José María Arizmendiarrieta

Venerable José María Arizmendiarrieta
Born	22 April 1915 Markina-Xemein, Biscay Spain
Died	29 November 1976(1976-11-29) (aged 61) Arrasate, Gipuzkoa, Spain

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José María Arizmendiarrieta Madariaga (

Jose Maria Arizmendiarrieta, whose name is often shortened to "Arizmendi", was born on April 22, 1915 in the modest farmhouse called Iturbe, nestled in the Barinaga porch, in the municipality of Markina-Xemein, Biscay. His parents were José Luis and Tomasa. His father had a reputation as a man of peace among his neighbors. Good-natured, cheerful and determined, he had a social life under the wing of fairs and brotherhoods.^[7] His mother was a housewife in the spirit of the biblical woman: intelligent, orderly, hard-working and self-sacrificing. She took care of the children's education and the administration of the farmhouse.^[8]

Jose Maria was the eldest of four brothers, the other three being Maria, Francisco and Jesus. When he was three years old he suffered a fall in front of the farmhouse, causing a severe head injury, and was taken to the doctor at Markina. The physical damage to his

Both Lekuona and Jose Miguel Barandiaran conveyed to the seminarians the value of critical observation, being reluctant to promote mere study. In this way they countered the monastic romanticism of the Seminary, which tended to cloister the priestly vocation, such that according to Arizmendiarrieta, "from so much talking about the temptations of the world, they were absent and unaware of the real temptations: power and comfort."^[7]

Civil War and priestly ordination: 1936–1941

At the beginning of the civil war in July 1936, Arizmendiarrieta was in the family farmhouse of Barinaga enjoying his annual vacation from the Seminary, and he remained there until he was mobilized by the new Basque Government of José Antonio Aguirre. But the military medical court certified his incapacity for active military service, and assigned him to an auxiliary corps, specifically to the editorial office of the newspaper Eguna (The Day), where he received a monthly salary as a soldier. The newspaper in Basque had been created in January 1937 by the new government to communicate with the Basque-speaking population, and especially with the soldiers at the front. He was a member of the Bilbao Press Association, and in May and June he also wrote in the bilingual newspaper Gudari (Soldier), aimed directly at the Basque militia battalions. In his articles, the anti-fascist, nationalist and Christian-Democratic ideology of Eguna was maintained. With Arizmendiarrieta worked several comrades from the group “Always forward" of the Vitoria seminary, such as Eusebio Erkiaga and Alejandro Mendizabal. The treatment of information sought to defend the Basque homeland and its most important components, language and religion. All this from a Christian-Democratic political orientation, with insistent references to social justice.^[7]

In June 1937, the rebel troops invaded

summary court-martial against 17 detainees, only 4 were saved from being shot, including Arizmendiarrieta, who declared that he was a soldier and not a journalist. He was finally released without charge, and mobilized by the Francoist army, being posted to the Burgos artillery regiment. He got permission to continue studying theology at the seminary in that city, passing and moving on to a new course. At the end of the year, the Bergara seminary was opened, and Arizmendiarrieta moved there to continue his priestly studies.^[11]

In September 1939, he returned again to the Vitoria Seminary, under the tutelage of Professor Rufino Aldabalde, who had created some work groups where he considered that, after the upheaval of the civil war, the social question was the burning task for the new generation of priests. The stages of "Kardaberaz" and the work in "Eguna" had finished, and in December Arizmendiarrieta was appointed by Aldabalde director of the group's sheet, which was called "Pax". In March 1940, the sheet changed its name to "Arises", and the Priestly Movement of Vitoria was created, where the social apostolate, especially that of youth and workers, were the two areas of work in which Arizmendiarrieta participated in the months prior to his ordination.^[10]

Board of Trustees. During the eleven months of the course, the students had a paid job for four hours in the morning in a local company, and in the afternoon they went to class for six hours.^[7]

