Switzerland’s oldest cooperative? The statue of three Confederates in the Domed Hall of the Federal Palace.
Switzerland’s oldest cooperative? The statue of three Confederates in the Domed Hall of the Federal Palace. Wikimedia

The power of the cooperative

The principle of the cooperative was indispensable to the establishment of Swiss democracy. The UN International Year of Cooperatives in 2025 demonstrates that this type of cooperation is also important at a global level.

René Roca

René Roca

René Roca has a PhD in history and is a secondary school teacher and Director of the Research Institute for Direct Democracy fidd.ch.

The principle of the cooperative is a mainstay of the Swiss federal system. As an organisational form of economic self-help, the cooperative is more than just a legal designation, it’s a bona fide social system. It is invariably community based and is embedded in the federalism and subsidiarity inherent to Switzerland’s political system. The members of the cooperative decide everything democratically; everyone has a voice. This is a key element in the subsequent emergence of direct democracy. The purpose of a cooperative is always to make optimal use of a shared asset to the benefit of all the members and of the association. While the types of use can vary, the purpose should always serve the common good under natural law: the commune bonum.

Swiss historian Adolf Gasser (1903–1985) highlighted the significance of the cooperative principle with particular clarity. He basically saw European history as a manifestation of two contrasting concepts, i.e. dominion and cooperative. Gasser stressed that these two systems were diametrically opposed: one being based on governance from the top-down, and the other one wielding power from the bottom up. In other words, power over the people as opposed to power through the people.

Why the principle of the cooperative matters

The principle of the cooperative in Switzerland actually predates the founding of the Confederation in 1848. In fact, it was already hundreds of years old by then and integral to the federal ethos, which is defined by the three ‘selfs’: self-help, self-responsibility and self-determination.

The cooperatives were usually a legacy of the medieval land parcelling laws, i.e. communally owned land in the Middle Ages known as ‘mittelalterlicher Gemeinmark’. These early manifestations of the cooperative system are important to understanding how the Swiss political system works. In Switzerland, the general spread and structure of the cooperatives was based on common land (land owned by the community). They were areas that had to be accessible to all, whether as pasture, woodland or wasteland.

The common land normally came to be designated as such by the inhabitants of a group of settlements – one or more villages, hamlets or groups of farms – who selected a defined area for a collective economic purpose. Taking a farming family as an example, the common land gave them access to three zones: they had their private land for farming plus the place where they lived with the farmstead and garden; the common land was a third area under collective management. From the early Middle Ages, European nobility tried to determine or at least influence the rules governing the use of common land. In many places however, including the territory now known as Switzerland, the principle of the cooperative stood firm. As each community had their own way of organising their cooperatives, many different cooperative forms came into being.
Common land in Meiringen on a watercolour by Georg Ludwig Vogel, 1817.
Common land in Meiringen on a watercolour by Georg Ludwig Vogel, 1817. Swiss National Museum
During the Middle Ages, the areas of land under common ownership were central to the workings of a community and their rules provided order and security in what is now Switzerland. Besides the land, which was normally part of all farming villages up to the 18th century, other types of cooperative emerged to meet other specific communal purposes.

The formation of citizens’ communes

The cooperatives enabled communities to function with more independence than they would otherwise have done. Were it not for this capacity for self-determination at the local level, Switzerland could not have been founded in the way that it was, i.e. with respect for all its people including their different languages, cultures and religions. During the late Middle Ages and the early modern era, the village and valley cooperatives expanded their remit in a number of ways, including preparing paths and walkways, hydraulic projects, water supply, constructing church buildings and assuming a duty of care for the poor. The village and valley cooperatives thus developed into village and valley communes, the basis of what later became the Confederation.

