Nutgiin bayan

The Tsagaan Yamaa cooperative was established by Olzii Bodijav, a wealthy former chenj from Bayangovi. All of our interviewees viewed him as the main driving force behind the cooperative, and many spoke highly of him. People understood Bodijav as being responsible for constructing the Naadam Park and wells in the sum centre, having collected some donations from his foreign partners; he is viewed as a philanthropist and one who feels compassion for the people of his homeland and love for his nutag. Conversely, the Naadam website describes Naadam as being responsible for these same investments, with no mention of Bodijav or Bodi Cashmere. I think this is significant because the audiences on both sides (Mongolia and America) want to feel pride in association with good deeds: the heroic work of a scion of the community, vs. the salvation work of a converted Wall Street finance bro.

The cashmere cooperative restores the property of the negdel, and reproduces several of its functions. But it is hard to imagine people from this sum feeling as positively about this structure if it were state-owned. Underlying this set of beliefs is the positive value associated with patronage and wealth -- the idea that a wealthy person is a natural leader, as reflected in the patronage arrangements also included in the Sain Malchin requirements (i.e., they must have a tuslakh malchin / maljuulakh). The concept of “buyan” is associated with the individual, particularly one who is motivated by a love of his nutag; it is not associated with the State. But I would argue that all these “philanthropic” investments are simply being done with the money that belongs to herders themselves, and they are displacing the work of the state, e.g., coordination of rotational management of the ram herd, emergency hay supplies, etc. Moreover, the entire business premise of the cooperative is that it establishes power (leading to monopoly) by keeping herders in perpetual debt, since everything is supplied on credit: flour and rice, livestock feed, Tsagaan Sar money and biscuits, etc.