Glossary
A
ACI - Italian alliance of cooperatives
The Alliance of Italian Cooperatives is the national coordination which is constituted by the most representative associations of Italian cooperation (Agci, Confcooperative, Legacoop).Wth 43,500 associated enterprises it represents more than 90% of the Italian ... To be continued →
AGCI - General Association Italian Cooperatives
It was created in 1952, separating from the National League of cooperatives and mutual aid societies, with a liberal, republican and social-democratic matrix.It became the one of the three biggest cooperative ... To be continued →
Art. 45 of the Italian Constitution
Article 45 of the Italian Constitution - a unique world constitutional charter - that protects and promotes the cooperatives says: “The Republic recognises the social function of mutual cooperation and without purpose of private speculation ... To be continued→
B
Basevi Law
It’s the law n.1577 of 14th December 1947 that debates the cooperative world in a democratic and republican Italy, after a period of crisis and impasse of the sector because of fascism. This Law recognises mutuality as a cooperatives’ linchpin ... To be continued →
C
Cassa rurale
It’s a cooperative society with limited or unlimited responsibility for the exercise of popular credit, in favour of farmers and craftsmen. The first cassa rurale was founded in 1849 in Prussia through the work of F.W.Raiffeisen and starting from 1880 ... To be continued →
Civil economy
The expression “civil economy” appears for the first time in the political-economical lexicon in 1753, when the University of Naples established the first chair of economy in the world, entrusting its entitlement to Antonio Genovesi, whose fundamental work ... To be continued →
Common good
An easy but efficient way to understand the meaning of common good is to compare it to the concept of global good. The global good can be instead metaphorically rendered with the image of a summation, ... To be continued →
Common goods
I “beni comuni” (in English commons) are goods of common property. They are all of the tangible and intangible resources, used by many individuals and that can be considered humanity’s collective heritage. To be continued →
Community Cooperative
It’s a model of social innovation, promoted in a cooperative form, that peppered around during the early years of 2000, where the inhabitants of an area cooperate as producers and users of goods and services, with activities aimed at the collective wellbeing. To be continued→
Confcoop - Confederation of Italian Cooperatives
It was created in 1919, body of representation and protection of cooperatives, with a matrix of Catholic inspiration based on the Social Doctrine of the Church. In 2011 it contributed to the establishment of the Alliance of Italian cooperatives, ... To be continued →
Consumers’ cooperative
It was created to guarantee to members-consumers the access to products and goods at a lower price than market price, enhancing the productions of the territory. The experience of Rochdale, in England, in 1844 ... To be continued →
Coop Italy
It’s a system of cooperatives that manages a net of supermarkets, convenience stores and hypermarkets in almost every Italian region (especially in the centre-north). It’s created in 1967 as a national consortium for every Italian consumers’ cooperative in order to ... To be continued →
Cooperation
It’s an operation which is conducted together by multiple entities (individuals, authorities, countries, international organisations) for achieving a certain goal. Economic activities inspired by collaboration and solidarity. To be continued →
Cooperative (enterprise)
The typical characteristic of the cooperative enterprise is to keep mutualist function and economic activity always together, in a consubstantial way. The cooperative connects within itself two distinct dimensions even if not opponents: ... To be continued →
Cooperative of production and work
These cooperatives aim to give members better work conditions linked to the market economy, both in terms of the quality of working conditions and economic treatment, with a mutual organization. The first cooperative of production in Italy was created in Altare ... To be continued →
Culture and cooperative education
A constitutive aspect of cooperativism is linked to education and diffusion of ideals and cooperative values not only among thinkers and intellectuals but among all the population. During the first congress of Italian cooperators, ... To be continued →
D
Declaration of Cooperative Identity
It’s a document approved during the Centenary Congress of the International Cooperative Alliance, held in Manchester in September in 1995. It gives a definition of cooperation: “an autonomous association of individuals who unite voluntarily to satisfy ... To be continued →
E
Economic Democracy
By speaking in Trento in occasion of the convention ” The associate in the cooperation of 2000”, held in 1996 at the Federation of cooperative Consortia, the economist Stefano Zamagni specifies that “economic democracy is directly associated with member ... To be continued →
Enterprise social responsibility
