A NOTICE FROM SPAIN

SPAIN

MONDRAGÓN STARTED HERE. WHAT WE'RE DOING NOW.

In 1956 a Basque priest named José María Arizmendiarrieta and five engineers started a small cooperative in the town of Mondragón. Today the Mondragón Corporation is the largest worker cooperative federation in the world. Roughly seventy thousand worker-owners. A hundred and ten cooperatives. Manufacturing, retail, finance, education, research, all federated, all worker-owned.

THE COOPERATIVE TRADITION IN SPAIN

1956

MONDRAGÓN AND BEYOND

Mondragón is the case study every worker cooperative in the world cites. Arizmendiarrieta opened a technical school in 1943 to train working-class kids who had no access to formal engineering education. Five of those graduates started a small stove-making cooperative in 1956. Within a generation it had become a federation of manufacturing co-ops, a credit union (Caja Laboral), a research institute, and a university.

Spain's broader cooperative sector is enormous beyond Mondragón. Sociedades Cooperativas (S. Coop.) operate across agriculture, construction, retail, services, and housing. COCETA, the Spanish confederation of worker cooperatives, represents tens of thousands of worker-owners.

What we are doing now (worker-owned, surplus to the people who made the work, no shareholders) is a direct descendant of what Spain has been building for seventy years. We are learning from your model.

2026

WHAT THE WORK COULD LOOK LIKE HERE

Spain has its own version of the work the CCC Boys are doing in South Carolina. Forest fire mitigation and post-fire restoration across the interior, where the climate has made summer fires worse every year. Coastal prep along both the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. Agricultural recovery work in regions hit by drought. Apprenticeship pipelines in trades that need young hands.

And the software work that doesn't care where you live. Kits, small tools, things that earn their keep. AI as the partner, not the replacement.

Friends of the corps in Spain know the model better than we do. The framework, the technology, the apprenticeship curriculum, and the playbook are open source under Creative Commons. You take what fits, and you tell us what doesn't.

SEVENTY YEARS OF WORKER OWNERSHIP.

Spain wrote the playbook. We're trying to extend it.

THE CORPS IN 2026

A LOCAL CORPS, A NATIONAL MOVEMENT.

The CCC Boys corps is based in Colleton County, South Carolina. Three cousins, Justin, Jeremy, and Joey. The framework, the technology, the apprenticeship curriculum, and the playbook are all open source. As builders in their own communities raise their hands, branches form.

South Carolina is the first chapter. Spain could be next. No fees. No buy-in. You are a friend of the corps, not a franchisee. The handshake stays the handshake.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW MORE?

A CCC BOYS SPAIN CHAPTER?

If you are a builder in Spain (Basque Country, Cataluña, Andalucía, anywhere) and the work resonates, write us. We want to talk to people who understand the Mondragón tradition and the kind of work that needs doing in the next ten years.

WRITE THE CORPS join@cccboys.com