cant and visible large charities which fi rst-century Britain, especially given that it is a employ professional managers and frequently convenient legal structure with considerable tax own considerable assets. They tend to adopt advantages. The shift towards empowering users structured forms of organisation in order to and benefi ciaries is likely to increase in future years manage their resources which arise from as part of a wider re-invention of charitable activity donations, grants, contracts and earned income. and ownership. While charitable organisations Many of the larger charities operate trading arms have been squeezed by the demands of the which allow them to trade on the high street, state, by the need to raise income and engage in not only the ubiquitous charity shop – the fi rst trading, not all charitable activity can necessarily Oxfam shop was established in 1948 – but be organised and supported through business also through publishing and other business and contractual mechanisms. Charitable forms development. These are complemented by a of ownership blend into all the other models number of charitable foundations which continue outlined here (Weinbren, 2007) and are likely to

Table 3. The scale of general charities in the UK

Number of general charities 171,000 (2006–7) Total income £33.2bn (2006–7) Net assets £91.3bn (2006–7) UK paid voluntary sector workforce 634,000 (2006) % of people volunteering 43% at least once a year (2007–8)

Source: based on The UK Civil Society Almanac 2009, London: NCVO

Models of community and mutual ownership 37 continue to have an infl uence in the future. Many Two signifi cant proponents of municipal charities are household names and the notion of ownership were Sidney and Beatrice Webb, who ‘helping others’ is deeply ingrained and capable of spent much of their lives documenting the past mobilising signifi cant sections of the population, history of trade unions, co-operatives and local as indicated by Table 3. As a result, aspects of government with a view to extracting lessons for charitable ownership may expand in coming years. the future. Concerned about the ineffi ciencies of unplanned capitalism, it was Sidney who drafted Municipal and state ownership the famous Clause IV of the constitution of the Labour Party which called for the ‘common Contested notions of municipal and state ownership of the means of production’: ownership, including ‘public’ and ‘common’ ownership, have been central to historical To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the transformations in the twentieth century. Recently, full fruits of their industry and the most equitable state forms of ownership have been represented distribution thereof that may be possible upon as a monolithic practice dominated by top-down the basis of the common ownership of the approaches and infl exible bureaucracy but, in means of production, distribution and previous decades, effi ciency and universalism exchange, and the best obtainable system of might have been the watchwords. In fact, municipal popular administration and control of each ownership and state nationalisation were seeded industry or service. within the framework of wider debates over ownership and how to organise society for the The meaning of this blueprint for ‘common common good. Community and mutual ownership ownership’ was to be much debated in future was central to these debates that have not yet been years. Writing in the Observer in 1917, Sidney had resolved and remain part of a continuing history. noted that it was not a prescriptive declaration In Britain, municipal ownership developed but offered considerable leeway for debate: from the late nineteenth century with experiments in local state control of housing, utilities, transport … it leaves open to choose from time to time and related services. Local government offered whatever forms of common ownership from the a community-based solution to problems of co-operative store to the nationalised railway, poverty and mismanagement of resources – and whatever forms of popular administration sympathisers represented government as a and control of industry, from national guilds to co-operative body devoted to the public good ministries of employment and municipal and arising directly out of people’s needs. Early management, may, in particular cases commend municipal reforms were introduced in Birmingham themselves. (Webb, 1917) by Joseph Chamberlain, who became mayor in 1873. Motivated by a sense of civic improvement, Here we gain a sense of the contention between water, gas and other services were successfully multiple ‘socialisms’ in the early twentieth century municipalised while educational, cultural and (Yeo, 1987). During the inter-war years, the equation leisure facilities were built (Browne, 1974). The of common ownership with state ownership and local state appeared to provide a powerful lever control would become pervasive in the Labour for social change in delivering common interests. Party at the expense of other forms of socialism However, there were some early warning signs based on mutuality and voluntarism. The Webbs that government could be unduly bureaucratic themselves favoured state ownership and planning and discriminatory. For example, co-operatives by well-trained professionals. Other community- donated their libraries to the local corporation based options were discussed but struggled only to fi nd that many of the books would be to gain a hearing at crucial moments. It was discarded. Educational classes were ceded claimed that only the state could provide a to local government at the expense of losing a ‘national minimum’ for all. Charities and mutual distinctively co-operative message (Gurney, 1995). organisations might, it was thought, complement