In 1945, at the initiative of Arizmendiarrieta and through Sports Youth, the Iturripe stadium was built, financed with contributions from businesses and the local community through pools, raffles, passes for shows, etc. And continuing with his procedure of institutionalizing social projects, he himself drafted its statutes, turning it into a municipal sports society with a Delegated Board that included the main public, ecclesiastical and economic authorities of Mondragon.^[14]

In the year 1946, Arizmendiarrieta made an important qualitative leap in training, by selecting the best eleven young people who had completed their High Level Vocational Cycle studies, to pursue higher studies in Industrial engineering, but enrolled in the University of Zaragoza, located 200 km away. During the day they worked 55 hours a week at the Locksmith Union, and at night they studied under the guidance of teachers from the Professional School. They were examined in person in July, and all passed the five courses. Among them were the five entrepreneurs of what in 1956 was the first cooperative, ULGOR. In addition, the same year and following his thought of "theology of reality", he managed to create an anti-tuberculosis dispensary in the small Mondragon Community health center.^[14]

The year 1947 and the following years were socially convulsive, with

In 1963 he began to suffer health problems, surely the result of his intense activity in the previous years: priestly life, classes, talks, conferences, meetings, visits to work centers, attention to people in his office at the School, trips to the ministries and official entities, trips abroad, and his inveterate dedication to training through extensive study. He did not fully recover, and in February 1967 he suffered a

– Recreational, oriented towards sport and cinema with the Sports Youth.[7]

The business area was pending, with the participation of workers in the capital and management of companies. After thirteen years of creative work in the assistance and training sectors, based more on action than on reflection, and

Arizmendiarrieta promoted an open organizational model without distinction of

The San Jose Consumer Cooperative also served as a work balance by employing mostly women, since Arizmendiarrieta devoted special attention to promoting women. To do this, he expanded a teaching section in the Professional School, focused on the 400 single female workers who existed in Mondragon. Over the years, more consumer cooperatives were created, and in September 1969, as a result of the merger of the San Jose Cooperative, with several cooperatives based in the towns of Arechavaleta, Amorebieta, Marquina, Guernica, Éibar, Ermua, Matiena and Recaldeberri (Bilbo), the new company Eroski Group was created.^[8]

Industrial cooperatives

At the beginning of 1955, Arizmendiarrieta desisted from making any more attempts to promote worker participation in the capital and management of the Locksmith Union. He encouraged five of his closest collaborators to create a new company, ULGOR (name derived from the initials of the five founders: Luis Usatorre, Jesus Larrañaga, Alfonso Gorroñogoitia, Jose Maria Ormaetxea and Javier Ortubay).^[18] The authorization for its creation had to be given by the Government in Madrid, and when this was refused, they decided to buy a company in difficulty in Vitoria in October, with its industrial license to manufacture "appliances for domestic use", essentially cooking oil stoves.^[19]

In April 1956 Arizmendiarrieta blessed the pavilion where the new company Talleres ULGOR was located in Mondragon, where in addition to continuing to manufacture the previous stoves, they launched a new product: an oil stove copied to the millimeter from an English model unknown in Spain. Likewise, in the summer they obtained a license to manufacture selenium plates under the patent of a German company.^[20]

Arizmendiarrieta relied on talented young people he knew from the School, under the premise that "to create cooperatives you have to train cooperative members". On the other hand, the new businesses were promoted with a double logic: that they did not previously exist in the Alto Deba Valley, to avoid entering into competition with them, and that they were linked to their professional knowledge acquired in the Locksmith Union and the Professional School. Thus, Usatorre and Larrañaga took charge of the

In 1957, after the good start represented by ULGOR, Arizmendiarrieta, with the participation of former students of the Professional School, promoted the creation in Mondragon of Talleres Arrasate Industrial Cooperative to revive the company Aranzabal Workshop, which was in bankruptcy. The statutes were drawn up by himself in collaboration with two lawyers from Madrid, one of whom was responsible for the National Union of Industrial Cooperatives. The object of the new cooperative company was "the manufacture and sale of machines, tools, punching and tooling".^[1]

Credit unions

In August 1958, Arizmendiarrieta went on an excursion of students and professors from the Polytechnic School to the World Exhibition in