The cooperative members thus became villagers and the village cooperatives evolved into village communes. This led until 1798 to the formation of ‘Bürgergemeinde’ (citizens’ communes) that still exist in many cantons today. The Helvetic Republic distinguished between citizens’ communes and ‘Einwohnergemeinde’ (electoral communes). This had a knock-on effect on the common land. Some areas were converted to leaseholds or private ownership, others were claimed by electoral communes or evolved into corporations under private law. The corporations and citizens’ communes remain an important tradition in Switzerland to the present day and they represent personal connections to the history and culture of a commune.
The water supply in Switzerland is still mainly a cooperative affair. The construction of a water pipe in Ticino, early 20th century.
The water supply in Switzerland is still mainly a cooperative affair. The construction of a water pipe in Ticino, early 20th century. Swiss National Museum
Were it not for the tradition of common land and the spirit of the cooperative or will of the people, the federal system would never have been established in Switzerland in 1848. This spirit of the cooperative always started on a small scale, i.e. at community level where it could be managed easily, which is why the community underpins the principle of the cooperative. This small scale is integral to establishing dynamic, cooperative-based autonomous administration. This historical dimension of Swiss communes is often forgotten in the current discussions about mergers.

The cooperative movement of the 19th century

A broad cooperative movement, driven mainly by growing industrialisation, evolved during the 19th century based on the Swiss traditions of common land and cooperatives. Unions, workers’ associations (Grütliverein) and left-wing parties were often the leaders. This movement – in Switzerland and in Europe – took hold in new, including industrial, areas, all while staying true to fundamental cooperative principles. This resulted in the emergence of production, consumption, housing, credit and savings cooperatives in addition to the traditional agricultural entities.
Display window of the ‘Lebensmittelverein’ Zurich, a 20th century consumer cooperative.
Display window of the ‘Lebensmittelverein’ Zurich, a 20th century consumer cooperative.rnrnu0026nbsp;rnrnu0026nbsp; Swiss National Museum
The cooperative was enshrined as a legal form in the Swiss Code of Obligations in 1881 and became increasingly popular. The number of cooperatives in Switzerland increased massively around the turn of the 20th century (1883: 373; 1890: 1,551; 1910: 7,113). The main reason for that was the recurring crises in capitalist society. The depression of the 1930s gave another major boost to cooperatives, until they peaked in 1957 at over 12,000. Just under half of the cooperatives were agricultural. Service sectors also began to emerge as cooperatives, the electricity industry for example. After the Second World War, building and housing cooperatives became especially popular.

The American political scientist Elinor Ostrom (1933–2012) conducted a global, landmark study in the 1980s ‘Governing the Commons’ for which she became the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2009. She used historical examples from different continents to demonstrate the importance of the principle of the cooperative in modern times. She used common land to demonstrate how people organise themselves into a community to solve complex problems with scarce natural resources. Ostrom concluded through her extensive studies that the management of local resources on common land was better in many cases when performed by the people who used the land cooperating together than when under state control or private ownership. In other words she came down emphatically in favour of the principle of the cooperative.

The future of the cooperative

Although the principle of the cooperative remains highly popular in Switzerland, the number of cooperatives has been falling in recent years. Furthermore, the original cooperative concept is coming under increasing pressure from large cooperatives. The true meaning of a cooperative needs more general recognition and it should be taught at schools and universities. Ostrom found examples of common land used by cooperatives all over the world, in many cultures and countries. This proves that the cooperative is a worthy economic model under natural law where decisions are made democratically by the cooperative members. It is therefore a model for establishing a self-determined political culture.

The three ‘selfs’ in conjunction with the tradition of part-time public service known as the militia system enable a special type of democratic culture in Switzerland. Viewed historically, the cooperative concept was thus a central reference point in many ways and basis for the emergence and development of direct democracy and the formation of the Swiss federal system. Switzerland is the only country to acknowledge its cooperative past in its name ‘Eidgenossenschaft’ (Genossenschaft = cooperative).
A Swiss passport from the 1920s.
A Swiss passport from the 1920s. Swiss National Museum
Broadly speaking, cooperatives are akin to schools of democracy. These are all reasons that have led to the cooperative concept being part of UNESCO world intangible cultural heritage since 2016; and 2025 is the UN year of cooperatives. This acknowledgement supports the results of Elinor Ostrom’s research.

Published on: 27.03.2025

Modified on: 07.10.2025

URL: https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/en/2025/03/the-power-of-the-cooperative/

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