José María Arizmendiarrieta

José María Arizmendiarrieta Madariaga (Marquina-Xemein, Bizkaia, Spain, April 22, 1915 – Mondragon, Gipuzkoa, Spain, November 29, 1976) was a Basque Catholic priest and promoter of the cooperative companies of the Mondragon Corporation, originally located in the Basque Country and currently spread throughout the world. As of 2021, it is the second largest social economy business group in Spain, bringing together ninety-eight cooperatives, eight foundations, one mutual, ten coverage entities and seven international delegations, distributed in four areas: finance, industry, distribution and knowledge.

Arizmendiarrieta was a seminarian in Vitoria when the Spanish Civil War began in 1936, and consequently he was mobilized by the Basque Government. Due to his knowledge of the Basque language, he was assigned to the editor of the new newspaper Eguna, where he remained until Francisco Franco’s troops entered Bilbao. He was arrested by them, and again mobilized for the Military Government of Burgos until the end of the war. After finishing his studies and his priestly ordination, he was assigned in 1941 as curate of the parish to the industrial town of Mondragon, located in the Gipuzkoan Deba Valley, where he remained until his death. A pragmatic and hard-working priest, with a great sense of social justice and human dignity, he promoted numerous entities and companies for the good of the workers and the community in what he called the "cooperative experience of Mondragon". Thousands of people visit Mondragon every year to analyze Arizmendiarrieta's self-managed cooperative model for job creation and maintenance. He is considered Venerable in the Catholic Church.