In the statutes that he presented for the approval of the Labour Bank, he reinforced mutual cooperation by proposing that the existing cooperatives be members of the credit cooperative and that the new cooperatives be incorporated as members. In this way, they mutually reinforced their solvency. A characteristic of the Labour Bank from its very beginning, and until the creation in 1991 of the Mondragon Corporation, was the existence of two divisions: the Financial Division and the Business Division. While the former performed the ordinary functions of a savings bank, the functions of the Business Division were autonomous. On the one hand, it supported existing cooperatives in matters of internationalization, management and legal advice, and on the other, it promoted the creation of new cooperatives, both in sectors where they already existed and in new ones such as research, the primary sector, and the educational one.^[1]

In addition to linking employees and industrial cooperatives as partners, Arizmendiarrieta wanted the rest of the population to get involved, and for this he used simple and popular messages. Thus, at the inauguration in 1960 of a new Labour Bank office, his motto was "O notebook, o suitcase", that is, save to invest and create jobs, or emigrate.^[4]

Mutual assistance

Like the financial entity, in June 1959, the EPSV (Voluntary Social Welfare Entity) known as "Lagun Aro" was created to respond to the cooperative members' need for social protection. The reason for this was that being

Arizmendiarrieta came from a family of peasants from Barínaga, and did not understand social development without the primary sector. After the first industrial cooperative, he promoted the LANA cooperative, integrating the livestock, agricultural and forestry sectors of the Alto Deba Valley. It would be a mixed cooperative with two types of partners, the producers of the villages, and the workers of the transformation cooperative. After several years of dynamic growth, specialization took place, creating three divisions: dairy, livestock and forestry. Over the years, the first two were integrated into the Erkop agro-food group, and the forestry activity into the Construction Division.^[23]

Cooperative university

At the beginning of 1961, Arizmendiarrieta began to structure the idea of a new Professional School with a higher

At that time, he developed the MEDUO University Project, involving the School Association of the University of Oñati, made public in 1965, and taking as its historical inspiration the old Sancti Spiritus University, created in 1545 and in operation until 1902. Its decentralizing approach involved locating engineering related to mechanics, electronics and machine tools in Mondragon, commerce and business administration degrees in Oñati, and chemicals linked to the textile industry in Bergara. In addition, he proposed a 'popular and social' university, which should pay attention to the practical application of the principle of equal educational opportunities, so that it would be a driving force for development through the institutionalization of lifelong learning. The project turned out to be too ambitious for the time, and it was not until 1997 that the current Mondragon University was established.^[24]

County Cooperative Group

In the Laboral Kutxa's Annual report of 1961, Arizmendiarrieta explained his ideas on intra- and inter-cooperative cooperation as an element of solidarity to achieve personal and collective advancement. He proposed an adequate process of capitalization by indirect means, and at the same time an indispensable formula of development through industrial concentration.^[25]

The directors of ULGOR led and developed the idea, which resulted in the constitution of a co-brand group called Ularco, which included the industrial cooperatives of the Alto Deba Valley. Initially, it would be made up of the industrial companies ULGOR, Arrasate, Copreci and Ederlan, constituting a federal union of cooperatives, with a similar orientation to groups of capitalist companies, with the difference that in these the power was vertical and configured by the arithmetic majority of the capital, while in the Ularco Group the power was

Arizmendiarrieta developed the project to create an industrial cooperative for the students of the Professional School with a double purpose. On the one hand, it would provide students with limited economic resources the possibility of paying for their High Level Vocational Cycle studies. And on the other, it would promote dual training through theoretical and practical classes at the School, and the experience of working in a real company.^[28]

In November 1965, he began the procedures for the administrative recognition of the company Alecoop (Cooperative School Labor Activity), which became official in April 1966. The industrial purpose of the company was the manufacture and sale of auxiliary tools for mechanical workshops and electrical installations for industrial assemblies, according to commissions or own study projects. The students would work in a cooperative regime for half a day, which had to be compatible with the school demands of the partners.^[21]

