Marxism, Hegemony, and the Cooperatives of the Filipinos (Daniel Boone Schirmer Memorial Lectures on Marxism in the Philippines)

Speaker:
Virginia A. Teodosio
Associate Professor
School of Labor and Industrial Relations
University of the Philippines-Diliman

Reactor:
Mario I. Miclat
Professor
Asian Center
University of the Philippines-Diliman

Moderator:
Eduardo T. Gonzalez
Professor
Asian Center
University of the Philippines-Diliman

07 August 2006 (Monday)
1:00-2:30 p.m.
Pulungang Claro M. Recto
Bulwagang Rizal (Faculty Center)
University of the Philippines-Diliman

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the relationship of Gramci’s Marxism and the cooperative movement in the Philippines. The movement’s expanding base from microfinance, health, housing to agribusiness, presents a critical perspective, not always found in mainstream texts, with which to understand and explain an emancipatory social phenomena in contemporary Philippine society. The cooperatives of the Filipinos represent a distinct alternative that exists within capitalism. To what extent then can cooperatives, built from the bottom up, help create the conditions in the country for a counter hegemony? What has been the significance and implications of the cooperatives in terms of civil society being a precondition to the democratic process?