Cooperativas populares: uma análise crítica com base no direito como integridade

Abstract

This study aims to examine critically the standards concerning to cooperativism in order to point directives for correcting some failures in legislation and public policies for the sector. Its relevance acquires more significant contours if it is noticed that Brazilian legislation does not stipulates an inclusive framework for all sort of cooperatives. Unlikely, it rather neglects the heterogeneity of the cooperative movement and social demands it represents, which directly influences the cooperatives’ ability for formalization, especially the ones called ‘popular’. The theoretical framework adopted, law as integrity (DWORKIN 2007), presents important conceptual tools for critical analysis of legislation, in a way as to allow binding the State morally to values that represent the consistency of community principles. Given that ‘solidary economic enterprises’ emerge as a social practice endowed with its own demands, they assign to the State a moral duty to intervene, redefining somehow public policies and legislation, in order to ensure them also the right to formalization as cooperatives, which is, in this case, the most appropriate legal form.