38 Models of community and mutual ownership state provision, but they were presented as provide adequate levels of capital investment partial and inconsistent and unable to reach required. This argument has been applied to the whole population, either geographically or assets remaining in public ownership such as socially. In addition, co-operative proposals for schools and hospitals and has led to a number welfare services found only limited support, of alternative funding mechanisms as well as even among co-operators themselves. asset rationalisation, sale and leaseback. The meanings of common ownership would These pressures have been refl ected in both continue to evolve during the twentieth century. In the Gershon (2004) and Lyons (2007) reports. the wake of the Second World War, the concern Other motivations for public service reform can to provide universal solutions to a range of social also be identifi ed and include the desire to cut and economic problems went hand-in-hand with costs, engage staff in taking greater responsibility, nationalisation of industries and services which involve the public in governance and improve the were to be controlled and managed centrally – overall nature of such services. Social and mutual ownership solutions paralleled the delivery of enterprises are gradually coming to be seen as services. The nationalisation of the mines was the possible alternatives to the commercial penetration cause of great celebrations among miners who of welfare services. But many within community organised marches to the mines – they felt they and mutual organisations have argued that policy were to be the new owners. The reality would prove has been lopsided and exclusively concerned to be very different, however. The nationalised with accessing new sources of income. Devoid of industries were subject to management by wider historical and philosophical understanding, politically appointed businessmen who did not feel notions of ‘pragmatism’ and ‘value for money’ answerable directly to the workforce, nor inclined have been particularly evident since 1997 and to consult consumers in any meaningful way. have led to criticisms of ‘disjointed policies’. For Although the language of common ownership and example, David Rodgers of The Co-operative public service developed, this was not translated Development Society (CDS Co-operatives) argues into the control of these industries and services. that the preservation and expansion of common Unions would have a signifi cant role to play in the assets might have motivated housing policy ‘corporatist’ state, ensuring the smooth running during the Blair years rather than an exclusive of the economy and occasionally helping to concern to access fi nance which led to many develop industrial strategy (Middlemass, 1979). unintended consequences, including escalating Unions also became signifi cant institutions salaries and a ‘provider capture of value’: which owned various forms of property in order to support their workplace strategies. Later, If you had a philosophy … saying it isn’t just in the 1990s, some union activists became money but the … involvement of the residents, directly involved in managing and controlling developing human and social capital through enterprises, such as Tower Colliery in south participatory means, you might have still gone for Wales. However, in general, ownership was stock transfer but you might have done it in a interpreted in such a way that excluded workers different way, that transferred those assets into and consumers from participation and control. community ownership. It’s only latterly, almost in The end of consensus politics led to reaction to that policy, some people have said, widespread de-nationalisations as publicly well, we don’t want to do this unless it comes into owned industries were sold at a discount during community ownership. Now, belatedly, you’ve the 1980s. This was done for a number of got the development of community ownership ideological reasons relating to faith in the stock transfer models … Another form of social ‘free market’. Attempts were made to foster a ownership which is about more than just that ‘property-owning democracy’ through council pragmatic problem of how you get the money in. house sales and other re-distributive mechanisms. If you’d have done it based on an understanding There were also practical reasons for these of council housing being part of the commons, changes. It was claimed that the state could not what society owns and uses as a whole, then you

