![OSG Co-op AGM 20050423](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/OSG_Co-op_AGM_20050423.jpg)
A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an
autonomous
In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy, from , ''autonomos'', from αὐτο- ''auto-'' "self" and νόμος ''nomos'', "law", hence when combined understood to mean "one who gives oneself one's ow ...
association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-controlled
enterprise
Enterprise (or the archaic spelling Enterprize) may refer to:
Business and economics
Brands and enterprises
* Enterprise GP Holdings, an energy holding company
* Enterprise plc, a UK civil engineering and maintenance company
* Enterpris ...
".
[Statement on the Cooperative Identity.](_blank)
''International Cooperative Alliance
The International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) is a non-governmental co-operative federation or, more precisely, a co-operative union representing co-operatives and the co-operative movement worldwide. It was founded in 1895 to unite, represen ...
.'' Cooperatives are democratically controlled by their members, with each member having one vote in electing the board of directors.
Cooperatives may include:
*
businesses owned and managed by the people who consume their goods and/or services (a
consumer cooperative
A consumers' co-operative is an enterprise owned by consumers and managed democratically and that aims at fulfilling the needs and aspirations of its members. Such co-operatives operate within the market system, independently of the state, as a f ...
)
* businesses where producers pool their output for their common benefit (a producer cooperative)
* organizations managed by the people who work there (a
worker cooperative
A worker cooperative is a cooperative owned and self-managed by its workers. This control may mean a firm where every worker-owner participates in decision-making in a democratic fashion, or it may refer to one in which management is elected by ...
)
* businesses where members pool their purchasing power (a purchasing cooperative)
* multi-stakeholder or hybrid cooperatives that share ownership between different stakeholder groups. For example, care cooperatives where ownership is shared between both care-givers and receivers. Stakeholders might also include non-profits or investors.
* second- and third-tier cooperatives whose members are other cooperatives
*
platform cooperatives that use a cooperatively owned and governed website, mobile app or a protocol to facilitate the sale of goods and services.
Research published by the
Worldwatch Institute
The Worldwatch Institute was a globally focused environmental research organization based in Washington, D.C., founded by Lester R. Brown. Worldwatch was named as one of the top ten sustainable development research organizations by Globescan Su ...
found that in 2012 approximately one billion people in 96 countries had become members of at least one cooperative. The turnover of the largest three hundred cooperatives in the world reached $2.2
trillion
''Trillion'' is a number with two distinct definitions:
* 1,000,000,000,000, i.e. one million million, or (ten to the twelfth power), as defined on the short scale. This is now the meaning in both American and British English.
* 1,000,000,000,0 ...
.
Cooperative businesses are typically more productive and economically
resilient
Resilience, resilient, resiliency, or ''variation'', may refer to:
Science
Ecology
* Ecological resilience, the capacity of an ecosystem to recover from perturbations
** Climate resilience, the ability of systems to recover from climate change
* ...
than many other forms of enterprise, with twice the number of co-operatives (80%) surviving their first five years compared with other business
ownership models (41%) according to data from United Kingdom.
The largest worker owned cooperative in the world, the
Mondragon Corporation (founded by Catholic priest
José María Arizmendiarrieta
Father 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 Corporat ...
), has been in continuous operation since 1956.
Cooperatives frequently have social goals, which they aim to accomplish by investing a proportion of trading profits back into their communities. As an example of this, in 2013,
retail co-operative
A consumers' co-operative is an enterprise owned by consumers and managed democratically and that aims at fulfilling the needs and aspirations of its members. Such co-operatives operate within the market system, independently of the state, as a f ...
s in the
UK invested 6.9% of their pre-tax profits in the communities in which they trade as compared with 2.4% for other rival
supermarkets.
Since 2002, cooperatives have been distinguishable on the Internet through the use of a
.coop
.coop is a sponsored top-level domain (sTLD) in the Domain Name System of the Internet. It is intended for the use of cooperatives, their wholly owned subsidiaries, and other organizations that exist to promote or support cooperatives.
The TL ...
domain. In 2014, the
International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) introduced the Cooperative Marque, meaning ICA cooperatives and
WOCCU credit unions can also be identified through a coop
ethical consumerism
Ethical consumerism (alternatively called ethical consumption, ethical purchasing, moral purchasing, ethical sourcing, or ethical shopping and also associated with sustainable and green consumerism) is a type of consumer activism based on the con ...
label.
Origins and history
Cooperation dates back as far as human beings have been organizing for mutual benefits. Tribes were organized as cooperative structures, allocating jobs and resources among each other, only trading with the external communities. In alpine environments, trade could only be maintained in organized cooperatives to achieve a useful condition of artificial roads such as
Viamala
Viamala or Via Mala ( Romansh: literally, "bad path") is a narrow gorge along the river Hinterrhein between Zillis-Reischen and Thusis in the Canton of Graubünden, Switzerland, as well as the ancient and notorious pathway which traverse ...
in 1472. Pre-industrial Europe is home to the first cooperatives from an industrial context. The roots of the cooperative movement can be traced to multiple influences and extend worldwide. In the
English-speaking world
Speakers of English are also known as Anglophones, and the countries where English is natively spoken by the majority of the population are termed the '' Anglosphere''. Over two billion people speak English , making English the largest langua ...
, post-
feudal forms of cooperation between workers and owners that are expressed today as "
profit sharing" and "surplus sharing" arrangements existed as far back as 1795. The key ideological influence on the Anglosphere branch of the cooperative movement, however, was a ''rejection'' of the
charity
Charity may refer to:
Giving
* Charitable organization or charity, a non-profit organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being of persons
* Charity (practice), the practice of being benevolent, giving and sharing
* C ...
principles that underpinned
welfare
Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifical ...
reforms when the
British government radically revised its
Poor Laws in 1834. As both state and church institutions began to routinely distinguish between the 'deserving' and 'undeserving' poor, a movement of friendly societies grew throughout the
British Empire
The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts e ...
based on the principle of mutuality, committed to self-help in the welfare of working people.
![Portrait of Robert Owen (1771 - 1858) by John Cranch, 1845](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Portrait_of_Robert_Owen_%281771_-_1858%29_by_John_Cranch%2C_1845.jpg)
In 1761, the
Fenwick Weavers' Society was formed in
Fenwick, East Ayrshire
Fenwick is a village in East Ayrshire, Scotland. In 2019, its population was estimated to be 989. Fenwick is the terminus of the M77 following its extension which was opened in April 2005, at the beginning of the Kilmarnock bypass.
History
T ...
,
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...
to sell
discounted
Discounting is a financial mechanism in which a debtor obtains the right to delay payments to a creditor, for a defined period of time, in exchange for a charge or fee.See "Time Value", "Discount", "Discount Yield", "Compound Interest", "Efficient ...
oatmeal to local workers. Its services expanded to include assistance with savings and loans, emigration and education. In 1810,
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...
social reform
A reform movement or reformism is a type of social movement that aims to bring a social or also a political system closer to the community's ideal. A reform movement is distinguished from more radical social movements such as revolutionary move ...
er
Robert Owen, from Newtown in mid-
Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...
, and his partners purchased the
New Lanark
New Lanark is a village on the River Clyde, approximately 1.4 miles (2.2 kilometres) from Lanark, in Lanarkshire, and some southeast of Glasgow, Scotland. It was founded in 1785 and opened in 1786 by David Dale, who built cotton mills and hou ...
mill from Owen's father-in-law,
David Dale
David Dale (6 January 1739–7 March 1806) was a leading Scottish industrialist, merchant and philanthropist during the Scottish Enlightenment period at the end of the 18th century. He was a successful entrepreneur in a number of areas, m ...
, and proceeded to introduce better labour standards, including discounted retail shops where profits were passed on to his employees. Owen left New Lanark to pursue other forms of cooperative organization and develop coop ideas through writing and lecture. Cooperative communities were set up in
Glasgow
Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...
,
Indiana
Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...
and
Hampshire
Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English cities on its south coast, Southampton and Portsmouth, Hampshire ...
, although ultimately unsuccessful. In 1828,
William King set up a newspaper, ''The Cooperator'', to promote Owen's thinking, having already set up a cooperative store in Brighton.
Also in 1810,
Rev. Henry Duncan of the
Ruthwell
Ruthwell is a village and parish on the Solway Firth between Dumfries and Annan in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland.
Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, gave Ruthwell to his nephew, Sir William Murray, confirmed to Sir John Murray, of Cockpool, in ...
Presbyterian Church in
Dumfriesshire
Dumfriesshire or the County of Dumfries or Shire of Dumfries (''Siorrachd Dhùn Phris'' in Gaelic) is a historic county and registration county in southern Scotland. The Dumfries lieutenancy area covers a similar area to the historic county.
I ...
