Wouldn’t it be interesting to realize we already live in a cooperative society? That perhaps all of the elements that might go into the cooperative societies of the Basque Region, Nigeria, Chiapas, Argentina, Quebec, Vietnam, Rojava-that Cascadia as a bioregion and as a socio-political territory with its own identity has an already thriving and innovative cooperative identity? Cascadian Society is inherently cooperative in its foundation and is a constantly evolving and emergent dialogue of place. To be a Cascadian in Cascadian Society is to realize that we can co-create the future we want and to do it in a cooperative way. What most people don’t realize is that cooperative economies and cooperative identities grow out of a people’s struggle and experience to establish themselves in the world. That the linkages of trust that develop from the individual to the community to the various institutions of what a society is and can be are what create the foundation of a cooperative identity that eventually builds itself into a cooperative economy over time and space. Cascadia is no different. We have a historic lineage of cooperative development and formation that is informal and formal in its nature (meaning people coming together in a group of three or more and working toward a larger social and economic purpose and then developing those experiences into institutions). Cascadian Society is as complicated as it is vast.

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The arguments of what constitutes a Cascadian Identity are important and there is also distinguishing the many different experiences in that identity and whether or not communities feel included. Such experiences include first nations and how they see Cascadia, black and African-diasporic communities and whether they see themselves as Black-Cascadian, Latin-x experience and whether they see themselves as Latin-x-Cascadian, and even myself as a Filipino descendant from U.S. Empire Imperialism-I do see myself as a Filipino-Cascadian personally, I can go on. We all have to fit into the Cascadian Identity and express what it means to live here and what our struggles here have been - this is a part of our Cascadian Cooperative Identity. And the question for me really lies in the understanding that new nations form with specific realities tied to the space and place they grow from, and with this, emerging societies (Ukraine, Zapatista Territory, Rojava, East Timor, Serbia as examples.) Does the fact they were a previous territory or identity with a previous name matter? Or is it how they grow from their geographies and experiences and how they define themselves that is important? Really this is an exploration for another time but ultimately falls within understanding the bioregional colonial-settler experience and the bioregional-BIPOC experience, and how naming our experiences within the collective name of Cascadia is an important element in understanding peoples struggles in the formation of the Cascadian Cooperative Identity.

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In learning about my own diasporic identity here in Cascadia and where I live in the Salish Sea I have uncovered local Filipino people’s history for example. We are very much a part of the fabric of Cascadian Identity and Cascadian Society. Our BIPOC-Cascadian identities, and our histories and authors of our struggles need to be shared, defined, and captured to express meaning and purpose in defining where Cascadian Society came from and how we struggled in the co-creation of the Cascadian Identity.

By understanding our collective BIPOC experiences in Cascadian Society, we can start to take our informal cooperative communities and peoples histories that we have created to survive here and develop our own formal institutions and build into the shared Cascadian Cooperative Identity.

But only we can do this. We cannot be defined by settler colonialism and white supremacy-otherwise we may live under the same conditions we are under now in a new Cascadia.

This isn’t to denigrate the experience of others who helped to define what Cascadian Society is, nor what they have contributed to our collective experience. But this is our collective experience not just theirs.

We define who we are, our experiences, and what it means to Cascadian Society and how our peoples histories have helped to build Cascadia into what it is today, as we are collectively building the Cascadian Cooperative Identity.

Cascadian Cooperative Identity Historical Roots

Historically our Cascadian Cooperative Identity was built and developed by such cooperatives as:

• REI was founded in 1938 in Seattle, Wa

• Washington Mutual as a cooperative was founded in Seattle in 1889

• Tillamook as a producer cooperative was founded in Oregon in 1909

• Darigold founded in Washington in 1919

• BECU founded in 1937 in Washington State is the largest credit union in Cascadia with 29.5 billion in assets and the 5th largest credit union across the American Empire.

• The Pacific Northwest Forestry Cooperatives spanned the bioregion in 1970s-1990s and are making a comeback now

• PCC and Central, as well as a whole host of food cooperatives normally consumer owned, have developed throughout the bioregion

• Washington State is home to more than 7 different homecare worker coops as well as over 31 different resident owned communities owned by the members of the manufactured home sites, and countless housing cooperatives and co-housing projects.