Models of community and mutual ownership 39 might have said, no, transfer it into what is become particularly aware of this issue in effectively a not for profi t, private form of recent years, as Stuart Etherington (2010) ownership. (Rodgers, 2010) of the NCVO noted, the nature of the relationship between civil society and the state has From this perspective, the emphasis on been changing: ‘ends’ rather than ‘means’ and ‘standards not structures’ would seem to be misplaced That can be a contractual relationship where, (Blair, 1998). A value-driven approach to basically, it is not really about mutuality and it’s community and mutual ownership could not really about different forms of ownership; bring considerable benefi ts but has remained essentially it is about the state contracting with a serious challenge for policy-makers. voluntary organisations in a way that the Although direct state ownership has been independence of action and independence of undermined by a number of trends, it continues ownership is, in effect, eroded and organisations to play an important role and is one way to become agents of the state. That’s the state ensure common services are widely available. beginning to expand its remit into civil society. Representative democracy has been an essential form of accountability. In certain areas, state As a result, future years may witness an oscillation provision still has a major role to play, especially between the impulse to mutualise public services in terms of ensuring fairness and access to and make them more responsive to public needs, education and health, security, police and key on the one hand, and to tighten regulation and public services. The state has also been central increase target-setting on the other. The promise to ensuring the continuance of earlier forms of of community autonomy and independence common land ownership. Indeed, the case for will be severely tested by governmental desires including state ownership as ‘community and to ‘deliver’ its promises (see also Corrigan mutual’ rests on its ability to provide common and Sayer, 1982). services which are at least potentially controllable by communities. In fact, many of the contemporary Conclusion proposals to increase the provision of welfare services by mutuals, social enterprises and In section two we offered a brief historical overview voluntary organisations may be considered to be of the scope and importance of community and within state provision rather than straightforward mutual ownership. Emerging from this history examples of privatisation. As such they represent we have identifi ed fi ve models: common and a continuation of public services by new means; customary; community; co-operative and mutual; for example, leisure trusts and co-operative charitable; and municipal and state ownership. At school trusts. Some are only partially mutual, in a local level these can be hard to distinguish but terms of ethos and membership for instance, have tended to become more distinct as scale and and only have limited ownership and autonomy. levels of ownership increase. At certain historical The state is also central to all forms of moments, divergent models may also share ownership in other ways. Legal and regulatory common societal concerns (Weinbren, 2007). A frameworks are essential to nurturing community certain amount of confl ict and overlap between and mutual ownership but carry the possibility the models can be identifi ed, especially in cases of restricting activity. The way in which the where community and mutual initiatives served state liberates, constrains and taxes different differing constituencies. This is unsurprising in a forms of property and ownership is not merely divided society; indeed, within community and a technical detail but impacts on the whole mutual ownership it is often possible to detect structure of society. In one possible scenario, simmering confl icts around issues of class, community and mutual ownership could merely gender and other markers of inequality. Yet these become an arm of state policy. Those involved tensions have also offered clues to the ways in in voluntary and charitable initiatives have which such models may develop in the future:

40 Models of community and mutual ownership • Common land and rights held in common have charitable organisations to alleviate poverty. been signifi cantly depleted over time and this The role of charities was diminished as the state was often supported by state action. Signifi cant came to play a dominant role in welfare, which vestiges of common land still remain in the was frequently accompanied by criticisms form of village greens, public parks, the right that charities projected a defi cit view of their to roam and national parks. The Community benefi ciaries. Since the 1980s, charities have Right to Buy in Scotland and Community been increasingly involved in contracting for Land Trusts represent attempts to enable welfare services: charitable organisations communities, with limited access to fi nance, to still proliferate in a number of areas, including take control of land and assets. Many people community development, education, health, have a strong sense of ownership over these housing and international development. In common spaces which could form the basis the future, this form of ownership is likely to for community development in the future. expand, given the scale of poverty and need, in addition to the fact that charitable legal • Community ownership encompasses a forms carry tax advantages, the impulse to plethora of informal groups and religious, ‘help others’ remains widely understood and political and social movements which have charities continue to unlock considerable levels experimented with ownership. These have of volunteering and public interest. Charitable included village halls and collectively owned ownership is being transformed by delivering shops, as well as dispersed and socially welfare, by the growth of commercially productive individual and familial ownership of minded social enterprise and by the interest housing and land. Other models of ownership in empowering marginalised people. were initially nursed within this sphere and community ownership remains an engine of • From the late nineteenth century, municipal inventiveness which feeds more generally and state ownership originated within debates into society. Hopes of scaling up this area of about organising for the common good activity have some contemporary purchase against a backdrop of capitalist development, but will necessarily require increased levels which had wrought inequality and neglect of of professional organisation and support. both people and resources. Early municipal experiments included the ownership of • Co-operative and mutual ownership electricity, gas, sewers, transport, education represented a response to inequality and and housing. After 1945 this impulse fed into exploitation in the nineteenth century. The the nationalisation of industry, hospitals and successful development and survival of other assets which lasted until the 1980s, these highly signifi cant businesses based when large-scale privatisations were initiated. on democratic member control and federal Although state ownership has been criticised structures demonstrated that it is possible as being ineffi cient and unresponsive to to expand well beyond marginal spaces into community needs, it has been relatively the mainstream of society and to signifi cantly effective in ensuring that public services are transform areas of social life. There are widely available. The state also regulates all also strong synergies between older and forms of ownership. Historically community more recent mutual forms: worker co- and mutual ownership has not been supported operatives, credit unions, football supporters’ by the state in a sustained manner. The trusts to name a few. The range of co- contemporary policy focus on third-sector operative and mutual activity makes it highly organisations is apparent but it is not yet signifi cant and capable of expansion. clear that it is based on a sustained vision.