,
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...
founded a
friendly society
A friendly society (sometimes called a benefit society, mutual aid society, benevolent society, fraternal organization or ROSCA) is a mutual association for the purposes of insurance, pensions, savings or cooperative banking. It is a mutual ...
to create a
cooperative
A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-contro ...
depository institution
Colloquially, a depository institution is a financial institution in the United States (such as a savings bank, commercial bank, savings and loan associations, or credit unions) that is legally allowed to accept monetary deposits from consumer
...
at which his poorest parishioners could hold
savings account
A savings account is a bank account at a retail bank. Common features include a limited number of withdrawals, a lack of cheque and linked debit card facilities, limited transfer options and the inability to be overdrawn. Traditionally, transa ...
s accruing
interest
In finance and economics, interest is payment from a borrower or deposit-taking financial institution to a lender or depositor of an amount above repayment of the principal sum (that is, the amount borrowed), at a particular rate. It is distin ...
for
sickness and old-age, which was the first established
savings bank
A savings bank is a financial institution whose primary purpose is accepting savings deposits and paying interest on those deposits.
They originated in Europe during the 18th century with the aim of providing access to savings products to al ...
that would be merged into the
Trustee Savings Bank
A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets.
Becaus ...
between 1970 and 1985.
The
Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers
The Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers, founded in 1844, was an early consumers' co-operative, and one of the first to pay a patronage dividend, forming the basis for the modern co-operative movement.
Although other co-operatives preceded it, ...
, founded in 1844, is usually considered the first successful cooperative enterprise, used as a model for modern coops, following the '
Rochdale Principles'. A group of 28 weavers and other artisans in
Rochdale
Rochdale ( ) is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, at the foothills of the South Pennines in the dale on the River Roch, northwest of Oldham and northeast of Manchester. It is the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough ...
, England set up the society to open their own store selling food items they could not otherwise afford. Within ten years there were over a thousand cooperative societies in the United Kingdom.
"Spolok Gazdovský" (''The Association of Administrators'' or ''The Association of Farmers'') founded in 1845 by Samuel Jurkovič, was the first cooperative in Europe (
Credit union
A credit union, a type of financial institution similar to a commercial bank, is a member-owned nonprofit financial cooperative. Credit unions generally provide services to members similar to retail banks, including deposit accounts, provisi ...
). The cooperative provided a cheap loan from funds generated by regular savings for members of the cooperative. Members of cooperative had to commit to a moral life and had to plant two trees in a public place every year. Despite the short duration of its existence, until 1851, it thus formed the basis of the cooperative movement in Slovakia. Slovak national thinker
Ľudovít Štúr
Ľudovít Velislav Štúr (; hu, Stur Lajos; 28 October 1815 – 12 January 1856), known in his era as Ludevít Štúr, (pen names : B. Dunajský, Bedlivý Ludorob, Boleslav Záhorský, Brat Slovenska, Ein Slave, Ein ungarischer Slave, Karl Wi ...
said about the association: "''We would very much like such excellent constitutions to be established throughout our region. They would help to rescue people from evil and misery. A beautiful, great idea, a beautiful excellent constitution!''"
Other events such as the founding of a
friendly society
A friendly society (sometimes called a benefit society, mutual aid society, benevolent society, fraternal organization or ROSCA) is a mutual association for the purposes of insurance, pensions, savings or cooperative banking. It is a mutual ...
by the
Tolpuddle Martyrs
The Tolpuddle Martyrs were six agricultural labourers from the village of Tolpuddle in Dorset, England, who, in 1834, were convicted of swearing a secret oath as members of the Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers. They were arrested on ...
in 1832 were key occasions in the creation of organized labor and consumer movements.
Friendly Societies established forums through which
one member, one vote was practiced in organisation decision-making. The principles challenged the idea that a person should be an owner of
property
Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property may have the right to consume, alter, share, r ...
before being granted a political voice. Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century (and then repeatedly every twenty years or so) there was a surge in the number of cooperative organisations, both in commercial practice and civil society, operating to advance
democracy
Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which people, the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation ("direct democracy"), or to choo ...
and
universal suffrage
Universal suffrage (also called universal franchise, general suffrage, and common suffrage of the common man) gives the right to vote to all adult citizens, regardless of wealth, income, gender, social status, race, ethnicity, or political stan ...
as a political principle. Friendly Societies and consumer cooperatives became the dominant form of organization amongst working people in Anglosphere
industrial societies
In sociology, industrial society is a society driven by the use of technology and machinery to enable mass production, supporting a large population with a high capacity for division of labour. Such a structure developed in the Western world ...
prior to the rise of
trade unions
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...
and industrial factories. Weinbren reports that by the end of the 19th century, over 80% of British working age men and 90% of Australian working age men were members of one or more Friendly Society.
[Weinbren, D. & James, B. (2005) "Getting a Grip: the Roles of Friendly Societies in Australia and Britain Reappraised", Labour History, Vol. 88](_blank)
.
From the mid-nineteenth century,
mutual organisation
A mutual organization, or mutual society is an organization (which is often, but not always, a company or business) based on the principle of mutuality and governed by private law. Unlike a true cooperative, members usually do not contribute t ...
s embraced these ideas in economic enterprises, firstly amongst tradespeople, and later in cooperative stores, educational institutes, financial institutions and industrial enterprises. The common thread (enacted in different ways, and subject to the constraints of various systems of national law) is the principle that an enterprise or association should be owned and controlled by the people it serves, and share any surpluses on the basis of each member's cooperative contribution (as a producer, labourer or consumer) rather than their capacity to invest financial capital.
The
International Co-operative Alliance was the first international association formed (1895) by the cooperative movement. It includes the
World Council of Credit Unions
The World Council of Credit Unions (WOCCU) is an international trade association and development agency for credit unions headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin. WOCCU aims to improve lives through credit unions and other financial cooperatives thr ...
. The International Cooperative Alliance was founded in London, England on 19 August 1895 during the 1st Cooperative Congress.
In attendance were delegates from cooperatives from Argentina, Australia, Belgium, England, Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, India, Italy, Switzerland, Serbia, and the US.
A second organization formed later in Germany: the International
Raiffeisen Union. In the United States, the
National Cooperative Business Association
The National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA) is a United States membership organization for cooperatives, which are businesses that are jointly owned and democratically controlled.
The association was founded in 1916 as the Cooperative ...
(NCBA CLUSA; the abbreviation of the organization retains the initials of its former name, Cooperative League of the USA) serves as the
sector
Sector may refer to:
Places
* Sector, West Virginia, U.S.
Geometry
* Circular sector, the portion of a disc enclosed by two radii and a circular arc
* Hyperbolic sector, a region enclosed by two radii and a hyperbolic arc
* Spherical sector, a p ...
's oldest national membership association. It is dedicated to ensuring that cooperative businesses have the same opportunities as other businesses operating in the country and that consumers have access to cooperatives in the marketplace.
In 1945
Artturi Ilmari Virtanen
Artturi Ilmari Virtanen (; 15 January 1895 – 11 November 1973) was a Finland, Finnish chemist and recipient of the 1945 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his research and inventions in agricultural and nutrition chemistry, especially for his fodde ...
received the
Nobel Prize in Chemistry
)
, image = Nobel Prize.png
, alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then "M ...
for his invention of the
AIV silage. This invention improved milk production and created a method of preserving butter, the AIV salt, which led to increased Finnish butter exports. He had started his career in chemistry in
Valio
Valio Ltd ( fi, Valio Oy) is a Finnish manufacturer of dairy products and one of the largest companies in Finland. Valio's products include cheese, powdered ingredients, butter, yogurt and milk. It is Finland's largest milk processor, producing 8 ...
, a cooperative of dairy farmers in which he headed the research department for 50 years and where all his major inventions were first put to practice.
Cooperative banks were first to adopt online banking.
Stanford Federal Credit Union was the first
financial institution
Financial institutions, sometimes called banking institutions, are business entities that provide services as intermediaries for different types of financial monetary transactions. Broadly speaking, there are three major types of financial inst ...
to offer online internet banking services to all of its members in October 1994. In 1996
OP Financial Group
OP Financial Group is one of the largest financial companies in Finland. It consists of 180 cooperative banks and their central organization. “OP” stands for “osuuspankki” in Finnish, literally meaning “cooperative bank”. The financi ...
, also a
cooperative bank, became the second online bank in the world and the first in Europe.
By 2004 a new association focused on worker co-ops was founded, the
United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives
The United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives (USFWC) is a federation of worker cooperatives in the United States. USFWC was founded at the U.S. Conference of Democratic Workplaces in Minneapolis, Minnesota in May 2004.
The Federation w ...
.
The cooperative movement has been fueled globally by ideas of
economic democracy
Economic democracy is a socioeconomic philosophy that proposes to shift decision-making power from corporate managers and corporate shareholders to a larger group of public stakeholders that includes workers, customers, suppliers, neighbour ...
