The Smokestack Leaned toward Capitalism: An Examination of the Middle Way Program of the Antigonish Movement

The article explores the ideological underpinnings of the Antigonish Movement of co-operative development and adult education which established itself in Nova Scotia in the 1930s. It is concluded that the ideology of the Antigonish Movement represented consent to, and reinforcement of, capitalist hegemony. This argument is contrary to the position taken by many Movement activists and writers who present the Movement as attempting to create a middle way between capitalism and socialism. Dans cet article, l'auteur explore les bases ideologiques du mouvement de developpement cooperatif et d'education des adultes (Antigonish Movement) qui a vu le jour en Nouvelle-- Ecosse dans les annees 1930. Il conclut que l'ideologie de ce Mouvement a constitue un consentement a l'hegemonie capitaliste et un renforcement de celle-ci. Cette conclusion contraste avec l'opinion de nombreux auteurs et de nombreux militants du Antigonish Movement selon lesquels celui-ci constitue une tentative Wen arriver A un juste milieu entre capitalisme et socialisme. The Antigonish Movement is the name given to a program of populist adult education and co-operative development that emerged in eastern Nova Scotia in the late 1920s. The intellectual and organizational center of the Movement was the Extension Department of St. Francis Xavier University in the town of Antigonish. The Movement represents the start of a long tradition of local development in this part of Canada that argues that people and communities in the region can and should take responsibility for local economic development.1 This tradition is usually understood as a critique of both laissez-faire capitalism and socialist or top-down government direction as approaches to local economic development that, historically and ethically, fail to address the need for people in communities to control their economic lives. In the Antigonish Movement, the tradition situates consumer co-operatives as enterprise models that, practically and ethically, represent a middle way between the two extremes. The task in this article is to analyze the ideological foundations of the Movement and to identify implications for capitalist hegemony. I will argue that the ideology of the Antigonish Movement was such that, in the final analysis, the co-operative enterprises it created were a practical part of capitalist hegemony in the region. The ideological foundation of the Movement consisted of those ideas that guided its understanding of why communities in eastern Nova Scotia found themselves in economic crisis and that, at the same time, gave shape to its efforts to take practical actions to counteract the problem. In this sense, ideology is understood as a set of ideas that guide the actions of people as they try to make sense of, and respond to, the world in which they live. Ideology has, in Gramscian terms, "a material existence in the practical activities" of men and women and "provides people with rules of practical conduct and moral behavior" (Simon 59). As a determinant of people's behaviours and the types of collective structures they create and sustain, ideology relates directly to existing hegemony and can serve to reinforce or to challenge that hegemony. The Antigonish Movement Through the Great Depression, the Antigonish Movement achieved a strong co-- operative sector in the region's economy. By 1938 the co-operative membership was 100,000; there were 142 credit unions, 39 consumer co-operative stores, 11 fish plants and 17 lobster canneries (Alexander 88). The Movement was the focus of national and international attention; its leaders and resource materials were in high demand. Social activists, journalists and academics from the rest of Canada, the United States and Europe made regular visits.2 Today the vitality and relevance of the Movement are being reviewed with a sometimes romantic, sometimes critical call for co-operatives in Atlantic Canada to return to fundamental principles and become once more a dynamic force in economic development. …