• The long history of charitable ownership The range of successful historical practices is includes foundations, schools, hospitals and complemented by a sense of unfulfi lled potential

Models of community and mutual ownership 41 in the many cases where there has been failure and defeat. The ideas around the inequity of land ownership and enclosures that motivated groups such as the Diggers, continue to resonate and reverberate hundreds of years later among community development initiatives (Wyler, 2009; Leadbeater, 2010). In other cases, there have been internal reasons for decline: for example, in the case of those organisations that turned inwards and avoided updating their purpose and values. Moreover, there is a danger that the perceived ‘failure’ of any particular community initiative will result in ‘the community’ being written off more generally. The models outlined above offer the opportunity to learn from failure and decline in the past. An awareness of the full range of community and mutual forms of ownership provides one way to help overcome problems in any particular area of activity. As Jonathan Bland pointed out: ‘The whole strength of what we have in the UK is that we have a range of different options … There will be different models suited to different needs’ (Bland, 2010).

42 Models of community and mutual ownership 4 Conclusions and implicationsChapter for policy andheading practice

The potential for community and mutual forms for mutuals. Many of these proposals have found a to re-populate twenty-fi rst-century society and home in the coalition government, Our Programme re-energise a sense of the common good is for Government (HMI 2010). The Commission on considerable. Climate change is predicted to Ownership will further enliven public discussion intensify natural disasters across the globe. Recent on community and mutual ownership. decades have witnessed a growing incursion of This report has outlined fi ve historical models of neo-liberal priorities focused on the freedom of community and mutual ownership: common and capital and the maximisation of shareholder value. customary; community; co-operative and mutual; The result has been increased inequality, within charitable; and municipal and state ownership. and between countries, leading to considerable Taken together, these models continue to be a social upheavals and marginalisation, as well as signifi cant force across the UK economy and signifi cant problems in relation to jobs, energy society. A range of ideas, practices and principles security and access to healthy food. The policy can be gleaned from historical antecedents. interest in ‘community cohesion’ and ‘social While it would be naïve to draw direct lessons capital’ is evidence of the way in which these forces from history, it is nevertheless possible to identify have been undermined. A growing disillusion a number of crucial historical issues which are with the established political process has been inherent in developing community and mutual further exacerbated by recent scandals. The ownership. Historical analysis enables us to widely expressed claim that public services are appreciate the potential for systematic growth ineffi cient and unresponsive has led to calls for of community and mutual ownership based on new approaches to welfare, especially with values, democracy, membership and belonging. reductions in funding. In this new situation, diversifying ownership Staged growth and expansion along mutual and community lines is coming to be seen as one answer to a wide range of issues Community and mutual ownership could related to social justice, inclusion, citizenship and develop signifi cantly through staged processes participation, economic growth and environmental of growth. Older forms of community and mutual sustainability. In the past, co-operative enterprises ownership have passed through many stages of and charitable associations pioneered new forms development and illustrate the fact that it has not of business and welfare provision and there is always been a marginal, alternative or ephemeral currently a renewed interest in them doing so in the activity. In the past, co-operative and mutual future. On the eve of the 2010 election, politicians organisations certainly expanded beyond specifi c from all sides were queuing up to endorse communities through amalgamation, federation community and mutual solutions. The Labour and establishing national organisations. Recent Government promised to support third-sector commercial acquisitions of Somerfi eld and Alldays organisations, to mutualise Sure Start, British by the Co-operative Group, as well as the re- Waterways, Northern Rock and English Heritage. mutualisation of ex-building societies such as the The Conservative Party claim to ‘Big Society, not Bristol and West, offer further examples of large- big government’ rested on the growth of mutual scale growth. In the past, philanthropic business and employee-owned businesses. The Liberal leaders successfully gifted their companies Democrats also promised a mutuals, co-operatives to their workforce as with Tullis Russell paper and social enterprise bill with a minister responsible manufacturer, Scott Bader and John Lewis.