. Economic democracy is a socioeconomic philosophy that suggests an expansion of decision-making power from a small minority of corporate shareholders to a larger majority of public stakeholders. There are many different approaches to thinking about and building economic democracy. Anarchists are committed to
libertarian socialism
Libertarian socialism, also known by various other names, is a left-wing,Diemer, Ulli (1997)"What Is Libertarian Socialism?" The Anarchist Library. Retrieved 4 August 2019. anti-authoritarian, anti-statist and libertarianLong, Roderick T. (2 ...
and have focused on local organization, including locally managed cooperatives, linked through confederations of unions, cooperatives and communities. Marxists, who as socialists have likewise held and worked for the goal of democratizing productive and reproductive relationships, often placed a greater strategic emphasis on confronting the larger scales of human organization. As they viewed the capitalist class to be politically, militarily and culturally mobilized for the purpose of maintaining an exploitable
working class
The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colo ...
, they fought in the early 20th century to appropriate from the capitalist class the society's collective political capacity in the form of
the state
A state is a centralized political organization that imposes and enforces rules over a population within a territory. There is no undisputed definition of a state. One widely used definition comes from the German sociologist Max Weber: a "stat ...
. Though they regard the state as an unnecessarily oppressive institution, Marxists considered appropriating national and international-scale capitalist institutions and resources (such as the state) to be an important first pillar in creating conditions favorable to solidaristic economies. With the
declining influence of the USSR after the 1960s, socialist strategies pluralized, though economic democratizers have not as yet established a fundamental challenge to the
hegemony
Hegemony (, , ) is the political, economic, and military predominance of one State (polity), state over other states. In Ancient Greece (8th BC – AD 6th ), hegemony denoted the politico-military dominance of the ''hegemon'' city-state over oth ...
of global
neoliberal capitalism.
Meaning
Identity
Co-op principles and values
Many cooperatives follow the seven
Rochdale Principles:
#Voluntary and open membership
#Democratic member control, with each member having one vote.
#Economic participation by members
#Autonomy and independence
#Education, training and information
#Cooperation among cooperatives
#Concern for community
Co-op Marque and domain
![Blue international co-op marque](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Blue_international_co-op_marque.png)
Since 2002,
ICA cooperatives and
WOCCU credit union
A credit union, a type of financial institution similar to a commercial bank, is a member-owned nonprofit financial cooperative. Credit unions generally provide services to members similar to retail banks, including deposit accounts, provisi ...
s could be distinguished by use of a
.coop
.coop is a sponsored top-level domain (sTLD) in the Domain Name System of the Internet. It is intended for the use of cooperatives, their wholly owned subsidiaries, and other organizations that exist to promote or support cooperatives.
The TL ...
domain. In 2014, ICA introduced the Global Cooperative Marque for use by ICAs Cooperative members and by WOCCU's Credit Union members so they can be further identified by their coop
ethical consumerism
Ethical consumerism (alternatively called ethical consumption, ethical purchasing, moral purchasing, ethical sourcing, or ethical shopping and also associated with sustainable and green consumerism) is a type of consumer activism based on the con ...
label. The marque is used today by thousands of cooperatives in more than a hundred countries.
The .coop domain and Co-operative Marque were designed as a new symbol of the global cooperative movement and its collective identity in the digital age. The Co-operative Marque and domain is reserved just for co-operatives, credit unions and organisations that support co-operatives; is distinguished by its ethical badge that subscribes to the seven ICA Cooperative Principles and Co-op Values. Co-ops can be identified on the Internet through the use of the .coop
suffix of internet addresses. Organizations using .coop domain names must adhere to the basic co-op values.
Cooperatives as legal entities
A cooperative is a
legal entity
In law, a legal person is any person or 'thing' (less ambiguously, any legal entity) that can do the things a human person is usually able to do in law – such as enter into contracts, sue and be sued, own property, and so on. The reason for ...
owned and democratically controlled by its members. Members often have a close association with the enterprise as producers or consumers of its products or services, or as its employees. The legal entities have a range of social characteristics. Membership is open, meaning that anyone who satisfies certain non-discriminatory conditions may join. Economic benefits are distributed proportionally to each member's level of participation in the cooperative, for instance, by a dividend on sales or purchases, rather than according to
capital invested.
[International Cooperative Alliance]
Statement on the Cooperative Identity
Cooperatives may be classified as either ''worker'', ''consumer'', ''producer'', ''purchasing'' or ''housing'' cooperatives. They are distinguished from other forms of incorporation in that profit-making or economic stability are balanced by the interests of the community.
There are specific forms of incorporation for cooperatives in some countries, e.g.
Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
and
Australia. Cooperatives may take the form of companies limited by shares or by guarantee, partnerships or unincorporated associations. In the UK they may also use the
industrial and provident society
An industrial and provident society (IPS) is a body corporate registered for carrying on any industries, businesses, or trades specified in or authorised by its rules.
The members of a society benefit from the protection of limited liability ...
structure. In the US, cooperatives are often organized as non-capital stock corporations under state-specific cooperative laws. Cooperatives often share their earnings with the membership as
dividend
A dividend is a distribution of profits by a corporation to its shareholders. When a corporation earns a profit or surplus, it is able to pay a portion of the profit as a dividend to shareholders. Any amount not distributed is taken to be re-i ...
s, which are divided among the members according to their participation in the enterprise, such as patronage, instead of according to the value of their capital shareholdings (as is done by a
joint stock company).
Cooperative share capital
The cooperative share capital
or co-operative share capital (in short ''cooperative capital''
or ''co-operative capital'') is the form of capital that the cooperative accumulates from the paid participation shares of its members.
The total amount of participation shares the paid to the cooperative constitutes the cooperative capital. The co-operative share capital is usually non-withdrawable and indivisible to the cooperative members.
Economic stability
''
Capital and the Debt Trap
''Capital and the Debt Trap'' is a research monograph by Claudia Sanchez Bajo and Bruno Roelants. The first four chapters provide a general summary of the economic instability afflicting the international economy at the time of publication (20 ...
'' reports that "cooperatives tend to have a longer life than other types of enterprise, and thus a higher level of entrepreneurial sustainability". This
resilience has been attributed to how cooperatives share risks and rewards between members, how they harness the ideas of many and how members have a tangible ownership stake in the business. Additionally, "cooperative banks build up
counter-cyclical
Procyclical and countercyclical variables are variables that fluctuate in a way that is positively or negatively correlated with business cycle fluctuations in gross domestic product (GDP). The scope of the concept may differ between the context ...
buffers that function well in case of a crisis," and are less likely to lead members and clients towards a
debt trap
Usury () is the practice of making unethical or immoral monetary loans that unfairly enrich the lender. The term may be used in a moral sense—condemning taking advantage of others' misfortunes—or in a legal sense, where an interest rate is ch ...
(p. 216). This is explained by their more democratic governance that reduces
perverse incentive
A perverse incentive is an incentive that has an unintended and undesirable result that is contrary to the intentions of its designers. The cobra effect is the most direct kind of perverse incentive, typically because the incentive unintentional ...
s and subsequent contributions to
economic bubbles.
In Europe
A 2013 report by
ILO
The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labour standards. Founded in October 1919 under the League of Nations, it is the first and ol ...
concluded that
cooperative banks outperformed their competitors during the
financial crisis of 2007–2008
Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of fi ...
. The cooperative banking sector had 20% market share of the European banking sector, but accounted for only 7 per cent of all the write-downs and losses between the third quarter of 2007 and first quarter of 2011. Cooperative banks were also over-represented in lending to small and medium-sized businesses in all of the 10 countries included in the report.
A 2013 report published by the UK Office for National Statistics showed that in the UK the rate of survival of cooperatives after five years was 80 percent compared with only 41 percent for all other enterprises.
A further study found that after ten years 44 percent of cooperatives were still in operation, compared with only 20 percent for all enterprises.
A 2012 report published by The European Confederation of cooperatives and worker-owned enterprises active in industry and services showed that in France and Spain, worker cooperatives and social cooperatives "have been more resilient than conventional enterprises during the economic crisis".
In North America
In the United States of America
In a 2007 study by the World Council of Credit Unions, the five-year survival rate of cooperatives in the United States was found to be 90% in comparison to 3-5% for traditional businesses.
Credit union
A credit union, a type of financial institution similar to a commercial bank, is a member-owned nonprofit financial cooperative. Credit unions generally provide services to members similar to retail banks, including deposit accounts, provisi ...
s, a type of cooperative bank, had five times lower failure rate than other banks during the financial crisis and more than doubled lending to small businesses between 2008 and 2016, from $30 billion to $60 billion, while lending to small businesses overall during the same period declined by around $100 billion. Public trust in credit unions stands at 60%, compared to 30% for big banks and small businesses are five times less likely to be dissatisfied with a credit union than with a big bank.
In Canada
A 2010 report by the Ministry of Economic Development, Innovation and Export in Québec found that the five-year survival rate and ten-year survival rate of cooperatives in Québec to be 62% and 44% respectively compared to 35% and 20% for conventional firms. Another report by the BC-Alberta Social economy Research Alliance found that the three-year survival rate of cooperatives in Alberta to be 81.5% in comparison to 48% for traditional firms.