• And lets not count the numerous cooperatives less well-known but tied to their communities through the bioregion with everything from coop veterinary clinics, worker coops, constructions cooperatives, bookstore cooperatives, countless credit unions, insurance mutuals, consumer-owned utility coops, consumer-owned funeral coops, multi-stakeholder/solidarity coop pubs, unionized cooperatives such as Working Systems in Olympia and Central Coop in Tacoma, etc.

• This also includes historic cooperative development centers such as the oldest center in the bioregion the Northwest Cooperative Development Center that has been servicing cooperatives within the bioregion since 1979, the Northwest Agriculture Business Center, ROC-Northwest, Washington Rural Electric Cooperative Association, and newer centers such as the Washington Center for Employee Ownership, Inland Cooperative Services, and CASA of Oregon among others.

Cascadian Cooperative Networks

Cascadian cooperative networks have also been created and are known as a ‘coop of coops’ or umbrella organizations which house both coops and developers to support a secondary level of support for various cooperative economies throughout the 3 states. They include:

• Co-Sound, SLICE, Olympic Cooperative Network, Cascade Cooperatives, Oregon Cooperative Housing Network, Oregon Rural Electric Cooperative Association (ORECA), Spokane Workers Cooperative

The Cascadian Cooperative Economy Legal and Financial Environment

The Cascadia Cooperative Identity has also shaped the legal and financial environment to support the growth of cooperatives and mutuals within the bioregion with support both from activists, public officials, cooperatives and their individual members. Our legal and financial landscape includes:

• Washington State:

  • SB5096 created with help from the NWCDC and Shared Capital which funded and founded WACEO:

    • The act will created:

      • the Washington Employee Ownership Program with the Washington Department of Commerce;

      • an Employee Ownership Commission with seats appointed by the Governor and legislative leaders;

      • a tax credit for feasibility studies;

      • clarification that State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI) funding for the State of Washington maybe be used to finance employee ownership use cases;

      • a revolving loan fund to support the financing of conversions without a personal guarantee requirement – a troublesome issue cooperatives face in accessing the Small Business Administration (SBA)’s loan programs.

      • source: https://www.usworker.coop/blog/ambitious-employee-ownership-legislation-signed-into-law-in-washington-state/

  • 8 different cooperative entity designations

    • The Limited Cooperative Association RCW 23.100 which allows for partial capitalization of an investment class in cooperatives with controlled voting. This entity is used by such cooperatives as Black and Tan Hall LCA in Seattle as well as has been popularized by the Permanent Real Estate Cooperative Model developed by SELC in the Bay Area to address affordable housing. It blends the benefits of an LLC with the benefits afforded to coop associations.

    • Employee Cooperatives RCW 23.78 built out as a corporation selection for Worker Cooperatives with a focus on internal capital accounts and equitable distribution among the owners.

    • Cooperative Associations RCW 23.86 traditionally used by agricultural and producer cooperatives

    • Non-profit Corporations RCW 24.03 as an entity that helps the creation of cooperatives of all class types (worker, consumer, producer, retail/business, and solidarity). The Olympia Food Cooperative is designated as a consumer cooperative that uses this entity. A major understanding of this entity is the asset lock element to its dissolution article which states that upon the dissolution of the cooperative, the assets of the coop go to a like-minded organization, which I argue is an early form of asset lock to prevent demutualization from the regulatory environment of the state (Similar to Quebec, Venezuela, Italy in that these elements to prevent the cooperators to systematically give into shareholder or market opportunism to demutualize the cooperative). This is also a type of cooperative intergenerational wealth transfer.

    • Non-profit Miscellaneous and Mutual Corporation Act RCW 24.06 was developed as an upgrade to 24.03 with more flexibility and is used by most cooperatives of all class types within Washington. The shared services cooperative known as Divergent Minds Collective is a group of therapists in Puyallup whos firms are the members within the coop, and uses 24.06 as their entity type.

    • Fraternal Societies RCW 24.20 was developed for cooperative societies such as lodges

    • Washington State Credit Union Act RCW 31.12 is used by all the consumer-owned credit-unions within Washington State.

    • Mutual Insurers Chapter 48.09 RCW which is the entity used by consumer-owned (think policy holders) mutual insurance cooperatives (sometimes they use the word company).

    • This does not necessarily include the numerous cooperatives using standard C-Corporation or LLC entities or other lesser known business entities. Though many of the non-cooperative associations do have difficulties when it comes to member-owner transition from joining to exit.

  • Cooperative lawyers and accountants also exist as well as other professional services such as Lawyers Andra Kranzler and Cheryl Markham in Seattle and CapCity Law in Olympia and accountants such as Rant CPA in Seattle.