Conclusions and implications for policy and practice 43 Mature forms of community and mutual operative housing system … that’s what we’ve ownership took time to achieve and were often been campaigning for for the last 20 years. based on building shared understanding and new (Bliss, 2009) ways of working. These historical experiences also connect to contemporary examples of Aspirations such as these look to the example popular planning. A recent example would be of Mondragón in the Basque region of Spain, the Development Trust Association’s interest in where a cluster of co-operative organisations assessing the state and nature of community attempts to guarantee employment if any particular centres across the country in the light of industry fails. Thus, models of community and suggestions that they might be transferred to mutual ownership offer a number of lenses with communities – but unless communities are willing which to analyse not only specifi c resources and able to take on this responsibility at short such as land and buildings, or community notice, there could potentially be a net loss of organisation, but also whole systems, locally, community spaces. Another would be the way regionally, nationally and internationally. in which a network of co-operative schools is Community and mutual ownership can forming to provide shared support and training. be now found in virtually every sector of the In terms of rural development, the Plunkett economy and society, ranging from large-scale Foundation has started to think about wider businesses to informal community groups. structural supports for isolated initiatives: There is an opportunity to consider how more systematic approaches might help to develop Community is starting to become the building community and mutual ownership beyond its block … you’ve got this whole range of existing spaces. Planning groups in a number individual examples, your community of areas could act as a foundation for building supported agriculture, your farmers’ market broader support structures. They might involve and so on. What … could actually make that a wide range of stakeholders, including policy- more resilient … that could actually give mutual makers, representatives of community and mutual support … so that if one bit got in trouble, the organisations and trade unions as well as academics other bits were able to … keep it going and and researchers with an interest in ownership. stop it failing. Some suggested areas for development include: (Couchman, 2009) • Finance: given the central role of fi nancial Similarly, in housing, the recent report of the industries in the UK economy as well as Commission on Co-operative and Mutual Housing current levels of fi nancial exclusion, there (CCMH) (2009) focused on the need for a systemic would appear to be considerable potential approach. As Nic Bliss, editor of the report, noted: for larger fi nancial mutuals to provide a greater degree of stability given that they are What we’re basically saying there is that to make based upon member-owners. In addition, a cooperative and mutual structure operate … there is a need for wider access to fi nancial you need the grass roots element to be services provided by credit unions and other happening at one end of the spectrum but at organisations. The fi nancial system as a whole the other end of the spectrum you need might benefi t from greater common control political, with a small p, support, you need over credit and investment and an element infrastructure that is going to make it happen, of democratic control of pension funds. political infrastructure, and you need support Representative mutual organisations could structures that are going to be there to facilitate have a role to play here (Hutton, 1995; Gamble it … you need all of those things happening in and Kelly, 1996; Minns, 1996; Mellor, 2010). tandem. That has only happened rarely in this country … You’ve got to have all these different • Urban development and regeneration is things in place if you are going to build a co- taking place through community ownership

44 Conclusions and implications for policy and practice initiatives and participative structures. Given considerable development of membership current levels of inequality, poverty and urban and governance will have to take place while decline, there will clearly be a continuing and fostering a greater feeling of community growing role for community organisations to ownership. This applies not only to members, represent and support local constituencies. leaders, staff and users, but also to policy- makers and regulators who have not always • Rural economies: the crises in agriculture, fully understood mutuality and community as well as the decline in rural economies, organisation. At a national level trade unions leave considerable potential for new forms have been lukewarm about proposals to dilute of community and mutual control of shops, and ‘privatise’ universal state welfare services agricultural co-operatives, community but, locally, many branches have been more businesses and tourism as well as the sympathetic (Hunt, 2009; Bland, 2010). community ownership of land facilitated by CLTs and other mechanisms. These starting • The problems created by climate change and points provide a basis for sustained growth dependence on imported energy sources into new areas of business and ownership. will increase in future years. Community and mutual forms of energy production are • Food is a closely related area which impacts being developed, and have the capacity across the country. The size and scope to develop further. The isolated example of of consumer co-operatives continues to Glas Cymru shows that non-profi t models offer considerable opportunity for greater are applicable to utility companies. community control over the production and distribution of food. In addition, community • International development. In recent years, and mutual organisations have begun to inequality has become very marked between develop strategies to provide greater access countries, a problem which relates directly to to healthy food for marginalised communities. many of the problems outlined here – food and climate change in particular. The Fairtrade • As noted above, housing is an area where movement has actively worked to support community and mutual ownership might be co-operative and community ownership in developed considerably. The Commission developing countries by ensuring fair and stable on Co-operative and Mutual Housing has prices for producers. Often this has involved recently argued that co-operative housing establishing direct relations with community should be available in all areas by 2030 and mutual organisations in different countries. and this presents considerable challenges. Mutual models can help to provide a range In developing and implementing systematic of affordable housing options which also approaches to community and mutual ownership, contribute to wider community benefi t we should be alert to a number of dangers. (CCMH, 2009; Rodgers, 2009). The ‘community and mutual’ label cannot offer cast-iron assurances. Both co-operative and • Public services are currently the largest growth charitable structures have been utilised by for- area where experiments in community and profi t business federations, groups of lawyers and mutual models are ongoing, including not only independent schools which would rarely count as housing but also care co-operatives, leisure examples of community and mutual ownership. trusts, foundation hospitals and co-operative Who benefi ts from any given form of ownership trust schools. The strength of these examples is a crucial question in this respect. The dividend is that they bring various stakeholders together paid to co-operative members is a world away including staff, government and users of from those paid to shareholders in public limited services. Given the scale of these operations, companies. For long periods of history, women if they are to succeed in the long term, were excluded from ownership of property, and