For a long time now the awareness that the enterprise doesn’t constitute an isolated and shut down reality has been spreading in the business community, in academia and in public opinion; it’s instead an organisation that is placed and acts in a specific context ... To be continued →
Equity
Equity refers to the pertinence of a rule used for allocating common resources. In fact, equity is that principle according to which, within an efficient economic system in the production of profit, you also have to find the way to equally provide the profit ... To be continued →
F
G
H
I
ICA - International Co-operative Alliance
ICA is an international association that was created with the goal of reuniting, representing and supporting the cooperatives of the whole world. It was established in London in 1895 - the same year don Lorenzo Guett laid the foundations for the Federation of ... To be continued →
Inequalities
Inequalities in Western developed countries, that had decreased since 1945, shockingly returned to increase during the last twenty years and this despite the massive interventions in the economy by the country. To be continued →
Inter-cooperation
Inter-cooperation refers to the collaboration among cooperatives of different sectors. In this regard The Charter of Values of cooperation in Trentino reads: ”In order to affirm the cooperative bond, emphasis must be placed ... To be continued →
Italian Documentation Centre on cooperation and social economy
It was created in 1988 at the behest of Legacoop, it oversees the preservation and dissemination of cooperative culture, through the promotion and distribution of archival. bibliographic, audiovisual material on the topic. To be continued →
L
Legacoop -National League of cooperatives and mutual aid societies
It’s an organisation of representation and protection of cooperatives, with headquarters in Rome. It was created under the name of Federation of Italian cooperative Societies after the first convention of cooperative members in 1886 ... To be continued →
M
Member
The cooperative members and all their (economic, social, cultural) needs represent the ultimate goal of the existence of a cooperative business. The first principle of the Declaration of cooperative identity (1995) declares the principle of the “open door” ... To be continued →
Mutuality
Article 2511 of the Civil Code establishes that “cooperatives are open-ended investment companies with mutual purpose”. In the ministerial report to the Civil Code, mutuality is so defined: “to supply members with goods or services or work opportunities ... To be continued →
N
National Federation of farmers
It was created in Bologna in 1901 in order to gather all peasants: it is one of the first union organisations where cooperatives of agricultural labourers and wage earners, sharecroppers, small landowners, improvement and resistance leagues get together. To be continued →
Non profit
In the economic language, it refers to private organisations very different from each other (associations, committees, foundations etc.) unified by the prohibition set by the statute to distribute profits to members who are part of it or to employees, ... To be continued →
O
P
Popular bank
Credit institution set up as a cooperative society, created and experimented in Germany by Franz Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch (the Volksbank) and introduced in Italy by thinkers of that time as Luigi Luzzatti. To be continued →
Q
R
Relational goods
The concept of “relational good” is introduced in the debate of economics in the mid eighties of the twentieth century by sociologists such as Pierpaolo Donati , by philosophers as Marta Nussbaum and by economists as Benedetto Gui for whom such goods are ... To be continued →
S
Second degree cooperative/consortium of cooperatives
The consortium is constituted by the group of cooperatives that operate in the same sector and syndicate themselves in order to optimise their coordinated management, to improve their development and facilitate their own market uptake. To be continued →
Social benefit
We talk about social benefits when the benefits achieved by a person or organisation reach the community and not only the members of a specific institution. In the cooperative world the most frequently used expression is that of “external mutuality”. To be continued →
Social Cooperative
Established in Italy, this form of cooperative aims to pursue the community’s general interest in human promotion and social integration of the citizens” (Law 381 of 1981). Type A cooperatives manage social-welfare educational services, while type B cooperatives ... To be continued →
Subsidiarity
The principle of subsidiarity is a key distribution of administrative powers within a legal order. Subsidiarity can be : 1.vertical (distribution of administrative powers among different levels of territorial government) To be continued →
T
Third-sector
The third-sector refers to the entirety of organisations that are in the economic system and rank between State and free market, with a very precise and specific role and social task. It concerns in particular private organisations aimed at producing goods ... To be continued →