  • Financial support for cooperatives exist in the form of CDFI’s and community banks throughout the state:

    • Shared Capital

    • LEAF

    • Beneficial State Bank

    • Business Impact Northwest

    • Seed Commons

    • Denkyem Cooperative

    • as well as many others.

• Oregon State:

  • 3 different cooperative entities

    • Cooperative Associations ORS 62.015 which is used as a general purpose cooperative entity under Oregon law.

    • Trade Practices and Antitrust Regulation ORS 646.030 which is a statute developed to protect surplus/patronage for Oregon based cooperatives

    • ORS 723 is used by credit unions

    • ORS 732 which is used by Insurance Mutuals

    • Presumably there are more including C-Corps or LLCs used by cooperatives in the state.

  • Cooperative lawyers and accountants are also in Oregon such as Aligned Law and Wegner CPAs and Jones and Roth.

  • Financial support for cooperatives in Oregon also exist such as Craft3 and other CDFIs.

• Idaho State:

  • 3 cooperative entities:

    • Cooperative Marketing Associations Title 22-2601 which is used for agricultural cooperatives

    • Idaho Credit Union Act Title 26 which is used by consumer credit unions

    • Idaho Code Title 72 which is used by insurance mutuals

    • Presumably there are more including C-Corps or LLCs used by cooperatives in the state.

  • Cooperative lawyers and accountants are a bit harder to find and upon research only Cooper Norman CPA comes up in support of agricultural coop financial support.

As we can see here, I would argue that Washington State of all three states has the most developed cooperative legal and financial support though upon a deeper investigation, we might find elements of the legal and financial landscape in each state that supports the environment of cooperative development.

This also does not include Northern California. California has a highly developed legal and financial environment to support the growth of cooperatives and has yielded such cooperative economies such as the Bay Area and networks such as NoBawc.

Bringing into view of our northern neighbor of British Columbia, BC has some of the more mature cooperative legislations such as the Cooperative Association Act. Two federations such as the BC Cooperative Federation and the Cooperative Housing Federation. They also have numerous cooperative developers, a cooperative development center known as Stable State in Surrey, and many ways of financing cooperatives through banks, financial coops, and provincial financial support. Lastly they are even home to the Union Coop Initiative in which, with support of Cooperation Cincinnati in the United States has developed Labor Unions as member owners of the coop alongside activists and non-profits with support of Van-City Credit Union and the Government. BC has a very supportive legal and financial environment for cooperatives that Washington, Oregon, and Idaho are seemingly behind on due to the American approach of shareholder/investor hegemony over the business environment.

And while Alaska is not fully featured in this essay, it has a highly developed cooperative legal, financial, and economic presence that I would argue is just behind BC in its impact and capacity to support the Alaskan cooperative economy.

Why Does This Matter?

It matters because the Cascadian Cooperative Identity is the collective economic identity that supports the creation of a social and solidarity economy for the bioregion. Historically, and though it hasn’t been documented quite well, the cooperatives themselves, the cooperators in each community in which they live, the supportive organizations in the cooperative business ecosystem both public and private, the city, county, state, and provincial governments, and the various funding networks and organizations create the economic identity that is the Cascadian Cooperative Identity and the Cascadian Cooperative Economy. And while the Cascadian Cooperative Economy has not been aligned legally, financially, and ideologically (such examples as cooperatives of different class types competing with one another on what is actually designated as a cooperative such as REI vs Left Bank Books vs PCC), in a broader look and survey of the cooperative ecosystem/economy and the terrain, we can surmise that a regional Cascadian political and cultural identity has helped to develop and support the formation of these coops and their larger ecosystems they have developed in. And while the experience of whether or not these cooperatives identify as Cascadian, nonetheless they have developed within the cultural and political environment of the Pacific Northwest and this cannot be ignored, nor the impact they have had on cooperative movements across the continent.

As the United States continues to potentially balkanize, Cascadian society and political spirit will yet again make itself known. And while the rest of the United States may continue to push in different directions with new metropoles of power forming, the alignment of the various actors within the Cascadian Cooperative Economy will find greater economic and political stability in co-creating the Cascadian Cooperative Identity. The independent spirit of the bioregion has even been encompassed in literature with such books as Ecotopia written in the 1980s by Ernest Callenbach.