Conclusions and implications for policy and practice 45 community and mutual forms could perpetuate Ownership has also been tied into feelings, this exclusion even though many progressive emotions and psychological states of mind counter-examples can be identifi ed. In addition, (Rahmatian 2008). In the past, community and not all examples of community ownership will mutual ownership was connected to a sense of necessarily lead to socially or environmentally moral and social purpose as well as a conviction desirable results. Community forms can that social change was possible. This was clearer deteriorate, ossify and turn inwards without a clear in the nineteenth century when values of thrift, sense of serving the needs of members and users. self-responsibility and respectability were openly Given these potential drawbacks, it is sensible propagated by mutual organisations – their very to consider a number of issues and dilemmas survival depended upon members incorporating relating to community and mutual ownership such values into their lives, if only partially and for that have arisen out of this historical study. certain occasions. Today, these values are less apparent but still resonate in the need for people The nature of ownership to be willing to establish and sustain forms of autonomous organisation. They also grow from Ownership is multi-faceted and extends well self-help initiatives which enable communities to beyond the more limited meanings of property take greater control over their lives. This has been (Grunebaum, 1987). This is very apparent in an incremental and ad hoc process of personal relation to community and mutual ownership. change and collective learning based on altered Legal and organisational structures create a relationships. Thus, new forms of ownership may framework of ownership that may or may not necessitate new social relationships and values. allow community control. For example, co- A values-based approach will assist in operatives are usually based on industrial and ensuring that community and mutual ownership provident society legislation which prioritise becomes a core purpose of policy and practice as member control. In the past, they provided a opposed to a marginal add-on or specifi c solution crucial foundation for sustained community and to a particular problem. Community and mutual mutual development beyond the diverse forms of ownership has often been underpinned by distinct participation that can be found in all communities. values. These may be implicit in some community Beyond this, relationships have been a further organisations or worked out and written down, as crucial facet of ownership. Much has been made in the example of the international co-operative recently of the capacity of mutual forms to generate movement. Recognising enduring values is a key engagement and collaborative relations (Craig et mechanism for organisations and movements al., 2009; Cabinet Offi ce, 2010). Contemporary to learn from their own history, especially when practitioners have indeed confi rmed that effective their original purpose and the historical context community and mutual ownership can help to in which they operate has altered. A sense of build supportive community relationships where history and values can also form a basis for policy people are more willing to support and take intervention. Peter Hunt, of Mutuo, noted: responsibility for initiatives which they own: History is really signifi cant … one of the problems … ownership unlocks a different relationship … with politics is that people don’t think about someone actually feeling they’ve got a stake in history enough, it’s not just about what works... an enterprise, fundamentally changes what There has to be some kind of consistency about they’re willing to do with it. the values of what you are trying to achieve and (Couchman, 2010) what you then put into place … (Hunt, 2009)

Ownership … changes behaviour and how you Thus, the purpose, values and ethos of any related to co-workers, subordinates and form of ownership are essential to survival customers. (Hunt, 2009) and success and can help to guide activity.