Another report by the aforementioned Research Alliance found that in British Columbia, the five-year survival rates for cooperatives between 2000 and 2010 to be 66.6% in comparison to conventional businesses that had 43% and 39% in the years 1984 and 1993 respectively
Types of cooperatives
![Co-op City Hutch River crop](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/db/Co-op_City_Hutch_River_crop.jpg)
The top 300 largest cooperatives were listed in 2007 by the
International Co-operative Alliance. 80% were involved in either
agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people t ...
,
finance, or
retail
Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholesaler, and ...
and more than half were in the United States, Italy, or France.
Consumers' cooperative
A consumers' cooperative is a business owned by its customers. Members vote on major decisions and elect the board of directors from among their own number. The first of these was set up in 1844 in the North-West of England by 28 weavers who wanted to sell food at a lower price than the local shops.
Retail cooperative
Retail cooperatives are retailers, such as grocery stores, owned by their customers. They should not be confused with retailers' cooperatives, whose members are retailers rather than consumers. In Denmark, Singapore, Italy, and Finland the company with the largest market share in the grocery store sector is a consumer owned cooperative. In Switzerland both the largest and the second largest retailer are consumer owned cooperatives.
Housing cooperative
A
housing cooperative is a legal mechanism for ownership of housing where residents either own
shares (share capital co-op) reflecting their equity in the cooperative's real estate or have membership and occupancy rights in a
not-for-profit cooperative (non-share capital co-op), and they underwrite their housing through paying subscriptions or rent.
Housing cooperatives come in three basic equity structures
*In market-rate housing cooperatives, members may sell their shares in the cooperative whenever they like for whatever price the market will bear, much like any other residential property. Market-rate co-ops are very common in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
.
*Limited equity housing cooperatives, which are often used by
affordable housing
Affordable housing is housing which is deemed affordable to those with a household income at or below the median as rated by the national government or a local government by a recognized housing affordability index. Most of the literature on af ...
developers, allow members to own some equity in their home, but limit the sale price of their membership share to that which they paid.
*Group equity or zero-equity housing cooperatives do not allow members to own equity in their residences and often have rental agreements well below market rates.
Members of a building cooperative (in Britain known as a self-build housing cooperative) pool resources to build housing, normally using a high proportion of their own labor. When the building is finished, each member is the sole owner of a homestead, and the cooperative may be dissolved.
This collective effort was at the origin of many of Britain's
building societies
A building society is a financial institution owned by its members as a mutual organization. Building societies offer banking and related financial services, especially savings and mortgage lending. Building societies exist in the United Kingdo ...
, which however, developed into "permanent"
mutual savings and loan
Wealth is the abundance of valuable financial assets or physical possessions which can be converted into a form that can be used for transactions. This includes the core meaning as held in the originating Old English word , which is from an I ...
organisations, a term which persisted in some of their names (such as the former ''Leeds Permanent''). Nowadays such self-building may be financed using a step-by-step
mortgage
A mortgage loan or simply mortgage (), in civil law jurisdicions known also as a hypothec loan, is a loan used either by purchasers of real property to raise funds to buy real estate, or by existing property owners to raise funds for any ...
which is released in stages as the building is completed. The term may also refer to worker cooperatives in the building trade.
Utility cooperative
A utility cooperative is a type of
consumers' cooperative
A consumers' co-operative is an enterprise owned by consumers and managed democratically and that aims at fulfilling the needs and aspirations of its members. Such co-operatives operate within the market system, independently of the state, as a f ...
that is tasked with the delivery of a
public utility
A public utility company (usually just utility) is an organization that maintains the infrastructure for a public service (often also providing a service using that infrastructure). Public utilities are subject to forms of public control and r ...
such as
electricity
Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as describ ...
,
water
Water (chemical formula ) is an Inorganic compound, inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and Color of water, nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living ...
or
telecommunications
Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...
services to its members.
Profits are either reinvested into
infrastructure or distributed to members in the form of "patronage" or "capital credits", which are essentially
dividend
A dividend is a distribution of profits by a corporation to its shareholders. When a corporation earns a profit or surplus, it is able to pay a portion of the profit as a dividend to shareholders. Any amount not distributed is taken to be re-i ...
s paid on a member's
investment into the cooperative. In the United States, many cooperatives were formed to provide rural electrical and telephone service as part of the
New Deal. ''See
Rural Utilities Service
The United States Rural Utilities Service (RUS) administers programs that provide infrastructure or infrastructure improvements to rural communities. These include water and waste treatment, electric power, and telecommunications services. it is ...
''.
In the case of electricity, cooperatives are generally either generation and transmission (G&T) co-ops that create and send power via the transmission grid or local distribution co-ops that gather electricity from a variety of sources and send it along to homes and businesses.
In Tanzania, it has been proven that the cooperative method is helpful in water distribution. When the people are involved with their own water, they care more because the quality of their work has a direct effect on the quality of their water.
Credit unions, cooperative banking and co-operative insurance
Credit union
A credit union, a type of financial institution similar to a commercial bank, is a member-owned nonprofit financial cooperative. Credit unions generally provide services to members similar to retail banks, including deposit accounts, provisi ...
s are cooperative
financial institution
Financial institutions, sometimes called banking institutions, are business entities that provide services as intermediaries for different types of financial monetary transactions. Broadly speaking, there are three major types of financial inst ...
s owned and controlled by their members. Credit unions provide the same
financial services as banks but are considered
not-for-profit organizations and adhere to
cooperative principles.
Credit unions originated in mid-19th-century Germany through the efforts of pioneers
Franz Herman Schulze'Delitzsch and
Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen
Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen (30 March 1818 – 11 March 1888) was a German mayor and cooperative pioneer. Several credit union systems and cooperative banks have been named after Raiffeisen, who pioneered rural credit unions.
Life
Friedrich Wilhe ...
. The concept of financial cooperatives crossed the Atlantic at the turn of the 20th century, when the ''caisse populaire'' movement was started by
Alphonse Desjardins in
Quebec
Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...
,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
. In 1900, from his home in
Lévis, he opened North America's first credit union, marking the beginning of the
Mouvement Desjardins
The Desjardins Group (french: Mouvement Desjardins) is a Canadian financial service cooperative and the largest federation of credit unions (french: caisses populaires) in North America. It was founded in 1900 in Lévis, Quebec by Alphonse Des ...
. Eight years later, Desjardins provided guidance for the first credit union in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
, where there are now about 7,950 active status federally insured credit unions, with almost 90 million members and more than $679 billion on deposit.
Financial cooperatives hold a significant market share in Europe and Latin America, as well as a few countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. They also have a strong presence in Asia, Australia, and the United States. According to the World Council of Credit Unions (WOCCU), there were 68,882 financial cooperatives in 109 countries in 2016, serving more than 235 million members, with total assets exceeding 1.7 trillion dollars. It is worth noting that the WOCCU's data do not include some major financial cooperative networks in Europe, such as Germany, Finland, France, Denmark, and Italy. In many high-income economies, financial cooperatives hold significant market shares of the banking sector.
[Amr Khafagy]
The Economics of Financial Cooperatives: Income Distribution, Political Economy and Regulation", Routledge, 2019
According to the European Association of Cooperative Banks, the market share of cooperative banks in the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) credit market by the end of 2016 was 37% in Finland, 45% in France, 33% in Germany, 43% in the Netherlands, and 22% in Canada. In Germany, Volksbanken-Raiffeisen banks have a market share of approximately 21% of domestic credit and domestic deposits. In the Netherlands, Rabobank holds 34% of deposits, and in France cooperative banks (Crédit Agricole, Crédit Mutuel and BPCE Group) possess more than 59% of domestic credit and 61% of domestic deposits. In Finland, OP financial group holds 35% and 38% of domestic credit and deposits, respectively, and in Canada, Desjardins holds around 42% of domestic deposits and 22% of domestic credit.
There are many types of cooperative financial institutions with different names across the world, including financial cooperatives ('cooperativa financiera' is the Spanish term used in Latin America), cooperative banks, credit unions, and savings and credit cooperatives ('cooperativa de ahorro y crédito' in Spanish or 'coopérative d’épargne et de credit' in French-speaking countries).
Cooperative banking networks, which were nationalized in Eastern Europe, work now as real cooperative institutions. In Poland, the SKOK (''Spółdzielcze Kasy Oszczędnościowo-Kredytowe'') network has grown to serve over 1 million members via 13,000 branches, and is larger than the country's largest conventional bank.
In the
Nordic countries, there is a clear distinction between
mutual savings bank
A mutual savings bank is a financial institution chartered by a central or regional government, without capital stock, owned by its members who subscribe to a common fund. From this fund, claims, loans, etc., are paid. Profits after deductions a ...
s (Sparbank) and true
credit unions
A credit union, a type of financial institution similar to a commercial bank, is a member-owned nonprofit financial cooperative. Credit unions generally provide services to members similar to retail banks, including deposit accounts, provision ...
