The Road Not Taken: Alternative Strategies for Black Economic Development in the United States

Throughout the 20th century, there have been a number of approaches suggested for improving the economic viability of African-American communities in the US. Given the economic discrimination and oppression by institutions in the larger society, many social theorists and urban economists have argued that African-Americans should use their segregated social circumstances to build a separate and autonomous economic base within their own communities. The shared experience of social segregation, employment discrimination, and minority status would provide the rationale for the development of cooperative enterprises that would advance the economic conditions of the entire black community. The Mondragon Cooperative Movement (MCM) in northern Spain is an example of successful economic development by a people with a history of social and economic oppression and minority status. The MCM uses many of the elements of the economic programs implemented by Marcus Garvey in the 1920s and advocated by W. E. B. Du Bois in the 1930s.