Women's Industrial Cooperative

In all cooperatives, women's participation was subject to rights equal to those of men. But in the mid-1960s, Arizmendiarrieta's concern for the labor emancipation of women became more apparent, since the limit of women's participation in work was marriage. In the cooperatives, the institutional associative link was the "partnership contract" and not the usual work contract, so the single members saw it terminated once they got married. For Arizmendiarrieta, marriage was almost a sentence of exile for women, which separated them from social life, and often tended to increase 'couple problems'.^[1]

To improve the situation, Arizmendiarrieta promoted the construction of a female pavilion for classrooms and laboratories at the School, which would allow young female students to study chemistry and electronics, and, in parallel with this, the creation of a women's industrial cooperative, founding the Auzo Lagun company in November 1967. Its activity is the direct catering service, in which meals are prepared on site for schools, companies, residences and hospitals.^[22]

Cooperative Research Center

Arizmendiarrieta was aware of the technological dependency implied by the acquisition of patents abroad, and more specifically that of electronic

In February 1966, Arizmendiarrieta spent a week in France visiting laboratories and factories in Paris, Dijon and Grenoble. And in September he made another tour of Germany, visiting different commercial, credit, consumer, and industrial cooperatives in Bonn, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Munich, Hamburg and Berlin. In both cases, he came back with the idea that Mondragon could also reach the degree of harmonic development that he had seen, for which it was necessary to become competitive in increasingly larger areas. All this served to reinforce his permanent discourse of cooperation.^[22][30]

The cooperatives were integrated into Regional Groups such as Ularco, based on their geographical proximity, and it was not until December 1984 that the reorganization pre-congress was undertaken with a more business and less

Also, in 1920 the socialist union UGT helped several affiliates, workers of companies in crisis, to achieve self-employment by creating the ALFA cooperative in Eibar.^[38] It began manufacturing weapons, and from 1925 also sewing machines. It was the largest industrial cooperative of the time and its managing director, Toribio Echevarria, was admired and loved by Arizmendiarrieta for his professionalism and integrity.^[39]

Business

Since the thirteenth century, the Deba Valley and its seven towns have been linked to forges and metallurgy. Thus, in the 15th century, a large part of the 1,900 inhabitants of Mondragon dedicated themselves to obtaining steel billets, which on the one hand, they sold and exported for the manufacture of weapons, and on the other, they transformed by hand into nails and ironwork. The forges were complex installations that allowed the energy of the water to activate the machinery necessary to produce iron and steel until the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century, when blast furnaces were introduced.^[40][41]

When Arizmendiarrieta arrived in the depressed post-war Mondragon in 1941, the largest company was the "Locksmith S.A.", created in 1906 from the merger of the companies "Vergarajauregui, Resusta y Cia", from 1869, and "The Guipuzcoan Locksmith", from 1901. It had 850 employees at its foundry and machining plants in Mondragon and Bergara, was listed on the Stock exchange of Madrid, and was the driving force behind several smaller locksmith companies. In mid-1948 it had 2,000 workers. The second most important company in Mondragon was the "Modern Locksmith ELMA", with more than 300 employees.^[42]

In all the towns of the Deba Valley there were numerous small industrial companies, among which two medium-sized ones stood out. In Bergara there was "La Algodonera San Antonio, S.A.", created in 1846, which had 500 employees and was dedicated to the production of large-scale textiles. In Oñati there was "Hijos de Juan de Garay, S.A.", created in 1864, and dedicated to the production of

Arizmendiarrieta always had a small and austere office in the Professional School, and he was an inveterate reader of unusual topics for a modest priest, such as books by the Labour Party, or the "red bishops" such as Antonio Pildain and Vicente Enrique y Tarancón, or the new Catholic intellectuals of the ecclesia such as the Spanish Episcopal Conference, Iribarren and Rodríguez de Yrre, or the communist manifesto of Marx and Engels.