(Andelsbank).
The oldest cooperative banks in Europe, based on the ideas of Friedrich Raiffeisen, are joined together in the 'Urgenossen'.
Worker cooperative
A
worker cooperative
A worker cooperative is a cooperative owned and self-managed by its workers. This control may mean a firm where every worker-owner participates in decision-making in a democratic fashion, or it may refer to one in which management is elected by ...
or producer cooperative is a cooperative owned and democratically controlled by its "worker-owners". There are no outside owners in a "pure" workers' cooperative, only the workers own shares of the business, though hybrid forms exist in which consumers, community members or capitalist investors also own some shares. In practice, control by worker-owners may be exercised through individual, collective or majority ownership by the workforce, or the retention of individual, collective or majority voting rights (exercised on a one-member one-vote basis). A worker cooperative, therefore, has the characteristic that the majority of its workforce owns shares, and the majority of shares are owned by the workforce. Membership is not always compulsory for employees, but generally only employees can become members either directly (as shareholders) or indirectly through membership of a trust that owns the company.
The impact of political ideology on practice constrains the development of cooperatives in different countries. In India, there is a form of workers' cooperative which insists on compulsory membership for all employees and compulsory employment for all members. That is the form of the
Indian Coffee House
Indian Coffee House is a restaurant chain in India, run by a series of worker co-operative societies. It has strong presence across India with nearly 400 coffee houses. It has been a hub for Communist and Socialist movements for generations. ...
s. This system was advocated by the Indian communist leader
A. K. Gopalan
Ayillyath Kuttiari Gopalan (1 October 1904 – 22 March 1977), popularly known as A. K. Gopalan or AKG, was an Indian communist politician. He was one of 16 Communist Party of India members elected to the first Lok Sabha in 1952. Later he bec ...
. In places like the UK, common ownership (indivisible collective ownership) was popular in the 1970s. Cooperative Societies only became legal in Britain after the passing of
Slaney's Act in 1852. In 1865 there were 651 registered societies with a total membership of well over 200,000. There are now more than 400 worker cooperatives in the UK,
Suma Wholefoods
Suma is the trading name of the Triangle Wholefoods Collective Limited, a worker co-operative wholefoods wholesaler. It was founded in Leeds in 1977 and is now based in Elland, West Yorkshire. It is the largest independent wholefood wholesaler ...
being the largest example with a turnover of £24 million.
Business and employment cooperative
''Business and employment cooperatives'' (BECs) are a subset of worker cooperatives that represent a new approach to providing support to the creation of new businesses.
Like other business creation support schemes, BEC's enable budding entrepreneurs to experiment with their business idea while benefiting from a secure income. The innovation BECs introduce is that once the businesses are established, the entrepreneurs are not forced to leave and set up independently, but can stay and become full members of the cooperative. The micro-enterprises then combine to form one multi-activity enterprise whose members provide a mutually supportive environment for each other.
BECs thus provide budding business people with an easy transition from inactivity to self-employment, but in a collective framework. They open up new horizons for people who have ambition but who lack the skills or confidence needed to set off entirely on their own – or who simply want to carry on an independent economic activity but within a supportive group context.
Purchasing cooperative
A "purchasing cooperative" is a type of cooperative arrangement, often among businesses, to agree to aggregate demand to get lower prices from selected suppliers. Retailers' cooperatives are a form of purchasing cooperative.
Major purchasing cooperatives include
Best Western
Best Western International, Inc. owns the Best Western Hotels & Resorts brand, which it licenses to over 4,700 hotels worldwide. The franchise, with its corporate headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona, includes more than 2,000 hotels in North America. ...
,
ACE Hardware and
CCA Global Partners
CCA Global Partners, originally called Carpet Co-op of America, is a shared services membership purchasing cooperative company started in 1984 as a carpet cooperative business in Manchester, New Hampshire. It has since expanded into 14 different ...
.
''Agricultural service cooperatives'' provide various services to their individual farming members, and to ''agricultural production cooperatives'', where production resources such as land or machinery are pooled and members farm jointly.
[Cobia, David, editor, ''Cooperatives in Agriculture'', Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ (1989), p. 50.]
Agricultural supply cooperatives aggregate purchases, storage, and distribution of farm inputs for their members. By taking advantage of volume discounts and utilizing other
economies of scale
In microeconomics, economies of scale are the cost advantages that enterprises obtain due to their scale of operation, and are typically measured by the amount of output produced per unit of time. A decrease in cost per unit of output enables ...
, supply cooperatives bring down members' costs. Supply cooperatives may provide seeds, fertilizers, chemicals, fuel, and farm machinery. Some supply cooperatives also operate machinery pools that provide mechanical field services (e.g., plowing, harvesting) to their members. Examples include the American cranberry-and-grapefruit cooperative
Ocean Spray,
collective farms in
socialist states
Several past and present states have declared themselves socialist states or in the process of building socialism. The majority of self-declared socialist countries have been Marxist–Leninist or inspired by it, following the model of the Sovi ...
and the
kibbutzim
A kibbutz ( he, קִבּוּץ / , lit. "gathering, clustering"; plural: kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1909, was Degania. Today, farming ha ...
in Israel.
Producer cooperative
Producer cooperatives have producers as their members, and provide services involved in moving a product from the point of production to the point of consumption. Unlike worker cooperatives, they allow businesses with multiple employees to join.
Agricultural cooperatives and
fishery cooperative
A fishery cooperative, or fishing co-op, is a cooperative in which the people involved in the fishing industry pool resources, in their certain activities from farming, catching, distribution, and marketing of fish.
Fishing cooperatives encompa ...
s are such examples.
Agricultural marketing
Agricultural marketing covers the services involved in moving an agricultural product from the farm to the consumer. These services involve the planning, organizing, directing and handling of agricultural produce in such a way as to satisfy farm ...
cooperatives operate a series of interconnected activities involving planning production, growing and
harvesting, grading, packing, transport, storage,
food processing, distribution and sale. Agricultural marketing cooperatives are often formed to promote specific commodities.
Commercially successful agricultural marketing cooperatives include India's
Amul
Anand Milk Union Limited (AMUL) is an Indian dairy state government cooperative society, based in Anand, Gujarat.
Formed in 1946, it is a cooperative brand managed by Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd. (GCMMF), which today i ...
(dairy products), which is the world's largest producer of milk and milk products,
Dairy Farmers of America
Dairy Farmers of America Inc. (DFA) is a national milk marketing cooperative in the United States. DFA markets members' raw milk and sells milk and derivative products (dairy products, food components, ingredients and shelf-stable dairy products) ...
(dairy products) in the United States, and Malaysia's
FELDA
The Federal Land Development Authority (Felda; ms, Lembaga Kemajuan Tanah Persekutuan. LKTP) is a Malaysian government agency that was founded to handle the resettlement of rural poor into newly developed areas (''colonies'', ''settlements'' ...
(
palm oil).
Producer cooperatives may also be organized by small businesses for pooling their savings and accessing capital, for acquiring supplies and services, or for marketing products and services.
Producer cooperatives among urban artisans were developed in the mid-19th-century in Germany by
Franz Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch
Franz Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch, also Hermann Schulze, (29 August 1808 – 29 April 1883) was a German politician and economist. He was responsible for the organizing of the world's first credit unions. He was also co-founder of the German Progre ...
, who also promoted changes to the legal system (the Prussian ''Genossenschaftsgesetz'' of 1867) that facilitated such cooperatives. At about the same time,
Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen
Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen (30 March 1818 – 11 March 1888) was a German mayor and cooperative pioneer. Several credit union systems and cooperative banks have been named after Raiffeisen, who pioneered rural credit unions.
Life
Friedrich Wilhe ...
developed similar cooperatives among rural people.
Multi-stakeholder cooperatives
Multi-stakeholder cooperatives include representation from different stakeholder groups, such as both consumers and workers.
Social cooperative
Cooperatives traditionally combine social benefit interests with capitalistic property-right interests. Cooperatives achieve a mix of social and capital purposes by democratically governing distribution questions by and between equal but not controlling members. Democratic oversight of decisions to equitably distribute assets and other benefits means capital ownership is arranged in a way for social benefit inside the organization. External societal benefit is also encouraged by incorporating the operating-principle of cooperation between co-operatives. In the final year of the 20th century, cooperatives banded together to establish a number of
social enterprise
A social enterprise is an organization that applies commercial strategies to maximize improvements in financial, social and environmental well-being. This may include maximizing social impact alongside profits for co-owners.
Social enterprises ca ...
agencies that have moved to adopt the multi-stakeholder cooperative model. In the years 1994–2009 the
EU and its member nations gradually revised national accounting systems to "make visible" the increasing contribution of
social economy
The social economy is formed by a rich diversity of enterprises and organisations, such as cooperatives, mutuals, associations, foundations, social enterprises and paritarian institutions, sharing common values and features:
* Primacy of the ...
organizations.
