On Koperasi A conversation between farid rakun and Arief “Arman” Rachman
farid rakun and Arief “Arman” Rachman are both active in Gudskul, an informal educational platform initiated at the end of 2018 by three collectives from Jakarta: Grafis Huru Hara (GHH), ruangrupa and Serrum. This conversation on koperasi 1 originally took place on 3 March 2021 in Gudskul, and was conducted fully in Bahasa Indonesia. It has been transcribed, translated and edited for clarity by the writers themselves.
farid: Let’s delve right into the matter at hand… As collectives, ganging up together, why do we think that koperasi deserves to be revisited by us? How can our sensibilities be translated into an economic model koperasi has potential for? Arief: For me, as individuals, we already have a platform for our financial transactions: banks. Now, we want to push collectively in order for us to be able to own our platform. For our friends who have been putting working together as a requirement of their practice, we want to have a rekbar 2. We have that habit in creating projects, no? When we say to each other, “We cannot afford to do something, let’s have a collective pot”, we are in principle creating this rekbar. farid: Because up until now, what we have implemented is something that we can understand as ekonomi berbagi (sharing economy), in short. Each of us, every collective, makes financial reports of their respective accounts available, transparent for everyone to see. For our monthly expenses, these accounts function as shared pockets that are co-owned. What is koperasi’s advantage compared to our current system?
Ongoing Conversations
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