In his search for a religious solution to social questions, he began to elaborate his own thoughts, which were a conjunction of the classical and social-Catholic sources of the Seminary and the new socialist and personalist theories. He bought books by thinkers with the gifts needed to make a real world impact, such as the active Catholic priest Hans Küng, or Jacques Maritain, Emmanuel Mounier, Ortega y Gasset, Jacques Leclerq and the Labor leaders, and gave copies to his disciples.^[9]

For him, reading was an essential source of inspiration, and he underlined the ideas he thought were most interesting in the hundreds of books in his private library. He rigorously wrote his reflections on "pedestrian humanism" in 10,495 files and writings. After his imprisonment during the civil war he only wrote in Spanish, but in August 1968 he began to use Basque again in the magazine TU Lankide, in a total of up to 57 articles, the last three in 1976.^[44]

Example in austerity

Arizmendiarrieta lived his entire life in personal austerity, as a young man out of family necessity and, after the emergence of the cooperatives, out of personal conviction. He lived with the limited salary of curate of the parish. He never received anything from the cooperatives or the entities that he promoted and he worked in a small office of the Professional School. He did not drink, and ate very little. In Mondragon he traveled by bicycle like the workers, until several cooperative leaders "stole" it, replacing it later with a velosolex (bicycle with a small motor). And for trips outside, he would ask friends for favors or take the cheapest tickets.^[45]

Despite being the promoter of numerous cooperatives, and often the drafter of the projects and statutes, which he personally defended before the different administrations, he gave up holding any position. In the few individual

He never acted for personal interests, and despite the fact that some class-oriented businessmen from Mondragon were detractors of the popular "priest", and were suspicious of the participation of workers in the capital and management of the new business model, Arizmendiarrieta maintained his ideology of social justice. In 1956 he was threatened by the Civil Governor with transfer, and he replied that he would obey the decision of his superior of the diocese, but that he would not become an accommodating priest.^[9]

Personal closeness

Arizmendiarrieta shaped his ideas into concrete achievements involving many people: politicians, businessmen, teachers, young people, etc. And he did it with empathy and respect for everyone. His daily work was based on an exercise of renunciation, of homage, submission, deference, gratitude and a quiet aura of authority. As a young man he moved around the town on a bicycle, out of affinity with the workers. He ate frugally, and when a charge from Madrid visited Mondragon for an event, Arizmendiarrieta would notify the nuns of the college to receive the visitors with a hot broth.^[3]

In 1958, the Director of Professional Education in Madrid Guillermo Reyna visited Mondragon. He was surprised by the casual way the students treated Arizmendiarrieta, and he wrote to him: “It gave me a bad impression that the students did not get up, greet, or offer the slightest sign of deference towards you, who are their Director, when we passed through the room where several were sitting and others were changing their shoes". Arizmendiarrieta, after apologizing, replied "I don't allow them to treat me as a Director, because I am just one amongst the rest in the School. It has been a procedure that has given me good results so far." In fact, Arizmendiarrieta was never listed as Director.^[46]

In 1965 the Minister of Labor arrived to award him the gold medal for Merit at Work, and in the speeches, the President of the Mondragon Education League highlighted the desire of the curate to detach his work from any personal interest, "He is still as poor as when he arrived 25 years ago, and just like then, his mother continues to send him beans and potatoes from the farmhouse." To conclude, he said, "He has created a mentality, a way of doing things. People have turned to him for everything, and he always has a free moment, a word of encouragement, an idea to solve a problem." The honoree's answer did not surprise anyone. He had no merit, he always spoke in the plural, losing his individuality in the anonymous work of the hundreds of people who had worked with him in the activities for which he was awarded: “I say without modesty that these merits that have been attributed to me for official purposes are due to each and every one of those who have worked during these past years”.^[9]

Sowing years

From the time Arizmendiarrieta arrived in Mondragon in 1941 with his wooden suitcase, until the first industrial cooperative ULGOR began operating, 15 years of preparation passed. The cycle began with the creation of the precarious Professional School in 1943, where the children of all the workers could study, unlike the Locksmith Union Apprentice School. Arizmendiarrieta did not yet have a defined cooperative model, but he did have a clear idea: that the worker can only emancipate himself through education and his own work. Therefore, he encouraged the spirit of responsibility and cooperation.^[47]