A particularly successful form of multi-stakeholder cooperative is the Italian "social cooperative", of which some 11,000 exist. "Type A" social cooperatives bring together providers and beneficiaries of a social service as members. "Type B" social cooperatives bring together permanent workers and previously unemployed people who wish to integrate into the labor market. They are legally defined as follows:
*no more than 80% of profits may be distributed, interest is limited to the bond rate, and dissolution is altruistic (assets may not be distributed)
*the cooperative has legal personality and limited liability
*the objective is the general benefit of the community and the social integration of citizens
*those of type B integrate disadvantaged people into the labour market. The categories of disadvantage they target may include physical and mental disability, drug and alcohol addiction, developmental disorders and problems with the law. They do not include other factors of disadvantage such as unemployment, race, sexual orientation or abuse.
*type A cooperatives provide health, social or educational services
*various categories of stakeholder may become members, including paid employees, beneficiaries, volunteers (up to 50% of members), financial investors and public institutions. In type B cooperatives at least 30% of the members must be from the disadvantaged target groups
*voting is one person one vote
SCIC
The SCIC – ''Société coopérative d'intérêt collective'' (co-operative society of collective interest) is a type of multi-stakeholder co-operative structure introduced in France in 1982. A SCIC must have at least three different categories of members, including users and employees. Other stakeholder groups that may be represented are volunteers, public authorities and other individual or corporate supporters. Voting is on a ‘one member, one vote’ basis, though voting in colleges is also provided for under certain circumstances.
SCICs must have a ‘general interest’ objective. Public bodies can subscribe for up to 20% of the capital. The status allows an association to convert into a co-operative without having to change its legal form. The relative rigidity of the structure, combined with the government's failure to grant tax relief, has limited its take-up.
Multi-stakeholding in retailing
Multi-stakeholder co-operatives also exist in the retail sector. An example is Färm, a Belgian wholefood retailing cooperative founded in 2015 which favours organic and local produce. It operates 16 shops, of which 11 are in Brussels.
Categories of members:
The cooperative brings together all the participants in the food chain from farm to fork, represented by six different categories of members:
* A Investors: the people providing the financial means necessary to achieve the enterprise's ambitions, currently four of the project's founders. This category holds 94% of the shares but only exercises 50% of the votes. The board will consider applications from people wishing to invest in excess of €25,000;
* B Managers: the members of Färm's management;
* C Workers: members of staff working at Färm, who currently number 36;
* D Sympathisers: clients and people who want to support the project without having a contractual or commercial relationship with it. Anyone can become part of this category by buying shares worth a minimum of €105 (currently 5 shares of €21), and a maximum of €5,000. As of September 2020 the cooperative was not accepting new members;
* E Suppliers and producers: there is no obligation to hold shares in order to collaborate commercially with Färm, but the enterprise finds it nice that the two groups support each other;
* F Supporters: self-employed people who have opened a store under the Färm brand.
Governance
Each member has one vote. The members elect the board of 10 at the annual general meeting. Each category of members has at least one board member to represent them.
An innovative governance provision ensure that one group of members can dominate the others. In practice board decisions are taken by consensus. In the event of a vote, each director has one vote, and except where the cooperative's registered or internal rules provide otherwise, decisions are taken by simple majority of those present or represented. But in the event of a tie, if the votes of a group of voters all belong to the same category, the votes of the other categories prevail.
To ensure that members are committed to the cooperative's values, vision and objectives, to guarantee its long-term finance and to limit financial speculation, shares are not transferable for a period of four years.
Members receive a 2% discount on purchases.
New generation cooperative
New generation cooperatives (NGCs) are an adaptation of traditional cooperative structures to modern, capital intensive industries. They are sometimes described as a hybrid between traditional co-ops and limited liability companies or public benefit corporations. They were first developed in
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
and spread and flourished in the US
Mid-West
The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...
in the 1990s. They are now common in Canada where they operate primarily in agriculture and food services, where their primary purpose is to
add value to
primary products
The primary sector of the economy includes any industry involved in the extraction and production of raw materials, such as farming, logging, fishing, forestry and mining.
The primary sector tends to make up a larger portion of the economy in ...
. For example, producing
ethanol
Ethanol (abbr. EtOH; also called ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, drinking alcohol, or simply alcohol) is an organic compound. It is an alcohol with the chemical formula . Its formula can be also written as or (an ethyl group linked to a ...
from
corn,
pasta
Pasta (, ; ) is a type of food typically made from an unleavened dough of wheat flour mixed with water or eggs, and formed into sheets or other shapes, then cooked by boiling or baking. Rice flour, or legumes such as beans or lentils, ar ...
from
durum wheat
Durum wheat (), also called pasta wheat or macaroni wheat (''Triticum durum'' or ''Triticum turgidum'' subsp. ''durum''), is a tetraploid species of wheat. It is the second most cultivated species of wheat after common wheat, although it represe ...
, or
gourmet cheese from
goat's milk
Goat milk is the milk of domestic goats. Goats produce about 2% of the world's total annual milk supply. Some goats are bred specifically for milk. Goat milk naturally has small, well-emulsified fat globules, which means the cream will stay in ...
.
Other
Platform cooperative
A platform cooperative, or platform co-op, is a cooperatively owned, democratically governed business that establishes a computing platform, and uses a protocol, website or mobile app to facilitate the sale of goods and services. Platform cooperatives are an alternative to venture capital-funded platforms insofar as they are owned and governed by those who depend on them most—workers, users, and other relevant stakeholders. Proponents of platform cooperativism claim that, by ensuring the financial and social value of a platform circulate among these participants, platform cooperatives will bring about a more equitable and fair digitally mediated economy in contrast with the extractive models of corporate intermediaries. Platform cooperatives differ from traditional cooperatives not only due to their use of digital technologies, but also by their contribution to the
commons
The commons is the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water, and a habitable Earth. These resources are held in common even when owned privately or publicly. Commons c ...
for the purpose of fostering an equitable social and economic landscape.
Volunteer cooperative
A volunteer cooperative is a cooperative that is run by and for a network of volunteers, for the benefit of a defined membership or the general public, to achieve some goal. Depending on the structure, it may be a
collective or
mutual organization
A mutual organization, or mutual society is an organization (which is often, but not always, a company or business) based on the principle of mutuality and governed by private law. Unlike a true cooperative, members usually do not contribute ...
, which is operated according to the principles of cooperative governance. The most basic form of volunteer-run cooperative is a
voluntary association
A voluntary group or union (also sometimes called a voluntary organization, common-interest association, association, or society) is a group of individuals who enter into an agreement, usually as volunteers, to form a body (or organization) to ac ...
. A
lodge
Lodge is originally a term for a relatively small building, often associated with a larger one.
Lodge or The Lodge may refer to:
Buildings and structures Specific
* The Lodge (Australia), the official Canberra residence of the Prime Ministe ...
or
social club may be organized on this basis. A volunteer-run co-op is distinguished from a
worker cooperative
A worker cooperative is a cooperative owned and self-managed by its workers. This control may mean a firm where every worker-owner participates in decision-making in a democratic fashion, or it may refer to one in which management is elected by ...
in that the latter is by definition
employee-owned
Employee stock ownership, or employee share ownership, is where a company's employees own shares in that company (or in the parent company of a group of companies). US employees typically acquire shares through a share option plan. In the UK, Emp ...
, whereas the volunteer cooperative is typically a
non-stock corporation
A non-stock corporation is a corporation that does not have owners represented by shares of stock. That type of corporation is called a stock corporation. Instead, a non-stock corporation typically has members who are the functional equivalent of ...
, volunteer-run
consumer co-op or
service organization
A service club or service organization is a voluntary nonprofit organization where members meet regularly to perform charitable works either by direct hands-on efforts or by raising money for other organizations. A service club is defined firstl ...
, in which workers and beneficiaries jointly participate in management decisions and receive discounts on the basis of
sweat equity Sweat equity is a non-monetary benefit that a company's stakeholders give in labor and time, rather than a monetary contribution, that benefit the company. Sweat equity is rewarded in the form of sweat equity shares. These are shares given out by a ...
.
Federal or secondary cooperative
In some cases, cooperative societies find it advantageous to form
cooperative federation A co-operative federation or secondary co-operative is a co-operative in which all members are, in turn, co-operatives.
Historically, co-operative federations have predominantly come in the form of co-operative wholesale societies and co-operative ...
s in which all of the members are themselves cooperatives. Historically, these have predominantly come in the form of cooperative wholesale societies, and cooperative unions. Cooperative federations are a means through which cooperative societies can fulfill the sixth
Rochdale Principle,
cooperation among cooperatives
The Rochdale Principles are a set of ideals for the operation of cooperatives. They were first set out in 1844 by the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers in Rochdale, England and have formed the basis for the principles on which co-operativ ...
, with the
ICA noting that "Cooperatives serve their members most effectively and strengthen the cooperative movement by working together through local, regional and international structures."