46 Conclusions and implications for policy and practice Control and democracy It is unclear how far people will feel a sense of ownership over, and be willing to participate in, Control by owners and members has been a what were previously considered to be state-run further historical theme of community and mutual public services (Hazen, 2009). This also relates ownership in which there has generally been a to democratic activity: when there is a limited close relationship between organisational forms willingness to participate then membership and the constituencies from which they derive may be less active and more indirect. Simply their purpose. The history of community and applying historic models based on independent mutual ownership reveals multiple methods of and autonomous organisations to contemporary governance, democracy and participation. The welfare services will transform the meaning of range includes, for example, elections, direct membership. In order to handle this dilemma, policy control by communities and members as well initiatives would need to be tied to membership as participative forms of consultation with users development as well as ensuring that communities and the wider community. Representative, direct have the power to make real decisions about the and deliberative democracy may be appropriate direction of services (see also Birchall, 2002, 2008). for different purposes and at different times. For Membership and belonging may take longer to example, elections are a requirement for mutual develop in some areas than others but are essential organisations in which members are legal owners prerequisites of community and mutual ownership. and have an obligation to select leaders and hold them to account. While some development trusts Nurturing community and and charitable organisations have elections, mutual development others have utilised community consultation and user participation. This historical diversity offers Publicity is crucial. Awareness of the potential choices in relation to democratic control which for community and mutual ownership is vital relates to levels of stakeholder engagement in any if it is to expand further. Examples include given area. It is likely that community control will work on incorporating social and co-operative be at its strongest when these various democratic enterprise into the schools’ curriculum and methods complement one another. Unless the Radio 4 Archers storyline, focusing on democratic forms can be utilised to ensure that a community-owned shop. Such sustained community control is exerted in a meaningful publicity helps to make community and way, and allowed to develop autonomously, mutual options understood and available. then it is unlikely to reap signifi cant rewards. Effectively nurturing collective concerns and enthusiasm is a delicate process: too much Membership and belonging exhortation and regulation can dampen self- activity, while not enough support can isolate Building trust and engagement among members and ignore forces which might have the potential may mean something very different in the future to expand. Allowing self-directed growth of to what it has done in the past. Historically community interests is a key factor here. This membership was grounded in a sense of is a tricky path to tread for state agencies collective identity and developed over a long eager to provide ambitious targets that meet period of time. The common use of land became wider policy agendas. Indeed, the existence of customary through repeated activity based community and mutual ownership does not mean upon an informal sort of ‘membership’. In the that the state will be non-existent. Historically nineteenth century, members were the basis it has played a key role in circumscribing, for the expansion of mutual enterprises that defending, regulating and describing the would also be nurtured through educational and available forms of ownership at any one time. social activities. As local organisations extended In the future, it is likely that ownership will nationally they created a sense of organic become more complex and more important. growth and associated feelings of ownership. Through time ownership has extended over

Conclusions and implications for policy and practice 47 a widening number of resources. It is not just be prepared and ready to take responsibility traditional assets of land, capital and buildings for resources. There needs to be recognition of that can be owned. Copyright and patents are the time taken to build common understanding also an essential aspect of modern history, and to construct organisations based on a and, more recently, ownership of DNA, plant strong sense of membership and belonging; extracts, personal shopping history and web activity have all been the subject of some public • varying forms of democracy, ownership and debate. Community and mutual ownership membership may be appropriate to community could contribute to a broader discussion and mutual ownership in different spheres of about how these issues are handled. activity; for instance, ownership of community Predicting the future is fraught with problems – shops is likely to stimulate greater enthusiasm new areas and points of growth will emerge. But the and participation than taking responsibility for rich history of community and mutual ownership some previously state-owned public services; does address many of the pressing issues facing society. Sustainable approaches to extracting • in developing future policy and practice, the benefi ts of ownership for the common good however, there is the potential to agree a offer considerable opportunity. Ultimately, mutual set of values that can guide policy and take and community ownership must be considered into account the systematic ways in which alongside all other forms of ownership or there community and mutual ownership might be will be a danger of marginalisation. The history nurtured. In the past, community and mutual of community and mutual ownership brings options have often been viewed as marginal or alive comparisons with other forms of ownership as a pragmatic solution to particular problems. in terms of the responsibility inherent in all By contrast, a values-based approach implies forms of property ownership. In doing so it is a widely shared guide to action. Such values hoped that the historic models and dilemmas might include the importance of maintaining outlined here will provide a useful basis for and increasing a diverse ecology of community discussion, understanding and action. and mutual ownership based on independence, ‘Learning from history’ is notoriously diffi cult autonomy, self-control and democracy. and attempting to force the adoption of historical models would be short-sighted. However, historical analysis does reveal a range of issues pertinent to the current policy interest in extending community and mutual ownership. This report suggests:

• systematic approaches are required if there is to be a staged growth of community and mutual ownership to respond to current social problems. Community and mutual ownership will have the greatest impact where policy and practice is coherent and supportive, particularly across central and local government and related agencies;

• new policies on ownership need to take account of the structural, social and subjective aspects of ownership. Legal and organisational structure is an essential foundation that can shift ownership of assets into community hands. But to gain the full benefi t, communities must

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56 References The Joseph Rowntree This report, or any other © Institute of Education 2010. Foundation has supported this JRF publication, can be project as part of its programme downloaded free from First published 2010 by the of research and innovative the JRF website (www.jrf. Joseph Rowntree Foundation development projects, which it org.uk/publications/) hopes will be of value to policy- All rights reserved. makers, practitioners and service A CIP catalogue record Reproduction of this report users. The facts presented and for this report is available by photocopying or electronic views expressed in this report from the British Library. means for non-commercial are, however, those of the purposes is permitted. author[s] and not necessarily Otherwise, no part of this those of the Foundation. report may be reproduced, adapted, stored in a retrieval Joseph Rowntree Foundation system or transmitted by any The Homestead means, electronic, mechanical, 40 Water End photocopying, or otherwise York YO30 6WP without the prior written www.jrf.org.uk permission of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

ISBN: 978-185935-749-1

Designed by Draught Associates Project managed and typeset by Cambridge Publishing Management Ltd Acknowledgements About the authors

We thank Katharine Knox of the Joseph Rowntree Dr Tom Woodin is a senior lecturer in education at Foundation for her energy, enthusiasm and support the Institute of Education, University of London. For for this project. Also, Stephen Thake, who read a many years he has researched co-operative and number of drafts and made some detailed community organisation, and is currently writing a suggestions. Stephen Yeo commented on a draft book on the recent history of the worker writer and offered many useful references and ideas. Mike movement. He leads an Economic and Social Aiken and Steve Wyler provided helpful comments Research Council (ESRC) project on the history of on drafts of the report. Feedback was also gained the school-leaving age. Other research interests from productive discussions at the Joseph include the co-operative movement and education Rowntree Foundation Community Assets Network and the life and work of the educationist Brian meetings attended by Mike Aiken, Andrew Simon. He is co-editor of the History of Education Anderson, Tracy Beasley, Tom Black, Phillip Callow, Researcher. Ian Cooke, Jacquie Dale, Linda Fennessey, John Goodman, Nancy Kelley, Katharine Knox, Nigel Dr David Crook is head of the Department of Naish, Annmarie Naylor, Dinah Roake, Helen Educational Foundations and Policy Studies and Seymour, Neil Stott, Stephen Syrett, Archie senior lecturer in education at the Institute of Thomson and Charles Woodd. Paivi Suomi and Education, University of London. He has broad Clare Thornbury at the Institute of Education research interests in the area of history of education provided administrative support. and is currently part of a funded project team Our work is partly based upon archival research studying post-war changes in English teaching in at the London School of Economics, Manchester three London secondary schools. He is joint editor Local Studies, National Co-operative Archive and of History of Education. Senate House Library. We would like to thank the following people who were interviewed, discussed Dr Vincent Carpentier is senior lecturer in history the project and offered leads and suggestions: of education at the Institute of Education, University Jonathan Bland, Nic Bliss, Peter Couchman, Stuart of London. His personal and funded research (for Etherington, Paul Hazan, Peter Holbrook, Peter the ESRC, Department for Education and Skills, Hunt, David Rodgers, Sheila Rowbotham, Colin Universities UK and European Union) is located at Ward, Mervyn Wilson, Steve Wyler and Stephen the interface of economic history, history of Yeo. Sadly, Colin Ward died while this report was education and political economy and explores the being completed and we recognise his signifi cant historical relationship between funding in education, contribution to our understanding of community long economic cycles and social change. He is the and mutual ownership. programme leader of the MA in Higher and Professional Education and associate editor of the London Review of Education.

58 Acknowledgements and About the author