Other actions of Arizmendiarrieta were the organization of a library for youth, the organization of study circles for older people, and the foundation in June 1943, under his direction, of a Social or Sociology Academy with the inspiration of Catholic Action. The objective of his circles or meetings was "to train future worker leaders." In addition to his teaching at the Professional School, Arizmendiarrieta taught more than two thousand study circles, some for religious and human formation; others for social formation.^[48] This is equivalent to saying that he gave at least one conference every 2.7 days, for fifteen consecutive years, not discounting holidays and vacations.^[49]

In any case, the Professional School was his favorite place of catholic and social

In the sermons at his daily mass in the parish he also used short quotations to compensate for his difficult oratory. Once, the parishioners asked the bishopric to replace him because they did not understand him, but the bishop did not agree to do this, valuing his social work more. And in July 1967, when he was invited to Madrid as a speaker in the debates on the future status of Spanish cooperativism, chaired by the General Director of Social Promotion, the attendees listened to him in silence because his oratory was difficult for them. To alleviate the situation, the director told them "Keep in mind that Father Arizmendiarrieta thinks in Basque, and translates it into Spanish."^[9]

Training and work

He maintained close contact with the Vitoria Seminary, where year after year he attended the courses organized at the Social School. His interests ranged from economics and sociology to philosophy and pedagogy. He understood his own role as chaplain of Catholic Action as someone who spurred others to do good, and above all, as an educator. He made an effort to convince others, especially young people, of the importance of training, and often repeated quotes such as "Teaching and education are the first requirements of a community, if you do not want all kinds of companies to become stagnant or half developed", "Man is made through training", "It is better to light a match than to curse the darkness", or "Sowing in time is professionally training our young people. This is the expense that is transformed into seed that produces a hundredfold."^[9][51]

The argument of the profitability of investments made in education appears many times in Arizmendiarrieta's writings. And his insistence on community responsibility for education has two roots. One is his personal experience of the insufficiency of the State, and the other is his general idea that society should tend to

Arizmendiarrieta created in September 1960 the cooperative magazine that he always edited, "TU-Work and Union", initially called "Cooperation". He said that "Work is the firm basis for development and promotion, the Union is the lever that multiplies the forces of all, and Cooperation is for us a system of solidarity, to make work the appropriate instrument for advancement, personal and collective." Therefore, he insisted on collecting these concepts in the Statutes of the cooperatives.^[45]

He conceived the magazine as "a constant invitation to dialogue, relationship and cooperation for the practical application of the postulates of social justice in the business environment in a climate of freedom and love, indispensable in a work community". He considered work as a means of personal self-realization and solidarity, of individual improvement and collective improvement, the basis for a more unquestionable humanistic and social conscience.^[53]

He repeatedly explained that work dignifies people, and that different levels of development in regions and countries depend on work. He noted that a study by experts showed that in the United States, the contribution of nature, land, forests, rivers, seas, and mines to the level of development was estimated at one-eighth, and that the labour factor was seven-eighths.^[54] The Deba Valley itself, where Mondragon is located, is not notable for its natural wealth, but its development is driven and created by the work of its inhabitants.^[55]

As for the union, it was seen as a sign of solidarity in a democracy, so cooperatives should be democratic, with each member having only one vote. At the same time, unity demanded the responsibility of all, because unity is the strength of the weak, and solidarity is a powerful lever that multiplies strength.^[56]

The reform of the company

Arizmendiarrieta sought the

In 1956, after fifteen unsuccessful years proposing changes to the leadership of the Locksmith Union, Arizmendiarrieta made the momentous decision to encourage a group of professionally well-trained young people to leave their well-established jobs in the Locksmith Union to create a cooperative. He set out to realize his ideas on the primacy of work over capital, on self-management, and on democracy. Of course, Arizmendiarrieta's relations with some employers worsened markedly, and difficulties arose even in relation to the Professional School, where until then the collaboration had been optimal and generous. After the initial success of the cooperatives, in the following years he wrote that one of the noblest and most spiritual tasks that could be undertaken was to awaken in the people the consciousness of their own potential.^[60] It was necessary for the workers to be able to be revitalised with the hope of a true emancipation of their own through work and Christian peace. Henceforth, he stopped alluding explicitly to the reform of the company.^[61]

Leadership and ascendancy

Arizmendiarrieta's working method was based on teaming up with young people he trusted.

