Hatta, Sumitronomics and the Cooperative Path
The world is moving through an uncertain landscape. The map of global power is no longer simple. Climate crisis, food volatility, technological disruption, and geopolitical conflicts shape a new reality full of risks. Uncertainty is no longer a temporary event, but a permanent condition that shapes how society works, produces, and survives.
In such a situation, threats often come not only from outside, but from how we build the economic system itself. A development model that relies too heavily on market mechanisms as a single solution has proven unable to eliminate poverty and inequality.
Economic growth is indeed recorded, but its distribution is often uneven. Social trust weakens, solidarity erodes, and democracy often becomes trapped in procedures without substance.
Indonesia is certainly not immune to these symptoms. Structural inequality is still felt in many sectors. Politics often moves pragmatically, parties resemble corporations, and citizens are gradually treated as consumers, not as subjects of development.
In such circumstances, the fundamental question is not merely how to increase growth, but how to redirect development so that it rests on the interests of the people.
It is at this point that Mohammad Hatta’s thinking becomes relevant again. Hatta did not separate politics from economics. For him, the two must proceed together to free people’s livelihoods. The economic democracy he conceived is not merely a normative concept, but a constitutional foundation as reflected in Article 33 of the 1945 Constitution, which states that the economy is arranged as a collective effort based on the principle of kinship.
Cooperatives, in Hatta’s view, are not merely business entities. They are a concrete realisation of economic democracy. A cooperative is a collection of people, not a collection of capital. Its orientation is not merely profit, but the fulfilment of collective needs. Within it lies the idea of equality, participation, and collective responsibility.
However, Hatta’s thinking did not stand alone in the history of Indonesian economics. We also know the ideas of Sumitro Djojohadikusumo, often summarised as Sumitronomics.
Sumitro emphasised the importance of the state’s role in building a robust national production structure, protecting domestic interests, and encouraging industrialisation. The market should not be left to run without direction; it must be guided by public policy that serves the national interest.
If Hatta emphasised economic democracy based on popular movement, then Sumitro emphasised the importance of policy architecture and state planning. The two are not contradictory poles. Rather, therein lies their strength. Economic democracy requires a visionary state. A strong state requires an independent people’s economic base.
In the current context, cooperatives can become a bridge between these two great ideas. They can be a space where social solidarity meets economic efficiency. Cooperatives can integrate community social capital with appropriate state policy support. They are neither anti-market, nor entirely subservient to the logic of capital.