Cascadian culture and economic identity is already being formed as well with the support of various states, their public officials, and larger private corporations with the creation of the Cascadia Economic Innovation Corridor, the Cascadia High Speed Rail Initiative, and all the various Cascadia focused economic agreements from BC all the way down to Oregon, with even recognition by the federal government during the first Biden Administration during a review of threat to potential transfer of power by President Trump in the 2020 Transition Integrity Project Paper as referenced on page 18:

“The Biden Campaign encouraged Western states, particularly California but also Oregon and Washington, and collectively known as “Cascadia,” to secede from the Union unless Congressional Republicans agreed to a set of structural reforms to fix our democratic system to ensure majority rule. With advice from President Obama, the Biden Campaign submitted a proposal to 1) Give statehood to Washington, DC and Puerto Rico; 2) Divide California into five states to more accurately represent its population in the Senate; 3) Require Supreme Court justices to retire at 70; and 4) Eliminate the Electoral College, to ensure that the candidate who wins to the popular vote becomes President.”

Source: https://paxsims.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/preventing-a-disrupted-presidential-election-and-transition-8-3-20.pdf

Political and social movement wise, we even have our own soccer tournament known as the Cascadia Cup in which three teams from Oregon, Washington, and Vancouver BC compete. There is our regional flag, the ‘Doug Flag’. We also have various non-profits that support the cultural and political development of the bioregion such as Cascadia Now, the Cascadia Regen Movement and the Department of Bioregion, and even conferences that are supporting the development of a more wholesome Cascadian financial and cooperative economy with the newly launched Cascadia BioFi Conference which is forming innovative and transformative ways to create regenerative finance facilities for the Bioregion and the bi-annual Cascadia Cooperative Conference hosted by the Northwest Cooperative Development Center.

We Need to Align the Cascadia Cooperative Economy by building the Cascadian Cooperative Identity

And again I revisit what does this mean for us in the bioregion and all of this Cascadian political, social, and cultural development? It means we have to solidify the Cascadian Cooperative Identity and Cascadian Cooperative Economy as cohesive, aligned, and engaged in a way that brings the social and solidarity economic actors in the bioregion together. The consequences in the development of a potentially new nation or autonomous region means hegemony will lie with the current political and economic conditions that have put us here in the first place. Can the Cascadian Cooperative Economy and Cascadian Cooperative Identity be taken as seriously as the Cascadian Economic Innovation Corridor?

The Cascadian Cooperative Economy and all of its actors and organizations that it encompasses need to be as loud, as coordinated, and as economically influential as the Innovation Corridor. We need co-create Cascadian Society now and in the future.

Read More Here: https://www.smu.ca/webfiles/BRITISHCOLUMBIACASESTUDY.pdf

Cascadia as a movement, as a bioregion, as an economic region has many faces. From the Regenerate Cascadia movement that is helping to redefine what it means to live in place in the Pacific Northwest, to the Cascadia Innovation Corridor which is helping, at scale, to build out regional and economic sovereignty by interconnecting technology, infrastructure, and resource access across borders between British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon. Cascadia as a movement, and as an idea seems to be on its own path and own timeline beyond what many activists in the bioregion understand. But that’s a conversation for another time.

What I argue here is a foundation in observations, reflections, and forward thinking in postulating what a Cascadian Cooperative Economy would look like. We have existing infrastructure at what is known as the primary level of cooperative development-and to some degree secondary. And the contradictions in what I am calling the ‘Cascadian Cooperative Identity’ are often complex and varied in ways that can be explained, and more difficult in others. The International Cooperative Alliance wrote a document detailing the need for global cooperative unity through a document called the ‘Blueprint for a Cooperative Decade’. Written in 2012, the document describes a number of ways in which the shortfalls of the current cooperative movements in the world aren’t meeting the demands created by violent corporate globalization, and through a step by step process, develop an action plan and blueprint that, by 2020, was supposed to have a measured impact both in consolidated cooperative power and presence, but also a defined market edge that was both well delineated and understandable, and also distinguishable against the market face of international business and global capitalism. It is 2025 and my question currently is, have we arrived there? I argue that we have not. Especially with the rise of global fascism and with balkanization-at least ideologically within the United States and in Canada, I argue that regionalization and regional markets are a middle way in which to build our cooperative and social economy in a way that is measurable and controlled by the societies they come from.