Cooperative union
A second common form of cooperative federation is a cooperative union, whose objective (according to Gide) is "to develop the spirit of solidarity among societies and... in a word, to exercise the functions of a government whose authority, it is needless to say, is purely moral."
Co-operatives UK and the
International Cooperative Alliance
The International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) is a non-governmental co-operative federation or, more precisely, a co-operative union representing co-operatives and the co-operative movement worldwide. It was founded in 1895 to unite, represen ...
are examples of such arrangements.
Cooperative political movements
In some countries with a strong cooperative sector, such as the UK, cooperatives may find it advantageous to form political groupings to represent their interests. The British
Co-operative Party
The Co-operative Party is a centre-left political party in the United Kingdom, supporting co-operative values and principles. Established in 1917, the Co-operative Party was founded by co-operative societies to campaign politically for the fair ...
, the Canadian
Cooperative Commonwealth Federation
The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF; french: Fédération du Commonwealth Coopératif, FCC); from 1955 the Social Democratic Party of Canada (''french: Parti social démocratique du Canada''), was a federal democratic socialistThe follo ...
and
United Farmers of Alberta
The United Farmers of Alberta (UFA) is an association of Alberta farmers that has served different roles in its 100-year history – as a lobby group, a successful political party, and as a farm-supply retail chain. As a political party, it forme ...
are prime examples of such arrangements.
= UK
=
The
British cooperative movement
The United Kingdom is home to a widespread and diverse co-operative movement, with over 7000 registered co-operatives owned by 17 million individual members and which contribute £34bn a year to the British economy. Modern co-operation started wit ...
formed the
Co-operative Party
The Co-operative Party is a centre-left political party in the United Kingdom, supporting co-operative values and principles. Established in 1917, the Co-operative Party was founded by co-operative societies to campaign politically for the fair ...
in the early 20th century to represent members of
consumers' cooperative
A consumers' co-operative is an enterprise owned by consumers and managed democratically and that aims at fulfilling the needs and aspirations of its members. Such co-operatives operate within the market system, independently of the state, as a f ...
s in Parliament, which was the first of its kind. The Co-operative Party now has a permanent electoral pact with the
Labour Party meaning someone cannot be a member if they support a party other than Labour.
Plaid Cymru
Plaid Cymru ( ; ; officially Plaid Cymru – the Party of Wales, often referred to simply as Plaid) is a centre-left to left-wing, Welsh nationalist political party in Wales, committed to Welsh independence from the United Kingdom.
Plaid wa ...
also run a credit union that is constituted as a co-operative, called the 'Plaid Cymru Credit Union'.
UK cooperatives retain a strong market share in
food retail, insurance, banking, funeral services, and the travel industry in many parts of the country, although this is still significantly lower than other business models.
Former leader of the British Labour Party
Jeremy Corbyn
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (; born 26 May 1949) is a British politician who served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020. On the political left of the Labour Party, Corbyn describes himself as a socialist ...
has publicly expressed support for worker cooperatives.
Women in cooperatives
Since cooperatives are based on values like
self-help,
democracy
Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which people, the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation ("direct democracy"), or to choo ...
,
equality
Equality may refer to:
Society
* Political equality, in which all members of a society are of equal standing
** Consociationalism, in which an ethnically, religiously, or linguistically divided state functions by cooperation of each group's elit ...
,
equity, and
solidarity, they can play a particularly strong role in empowering women, especially in developing countries. Cooperatives allow women who might have been isolated and working individually to band together and create
economies of scale
In microeconomics, economies of scale are the cost advantages that enterprises obtain due to their scale of operation, and are typically measured by the amount of output produced per unit of time. A decrease in cost per unit of output enables ...
as well as increase their own
bargaining power
Bargaining power is the relative ability of parties in an argumentative situation (such as bargaining, contract writing, or making an agreement) to exert influence over each other. If both parties are on an equal footing in a debate, then they w ...
in the market. In statements in advance of
International Women's Day in early 2013, President of the
International Cooperative Alliance
The International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) is a non-governmental co-operative federation or, more precisely, a co-operative union representing co-operatives and the co-operative movement worldwide. It was founded in 1895 to unite, represen ...
,
Dame Pauline Green
Dame Pauline Green, (born 8 December 1948) is a former Labour and Co-operative Member of the European Parliament and former Leader of the Parliamentary Group of the Party of European Socialists (PES). As leader of the PES, she had a central r ...
, said, "Cooperative businesses have done so much to help women onto the ladder of economic activity. With that comes community respect, political legitimacy and influence."
However, despite the supposed democratic structure of cooperatives and the values and benefits shared by members, due to
gender norms
A gender role, also known as a sex role, is a social role encompassing a range of behaviors and attitudes that are generally considered acceptable, appropriate, or desirable for a person based on that person's sex. Gender roles are usually cent ...
on the traditional role of women, and other instilled cultural practices that sidestep attempted legal protections, women suffer a disproportionately low representation in cooperative membership around the world. Representation of women through ''active'' membership (showing up to meetings and voting), as well as in leadership and managerial positions is even lower.
[Nippierd, A. (2002)]
"Gender issues in cooperatives."
Geneva, Switzerland: International Labour Organization
Cooperatives in popular culture
, the number of memberships in cooperatives reached one billion, and so the organizational structure and movement has seeped into popular culture.
However, in comparison with the number of co-operatives, they are rarely the subject of literature. Among these,
Ken Follett
Kenneth Martin Follett, (born 5 June 1949) is a British author of thrillers and historical novels who has sold more than 160 million copies of his works.
Many of his books have achieved high ranking on best seller lists. For example, in the ...
mentions their role in working-class life during the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
in ''
Fall of Giants
''Fall of Giants'' is a 2010 historical novel by Welsh author Ken Follett. It is the first part of the Century Trilogy which follows five interrelated families throughout the course of the 20th century. The first book covers notable events such ...
'' (2010), the first volume of his ''Century Trilogy'':
:"Where's our mam?"
:"Gone down the Co-op for a tin of jam."
The local grocery was a co-operative store, sharing profits among its customers. Such shops were popular in South Wales, although no one knew how to pronounce Co-op, variations ranging from "cop" to "quorp".
Less seriously, in ''Murder in the Collective'',
Barbara Wilson sets a murder mystery among radical printing collectives in Seattle, while Frances Madeson's 2007 comic novel ''Cooperative Village'' is set in
the eponymous housing co-operative in New York.
In the
HBO drama television series ''
The Wire
''The Wire'' is an American crime drama television series created and primarily written by author and former police reporter David Simon. The series was broadcast by the cable network HBO in the United States. ''The Wire'' premiered on June 2 ...
'', several drug dealers create a democratic alliance called the
New Day Co-Op
''The Wire'' is an American crime drama television series created and primarily written by author and former police reporter David Simon. The series was broadcast by the cable network HBO in the United States. ''The Wire'' premiered on June 2 ...
with the interests of cutting back on violence and increasing business.
''Co-opoly: The Game of Cooperatives'' is a popular
board game
Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures games as well.
Many board games feature a co ...
by
TESA Collective
TESA Collective (Toolbox for Education and Social Action) is a worker-owned co-op that designs games and tools for social justice organizations. TESA consciously engages in ethical, social change practices that intend to create healthier commun ...
played around the world that challenges players to work together to start and run a cooperative and overcome major hurdles.
"Teach Your Children Well: Don't Play Monopoly"
, Truthout.org
Cooperatives feature prominently in the Martian economy in Kim Stanley Robinson's ''Mars'' trilogy and in a speculative future Earth economy in his novel The Ministry for the Future
''The Ministry for the Future'' is a climate fiction ("cli-fi") novel by American science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson published in 2020. Set in the near future, the novel follows a subsidiary body, established under the Paris Agreement, ...
.
See also
*Artist cooperative
An artist cooperative (also co-operative or co-op) is an autonomous visual arts organization, enterprise, or association jointly owned and democratically controlled by its members. Artist cooperatives are legal entities organized as non-capital sto ...
* Co-determination
**Worker representation on corporate boards of directors Worker representation on corporate boards of directors, also known as board-level employee representation (BLER) refers to the right of workers to vote for representatives on a board of directors in corporate law. In 2018, a majority of Organisatio ...
*Cooperative economics
Cooperative (or co-operative) economics is a field of economics that incorporates cooperative studies and political economy toward the study and management of cooperatives.
History
Cooperative economics developed as both a theory and a concret ...
*Collective ownership
Collective ownership is the ownership of property by all members of a group. The breadth or narrowness of the group can range from a whole society to a set of coworkers in a particular enterprise (such as one collective farm). In the latter (narro ...
*Cohousing
Cohousing is an intentional community of private homes clustered around shared space. The term originated in Denmark in late 1960s. Each attached or single family home has traditional amenities, including a private kitchen. Shared spaces typic ...
