Jose María Arizmendiarrieta, 1915-1976

1. Jose María Arizmendiarrieta, 1915-1976 FoundingFather of Mondragon

2. Classical theories on Mondragon: • Religiosity of Basques • Basque (rural) tradition • Basque nationalism • The religious interpretation emphasizes its original status as social movement and the decisive role of its ‘founding father’

3. Thepriest Arizmendiarrieta: Educated as a ‘Social priest’ in the Vitoria Seminar Intellectual sources: Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical RerumNovarum (1891), the Social Code by Cardinal Mercier (1920), the papal encyclical Quadragessimo Anno (1931) by Pius XI Influenced by jesuit J. Azpiazu’s works and 2 key professors: Barandiaran and Thalamas Introduced by the last one to strategies of Catholic cooperativism all over Europe

4. Arizmendiarrieta in Mondragón • He formed a group of young Catholic workers who participated in social activities and gradually took on leadership and management tasks • Arizmendiarrieta taught them classic values from Catholic social doctrine ,which were the ethical bases for the future culture of Mondragon co-operatives: enthusiasm for work, austerity in everyday life, sacrifice for community ideals, faith in social initiatives, self-examination and personal integrity in collective tasks… • Professional and technical training became the main pillar of Arizmendiarrieta’s social work : he founded the Technical School of Mondragón on August 1943 • British Labour Party political thinking had an early impact on the content of Arizmendiarrieta’s discourse, along with French Catholic philosophers like Maritain and Leclercq

5. Thebeginning of Mondragon • He formed an elite of young workers and trusted them with his most cherished goal: the creation of a new Catholic enterprise to promote a social movement which subordinated capital to labour • The first company was founded in September 1955, with the trade mark of Fagor • The business model of Fagor was followed by many other industrial enterprises stimulated or suggested by Arizmendiarrieta • These co-operatives were supported financially by the credit co-operative CajaLaboral, founded in 1959 The Technical School was rebuilt as a Polytechnic in May 1964

6. In 1969 the institutional pillars of Mondragon were set up: • an industrial sector articulated around Fagor; • a banking sector, with CajaLaboral and the insurance co-operative Lagun-Aro; • a distribution sector, Eroski; • An educational sector, with the Polytechnic School (currently the Mondragon University) • The Statutes of each co-operative acted as a ‘co-operative constitution’ to which the Regulations inserted ‘amendments’ in response to social change • According to both documents, the Mondragon workforce brought labour and capital together through a co-operative contract represented through four principles: equality, solidarity, responsibility and democracy • Co-operation was inseparable from spirituality, and the route to it led through deep Christian self-examination

7. An intense secularization process affected the Mondragon co-operatives during the 1960s and 1970s • From the late 1960s the Mondragon project begun to attract members who lacked religious concerns applicable to the world of labour • Marxism and Basque nationalism filled the gap left by secularization among the new generations of Mondragon workers • The collective memory of Mondragon fixed within the co-operatives from the 1980s onwards combined amnesia and idealisation • Arizmendiarrieta was repositioned as an iconic presence in all the public spaces of the movement , without any meaning for the new generations more than being the ‘founding Father’ of everything