Arizmendiarrieta developed his concept of human enterprise through action and practice, which generated controversies that can be grouped into five areas:^[9]

– In 1941 Arizmendiarrieta arrived in Mondragon with his ideology of the social doctrine of the church, where the worker finds satisfaction in his job as an intelligent and responsible human being. He began his career in the Locksmith Union Apprentice School and in Catholic Action, and at that time he wrote that the workers saw the church at the service of the state: “The Army, the clergy and the Falange (the fascist party of the head of government, the dictator Franco) are the three claws of the capitalist». Likewise, they saw the church on the side of the winners of the civil war. For this reason, he established a catalogue of three virtues for the priest who wanted to act in the working environment: freedom, austerity and diligence.^[9]

– In 1956 he was about to be deported by the Civil Governor of

– In 1960 the first criticisms from local and regional capitalist businessmen began, directly and also through the Official Chamber of Industry of Gipuzkoa, which was suspicious of the growth of the cooperatives. Arizmendiarrieta had an excellent relationship with many businessmen, whom he encouraged to become members of the Professional School, such as Juan Celaya from the Cegasa company in Oñati and José María Altuna from the JMA company in Mondragon. But the critics argued, on the one hand, that there was a transfer of workers from their companies to the new cooperatives, and, on the other, that the fiscal benefits of these were the basic reason for their growth. (The deduction of 10% of corporate tax was dedicated to the Promotion and Employment Fund for the community.) This second argument was recurrent for many years.^[9]

– In the cooperatives there were no worker' unions, their functions being assumed by the Social Council, and in 1966 the first criticisms from leftist and union sectors began, maintaining that cooperativism was an insufficient solution for society, being socialism "from the inside". These critics accepted as positive certain aspects of cooperativism such as the democratic government of the company through the principle of one partner/one vote rather than control by capital, the imputation of the surplus value of work to the community, and solidarity through limited salary ranges that prevented the formation of privileged classes. But their principal objection was that cooperativism seemed to be a form of submission to the principles of the free market.^[66]

- In 1970 other criticisms arose from the new

- Cooperativism was also criticised for its lack of sensitivity to the Basque question.[9]

Influence and legacy

– In 1952, after the inauguration of the new Professional School, he received the Commendation of the Civil Order of

– In April 1966, Mondragon paid homage to three figures by naming them adoptive sons of the town: the doctor Don Mariano Briones, the parish priest Don Jose Luis Iñarra and Don Jose Maria Arizmendiarrieta. The three honorees were celebrating 25 years of work at Mondragon.[7]

– In August 1966, after the Alecoop Student Industrial Cooperative was inaugurated, the Minister of Labor, Romero Gorria personally awarded him the Gold Medal for Work.^[9]

– The Olandixo Hillside Road, opened in 1972, where Lagun Aro, Ikerlan and Laboral Kutxa are located, is called Paseo Jose Maria Arizmendiarrieta.^[67]

– In 1992 a monument was inaugurated in his honor in the native district of Barinaga in Markina-Xemein.^[68]

– In 1997 Arizmendi Bakery opened in San Francisco, California, named after Arizmendiarrieta.^[69]

– On May 6, 2009, the diocesan phase of his canonization process concluded.^[70]

– On 14 December, 2015, Arizmendiarrieta was decreed to be of heroic virtue by Pope

– In April 2016, the Laubide Square in Mondragon was renamed the Jose Maria Arizmendiarrieta Square, with a plaque in Basque and Spanish inscribed “Jose Maria Arizmendiarrieta (1915–1976). Founder of Arrasate-Mondragon cooperativism. His model for work has spread across the world. Commemorating 100 years since his birth”.[71]

See also

• 127 photos of Arizmendiarrieta
• Mondragon Corporation
• Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers
• ICA-International Cooperative Alliance

References