* Common ownership
*Corporatism
Corporatism is a collectivist political ideology which advocates the organization of society by corporate groups, such as agricultural, labour, military, business, scientific, or guild associations, on the basis of their common interests. The ...
*Cost the limit of price
"Cost the limit of price" was a maxim coined by Josiah Warren, indicating a (prescriptive) version of the labor theory of value. Warren maintained that the just compensation for labor (or for its product) could only be an equivalent amount of l ...
*Danish cooperative movement
The Danish cooperative movement (Danish: Andelsbevægelsen) was a cooperative movement with profound influence on the economical, organizational and industrial development of Denmark from the 1790s. The movement originally emerged in rural communit ...
*Distributism
Distributism is an economic theory asserting that the world's productive assets should be widely owned rather than concentrated.
Developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, distributism was based upon Catholic social teaching pri ...
*Employee stock ownership
Employee stock ownership, or employee share ownership, is where a company's employees own shares in that company (or in the parent company of a group of companies). US employees typically acquire shares through a share option plan. In the UK, Emp ...
*Employee stock ownership plan
Employee stock ownership, or employee share ownership, is where a company's employees own shares in that company (or in the parent company of a group of companies). US employees typically acquire shares through a share option plan. In the UK, Emp ...
*Friendly society
A friendly society (sometimes called a benefit society, mutual aid society, benevolent society, fraternal organization or ROSCA) is a mutual association for the purposes of insurance, pensions, savings or cooperative banking. It is a mutual ...
*History of the cooperative movement
The history of the cooperative movement concerns the origins and history of cooperatives across the world. Although cooperative arrangements, such as mutual insurance, and principles of cooperation existed long before, the cooperative movement bega ...
* Kibbutz
*List of co-operative federations
This is a list of co-operative federations. For a list of individual Co-operative Enterprises, please see List of cooperatives.
International
* Africa Confederation of Co-operative Savings and Credit Associations (ACCOSCA)
* International Co ...
* List of cooperatives
*Los Horcones
Los Horcones is an intentional community located about 40 miles from Hermosillo, Mexico. It has described itself "as the only true ''Walden Two'' community in existence". The members of Los Horcones use techniques based on behavioral science to s ...
(a producer cooperative & Walden Two
''Walden Two'' is a utopian novel written by behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner, first published in 1948. In its time, it could have been considered science fiction, since science-based methods for altering people's behavior did not yet exis ...
)
*Market socialism
Market socialism is a type of economic system involving the public, cooperative, or social ownership of the means of production in the framework of a market economy, or one that contains a mix of worker-owned, nationalized, and privately owne ...
* Microfinance / microcredit
*Mondragón Cooperative Corporation
The Mondragon Corporation is a corporation and federation of worker cooperatives based in the Basque region of Spain.
It was founded in the town of Mondragon in 1956 by José María Arizmendiarrieta and a group of his students at a technical ...
* Mutual aid
*Mutual Ownership Defense Housing Division The Mutual Ownership Defense Housing Division of the Federal Works Agency, an agency of the United States government, operating from about 1940 to 1942 under the leadership of Colonel Lawrence Westbrook, was an attempt by the United States Governme ...
*Mutualism (economic theory)
Mutualism is an anarchist school of thought and economic theory that advocates a socialist society based on free markets and usufructs, i.e. occupation and use property norms. One implementation of this system involves the establishment of a ...
*Neo-capitalism
Neo-capitalism is an economic ideology which blends some elements of capitalism with other systems.Participatory democracy
Participatory democracy, participant democracy or participative democracy is a form of government in which citizens participate individually and directly in political decisions and policies that affect their lives, rather than through elected repr ...
*Participatory economics
Participatory economics, often abbreviated Parecon, is an economic system based on participatory decision making as the primary economic mechanism for allocation in society. In the system, the say in decision-making is proportional to the impa ...
*
*Social corporatism
Social corporatism, also called social democratic corporatism, is a form of economic tripartite corporatism based upon a social partnership between the interests of capital and labour, involving collective bargaining between representatives of ...
*Social ownership
Social ownership is the appropriation of the surplus product, produced by the means of production, or the wealth that comes from it, to society as a whole. It is the defining characteristic of a socialist economic system. It can take the form of ...
*Syndicalism
Syndicalism is a revolutionary current within the left-wing of the labor movement that seeks to unionize workers according to industry and advance their demands through strikes with the eventual goal of gaining control over the means of prod ...
*Socialism
Socialism is a left-wing Economic ideology, economic philosophy and Political movement, movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to Private prop ...
*Worker cooperative
A worker cooperative is a cooperative owned and self-managed by its workers. This control may mean a firm where every worker-owner participates in decision-making in a democratic fashion, or it may refer to one in which management is elected by ...
References
Bibliography
Neoliberal Co-optation of Leading Co-op Organizations, and a Socialist Counter-Politics of Cooperation
(February 2015), Carl Ratner, '' Monthly Review'', Volume 66, Number 9
Cooperatives On the Path to Socialism?
(February 2015), Peter Marcuse
Peter Marcuse (November 13, 1928 – March 4, 2022) was a German-born American lawyer and professor of urban planning.
Biography
Marcuse was the older son of Sophie Wertheim and philosopher and critical theory, critical theorist Herbert Marcuse. ...
, '' Monthly Review'', Volume 66, Number 9
*
*
* Armitage, S. (1991) 'Consequences of Mutual Ownership for Building Societies', The Service Industries Journal, October, Vol.11(4): pp. 458–480 (p. 471).
* Birchall, Johnston. "The International Co-operative Movement", 1997
* Brazda, Johann and Schediwy, Robert (eds.) "Consumer Co-operatives in a Changing World"(ICA), 1989
* Bernardi A., Monni S., eds., (2016)
"The Co-operative firm – Keywords, Roma: RomaTrE-Press."
* Cooperative League of America
The National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA) is a United States membership organization for cooperatives, which are businesses that are jointly owned and democratically controlled.
The association was founded in 1916 as the Cooperative L ...
''Co-operation 1921–1947''
* Cornforth, C. J. et al. ''Developing Successful Worker Co-ops'', London: Sage Publications, 1988.
* Curl, John. "''For All The People: Uncovering the Hidden History of Cooperation, Cooperative Movements, and Communalism in America''," PM Press, 2009
* Dana, Leo Paul 2010, "Nunavik, Arctic Quebec: Where Co-operatives Supplement Entrepreneurship," Global Business and Economics Review 12 (1/2), January 2010, pp. 42–71.
* Derr, Jascha
''The cooperative movement of Brazil and South Africa''
2013
* Emerson, John
"Consider the Collective: More than business as usual"
2005. Article on graphic design and printing cooperatives.
* Charles Gide, Gide, Charles
''Consumers' Co-operative Societies''
1922
* George Jacob Holyoake, Holyoake, George Jacob
''The History of Co-operation''
1908
* Llewellyn, D. and Holmes, M. (1991) 'In Defence of Mutuality: A Redress to an Emerging Conventional Wisdom', Annals of Public and Co-operative Economics, Vol.62(3): pp. 319–354 (p. 327).
* Masulis, R. (1987) 'Changes in Ownership Structure: Conversions of Mutual Savings and Loans to Stock Charter', Journal of Financial economics, Vol.18: pp. 29–59 (p. 32).
* Paton, R. ''Reluctant Entrepreneurs'', Open University Press, 1989.
* Rasmusen, E. (1988) 'Mutual banks and stock banks', Journal of Law and Economics, October, Vol.31: pp. 395–421 (p. 412).
* Van Deusen, David. (2006
''Co-ops: The Changing Face of Employment in the Green Mountains''
, Z Magazine.
* Vicari S., (2015)
"2014 Annual Report on FAO’s projects and activities in support of producer organizations and cooperatives"
* Vieta, Marco (ed.
"The New Cooperativism" in ''Affinities: A Journal of Radical Theory, Culture, and Action'', Vol. 4, Issue 1, 2010
* James Peter Warbasse, Warbasse, James Peter
''Cooperative Peace''
, 1950
* James Peter Warbasse, Warbasse, James Peter
''Problems Of Cooperation''
1941
* Whyte, W. F. and Whyte, K. K. ''Making Mondragon'', New York: ILR Press/Itchaca, 1991.
* Zeuli, Kimebrly A. and Cropp, Robert
, 2004
a curriculum on cooperative business for secondary school students.
''India: Re-inventing cooperatives by increasing youth involvement''
* Zvi Galor ''Production Cooperative – A Tool for National Development'' in COOP DIALOGUE – An ICA ROAP Journal, vol. 4 No. 1–2 – pp. 13–22 and 17–33.
''The Economics of Financial Cooperatives: Income Distribution, Political Economy and Regulation''
, Amr Khafagy, 2019
External links
from ''Dollars & Sense'' magazine
United Nations 2012 International Year of Cooperatives (IYC)
{{Authority control
Business models
Cooperatives,
Market socialism
Mutualism (movement)
Types of business entity
Types of organization
Private aid programs