Last week, news broke of the creation of a real estate cooperative, made up of a group of companies in the sector that have joined together to launch this exciting project, which will undoubtedly strengthen the industry.
The Royal Spanish Academy defines a cooperative as a “Mutual society whose primary objective is the promotion of the economic and social activities of its members and the satisfaction of their needs with their active participation, observing cooperative principles and attending to the community of its environment.”.
Cooperativism is clearly a concrete phenomenon of modernity. It emerged during the Industrial Revolution as an alternative for the working class. The English utopian socialist Robert Owen (1771-1858) is identified as its first precursor, given his attempts to improve the distribution of profits among the workers of his textile factory in New Lanark, Scotland, and to socialize the means of production.
"Owen sought to demonstrate that through cooperation and solidarity, relations between workers and employers can develop harmoniously, in an environment of mutual collaboration."«.
Owen was followed by the Englishman William King and the Frenchman Charles Fourier who also advocated the creation of associative-based organizations, making important improvements to the nascent cooperative scheme, in areas such as democratization, association and the right to work.
Fourier proposed a socio-economic system based on small, non-profit agricultural communities focused on job creation. King, for his part, was a pioneer of the first consumer cooperatives, in which worker members purchased the basic necessities for their survival. In 1827, he founded The Cooperative Trading Association in Brighton, which inspired the creation of nearly 300 similar cooperatives by the end of the decade.
The first decisive achievement of cooperativism occurred in 1844 when 28 workers founded a consumer textile cooperative in Rochdale (England) led by Charles Howart, laying the foundations of today's cooperativism.
In the Dominican Republic there are currently about two thousand cooperatives, 1,042 more than existed two years ago, a sector that has undoubtedly expanded to almost the entire national territory, with entities focused on the development of women standing out.
The Board of Directors of COOPINMOBILIA, as the announced entity is called, is headed by a group of outstanding women, leaders in their companies, valuable and empowered, with a remarkable reputation, which bodes well for the management of the new organization.
Although we do not know the project in detail, we are sure that this initiative will contribute to strengthening the sector, improving its plans and supporting the work carried out by the thousands of real estate agents who are committed every day to buying and selling real estate in the country, a market that helps to energize and boost the Dominican economy.
As a member of the cooperative movement, I can attest to the excellent service they provide and their contributions to society as socio-economic entities. Therefore, we at El Inmobiliario wish Wanda del Orbe, Maika Maldonado, Isely Almánzar, Alenny Garabito, and their entire team every success, expressing our support for this proposal, which comes at a timely moment for the sector. Congratulations!.
