About CICM
	The pioneers of Mutualism

1840 : The industrial revolution becomes a reality.

New technologies improved the productivity of the human work. New concepts appear : profitability, return. An important social turnover results from increasing needs of cheap labor for Emerging industry.

Confronted with material distress and isolation of the peasants and workers, people raised themselves. Some chose political and trade unions actions. Others preferred a more direct action by promoting mutual aid, setting up the first basis for mutualism.

These ideas were put into act by Frédéric-Guillaume Raiffeisen in Germany with the creation of the first credit union.

His purpose was to find an issue to the vulnerability of farmers whom bad harvest made dependent of moneylenders.
According to Raiffeisen, financial cooperatives are not only a credit instrument, but also a way of social and moral improvement.

In France, Louis Durand, influenced by these ideas applied them in his turn. So, from the very beginning, credit unions fight against usury and give to the money a social end : the mutual aid.

Last update : june 2003