In the ‘ Blueprint’, the argument for a ‘cooperative identity’ starts in the development of an ‘irreducible core’ that is defined, ethical, engaged, and reaffirms itself by its very nature and existence. This ‘irreducible core’ within global cooperative internationalism, as written by the ICA is supposed to be the pillar that supports both the ethical and principled edge of coops to avoid the powers of isomorphism amidst capitalist market forces and environments, and as a guiding force both at the membership level and organizational level of primary cooperative development, that would thus reinforce the secondary, and eventually the tertiary, and lastly-globally. That’s pretty fantastic. And while I feel our optimism and endurance can get us there, I feel the geography of history and economics might betray our sense of what can get done in our lifetimes.

What I can say though is, that perhaps there is an ‘irreducible core’ to the Cascadian Cooperative Identity. That this Cascadian Cooperative Identity has elements that brings us together beyond our political worldviews, ethnic origins, and personal and group identities. ‘Cooperative Identity’ is the cultural glue that has bound a peoples in a place to develop some of the most robust and enduring cooperative economies we see today, and their stories and histories are highly contextual and often varied in the way they reinforce the development of cooperative enterprise as a solution for their respective societies needs. One thing that does stand out many times though is that there is a through line, and many of the times it is cultural and has a lot to do with the identity of a people in a place. We can see this in examples in the Basque Identity and their cultural traditions that with the liberation theology with Father Arizmendieriatta created the Mondragon Cooperatives today. We can see it in the way that the Quebec Social Economy had developed alongside the Quebec Independence Movement in the 1960’s and how Quebecer Identity has created a foundation for the QSE to build off of. We can also see it in the Zapatista coffee cooperatives that have become an economic base in the development of their communities in the face of oppression and exploitation by the Mexican state. There are numerous examples I can pull from, but largely what I am arguing here is that the cooperative identity and the elements that bound these communities, people, and societies together are largely cultural and contextual to the struggle and space they exist in. They are also unique in their expressions on how they have built out their cooperative networks and ultimately cooperative economies that house both economic self determination as well as pragmatic democratic enterprises that provide buffers against the instability of global market capitalism and its shifts.

Cascadia, I argue, is also that. We are in a unique space with a unique movement and perception that has bound the people here together. It is taken on by activists, everyday people of multiple political persuasions, businesses, and governments within the bioregion, and represents something unique. If anything, I argue it is the ‘Algeria’ for our time within first world countries, in which communities are coming together to craft a common identity, that has deep ecological and social implications that trend toward the positive for those that live here. And within that, a ‘Cascadian Cooperative Identity’ is expressed, and moving forward, will be a reference in this to express and define the ‘irreducible core’ of a Cascadian Cooperative Economy that binds us all together in this bioregion, and if understood, has large implications for developing bioregional wide Cascadian Democracy at the enterprise level.

Research:

Blueprint for a Cooperative Decade

Cascadian Independence: A Rising Movement for an Independent Northwest

Quebec Case Study from St. Mary's

Is there room for BIPOC reality in Cascadia?

Where are the BIPOC bioregional authors? Where is the BIPOC peoples history of Cascadia in literature and art? As Cascadia is a white construct, are white people giving us ‘permission’ to exist? Will Cascadia become an second America? Are white people at the front of the Cascadia movement something we want?

Do Cascadian’s realize that Cascadia is historically brown land? That it historically belongs to indigenous communities that inhabit it? How will Cascadia as a new political and economic power live up to the ideals of decolonial self determination for indigenous nations and marginalized people of color? If white skin is the majority of the region, how is the movement ensuring that independence will include independence from white supremist political and economic oppression?

Can there be a Cascadia without white supremacy? Can there be a Cascadia without white privilege? Can there be a bioregional space that doesn’t come from white academics or activists but from BIPOC figureheads and authors?

What do I mean by this? I write this question to ask about what could be the most practical and green revolutionary movement in a post collapse settler colonial America

At the same time, Cascadia has opened up the conversation with white activist culture across the bioregion. It has opened up, in my limited opinion, a path for anglo decolonization from settler-colonial reality, to a limited degree. As Cascadia as a narrative and as an idea is the most prominent identity in the Pacific Northwest, by politicians, public bodies, and private companies big and small, as well as varied activist communities-what are these organizations doing to ensure that the movement for a new bioregional nation will center black and indigenous people of color? While I also recognize that rural white communities themselves as well find themselves in socioeconomic disadvantage, and also consider this an economic exploited class, what will the Cascadia movement do to bridge these gaps and prevent insular settler colonialism all over again?