“We are living the end of an era that has lasted a total of fifty years: the era of neo-capitalism and we are entering a time of radical reappraisal that will inevitably mean new suffering and misfortune. The world that emerges from this crisis will be so different from that of the sixties in the same way that the period we have just left behind was different from the inter-war years… there is no solution within the framework of the existing system”..
The historian Geoffrey Barraclough was not pulling any punches in what he had to say and the developed nations were getting ready to enter one of their worst crises, the MONDRAGON co-operatives as well.
Caja Laboral, for its part, opened its brand new head offices on the hillside of Olandixo (now Paseo Don José María Arizmendiarrieta) in Arrasate/ Mondragón. Since then, the hill where legend has it was located the mythical dragon’s lair, has housed one of the co-operative Experience’s most emblematic buildings.Two co-operatives from the province of Bizkaia joined the Group: Eika based in Markina and Lealde in Lekeitio.
