- What is cooperation?
- Cooperation as a value
- Biological cooperation
- International cooperation
- Economic cooperation
We explain what cooperation is and what cooperation consists of as a value. What is biological and international cooperation.
What is cooperation?
When we speak of cooperation, we refer to a concept applicable to many areas of the life human and in general, related to the summation of efforts between several individuals or groups of individuals to achieve a objective common, from which everyone then benefits. This concept has been the object of study from various disciplines of human knowledge, such as biology, anthropology, economy, etc.
In fact, there is a Theory of Cooperation, developed by researchers such as Robert Axelrod and Martin Nowak, among others, which stipulates that there are four essential conditions for cooperation between two individuals to occur:
- Wish overlap, meaning that both share an achievable goal.
- Probability of future encounters between the two, that is, the possibility of a future relationship.
- Positive memories of past encounters between the two individuals.
- A value associated with future results, that is, that the result is so important that the cooperation is desirable or tolerable.
Cooperation is thus the complete opposite of competition or competence, in which two or more individuals face each other and compete for a profit.
Cooperation as a value
Cooperation is, in most cases cultures, a value social and ethical, that is, an appreciable and valued behavior. The teamwork, for example, it is promoted from an early age and throughout formal schooling, in addition to being essential for the exercise of politics, for one society peaceful and even for the practice of many sports. In this sense, people with a willingness to cooperate and solidarity are often valued, perhaps because selfishness and individualism they seem to be intrinsic to human nature.
Numerous ideological, political and even religious doctrines support cooperation in various spheres of human life such as the conduct to promote, as a way to establish dynamics of greater solidarity and greater equal opportunities for all the persons. The curious thing is that, at the same time, we live in a dynamic of free commercial competition, since the capitalist system operates on the basis of sellers competing for purchase or the consumers for product scarce.
Biological cooperation
In the natural world, cooperation is also common. It can occur between individuals of the same species or of different species, always for mutual benefit, either by protecting themselves from predators, feed back their metabolisms, exchange defense for food, etc. Depending on the conditions in which it occurs, we can talk about:
- Mutualism. When both species obtain benefits from their interaction, as is the case with mycorrhizae: mushrooms that make life between the roots of a tree, obtaining nutrients from it and granting it reserves of Water.
- Commensalism. When cooperation is involuntary on the part of one of the two species, that is, the benefit is for only one, but does not cause any type of damage in return to the other. This is what happens with remoras that adhere to the shark to be transported more quickly, without causing any damage in the process.
- Symbiosis. When cooperation is so close that it becomes practically dependent, since both organisms they require the other to live. This is what happens to the bacterial flora in our intestines: hundreds of species of bacteria they make life within us and help us digest and process food, to such an extent that we could not do it as well without them.
International cooperation
International cooperation takes place around sensitive and vital issues.
International cooperation or cooperation between countries is a form of charitable organization between States, which aims to meet the needs of each one in a way that benefits them both, or that provides them with mutual opportunities that the rest of their countries lack. international relations. In other words, countries, like organizations, require allies to survive, and these alliances are established through international cooperation treaties, among other pacts.
Thus, instead of competing and impoverishing the living conditions of their citizens, the state They can generally cooperate to establish a minimum framework of commercial, economic, social, cultural exchange or of any other type, which does not rule out either that there exists between them a set of "free" commercial relations, that is, of free and objective competition.
International cooperation usually occurs around sensitive and vital issues, such as humanitarian and / or ecological crises, military alliances, cooperation in legal, judicial or cultural terms, if not the construction of common laws that allow narrower degrees of mutual benefit.
Economic cooperation
Economic cooperation is a concept that encompasses various models of interaction between organizations, between States and even between individuals, to sustain a commercial or financial exchange with the necessary flexibility and consensus to allow and promote the strengthening of the economies from both countries. In this way it is avoided to compete and damage the economy of the other, guaranteeing, among other things, the duration of the peace between both nations; remember that the wars they always have economic motivations behind.
At the same time, the figure of the Cooperative is worthy of mention here, since it emerged since the 19th century as a mode of economic-productive association that, although it has profit purposes, does not subject its members to the rigors of the competitiveness market, but instead offers a dynamic of mutual support and solidarity that escapes the fierce dynamics of the capitalism.