[2] Such socialisms arose in response to the negative effects of industrialism, where various clergymen, workers, and industrialists in England, such as Robert Owen, experimented with various models of collective farming and community housing with varying degrees of success.
Some proponents of women's rights, such as Emma Martin (1812–1851) in Britain and Flora Tristan (1801–1844) in France, stirred controversy by promoting socialism as the solution to female oppression.
[13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] In 2013, the USFWC spawned the Democracy at Work Institute, a sister organization that also facilitates the growth, creation, and conversion of worker cooperatives.
For example, the Australian government defines[33] a cooperative enterprise as follows:"They serve their members by providing goods and services that may be unavailable or too costly to access as individuals.
[35] Elinor Ostrom, the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize in economics, demonstrated the ability of cooperative enterprises and organizations to effectively manage environmental goods more than strictly political or market means.
Forestry and electricity cooperatives are some of the largest in the world, which puts them in a unique position to address the negative effects of climate change.
Kauai Island Utility Cooperative, the youngest generation and transmission cooperative in the United States, "is aggressively pursuing diversification of its energy portfolio to include a growing percentage of hydropower, photovoltaic, bio-fuel, and biomass" Jessica Gordon Nembhard in her monograph Collective Courage concludes that:…cooperatives…use a sense of solidarity and concern for community to promote economic alternatives that create economic growth and sustainability.
[37] Notable theoreticians and activists who have contributed to the field include Robert Owen,[63] Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Charles Gide,[64] Beatrice and Sydney Webb,[65] J.T.W.
[70] Additional theorists include John Stuart Mill, Laurence Gronlund, Leland Stanford,[71][72] and modern theoretical work by Elinor Ostrom,[73] Benjamin Ward,[74] Jaroslav Vanek,[75] David Ellerman,[76] and Anna Milford[77] and Roger McCain.
[78] Additional modern thinkers include Nathan Schneider, John Restakis, Joyce Rothschild,[79] Joerg Rieger, Rosemarie Henkel-Rieger, Jessica Gordon Nembhard,[80] Corey Rosen et al.,[81] William Foote Whyte,[82] Gar Alperovitz,[83] Seymour Melman,[84] Mario Bunge, Richard D. Wolff and David Schweickart.
[85] In Europe, important contributions came from England and Italy, especially from Will Bartlett,[86] Virginie Perotin,[87] Bruno Jossa,[88] Stefano Zamagni,[89] Carlo Borzaga,[90] Jacques Defourny[91] and Tom Winters.
The most notable proponents of workers' co-operatives are, in Britain, the Christian socialists and later writers like Joseph Reeves who put this forth as a path to state socialism.
The business model they use includes "extensive integration and solidarity with employees", worker involvement in policy and committees, a "transparent" wage system, and "full practice of democratic control".
[95] James Warbasse's work,[98] and more recently Johnston Birchall's,[99] provide perspectives on the breadth of co-operative development nationally and internationally.
[102] Anna Milford has constructed a detailed theoretical examination of co-operatives in controlled buyer markets (monopsony), and the implications for fair trade strategies.
Utopian socialists feel socialism can be achieved without class struggle and that cooperatives should only include those who voluntarily choose to participate in them.
Co-operative commonwealth ideas were also developed in Great Britain and Ireland from the 1880s by William Morris, which also inspired the guild socialist movement for associative democracy from 1906 right through the 1920s.
Some economists have argued that economic democracy could be achieved by combining employee ownership on a national scale (including worker cooperatives) within a free market apparatus.