Cooperative
[5] Worker cooperatives are typically more productive[6] and economically resilient 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 (44%) according to data from United Kingdom.
[12] The key ideological influence on the Anglosphere branch of the cooperative movement, however, was a rejection of the charity principles that underpinned welfare 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 based on the principle of mutuality, committed to self-help in the welfare of working people.
[17][18] The Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers, founded in 1844, is usually considered the first successful cooperative enterprise, used as a model for modern coops, following the 'Rochdale Principles'.
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 and universal suffrage as a political principle.
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.
[26] In attendance were delegates from cooperatives from Argentina, Australia, Belgium, England, Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, India, Italy, Switzerland, Serbia, and the US.
He had started his career in chemistry in Valio, 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.
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.
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.
[29][30] 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 of global neoliberal capitalism.
Cooperatives often share their earnings with the membership as dividends, 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).
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, Canada.
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.
The aim of a community cooperative is often to create a more equitable and sustainable economy that serves the needs of local residents, rather than generating profits for external shareholders.
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.
Agricultural marketing cooperatives operate a series of interconnected activities involving planning production, growing and harvesting, grading, packing, transport, storage, food processing, distribution and sale.
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.
[63] 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.
Research also shows that the effect of output price changes on wage variations is positive for both conventional firms (CF) and cooperatives (WC), but larger in WCs than in CFs.
[70] Two explanations have been proposed: the first one is that the spirit of cooperativism also extends to hired workers; and the second that sometimes employees are needed for highly skilled jobs, which provides them with strong bargaining power enabling them to defend their employment positions and to compensate for their lack of formal control rights over the firm.
Some cooperatives commit labour fraud because they either have a smaller percentage of cooperativised workers than mandated by law, or they have people working without becoming members for more time than legally allowed.
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.
[94] 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.
[95] 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.
The main advantage of self-financing is that it sets the cooperative free from outside influence and debt, but the capacity to expand the coop might be constrained by the lack of capital.
[78] Since cooperatives are based on values like self-help, democracy, equality, equity, and solidarity, they can play a particularly strong role in empowering women, especially in developing countries.
[100] Cooperatives allow women who might have been isolated and working individually to band together and create economies of scale as well as increase their own bargaining power in the market.
Among these, Ken Follett mentions their role in working-class life during World War I in Fall of Giants (2010), the first volume of his Century Trilogy: The local grocery was a co-operative store, sharing profits among its customers.
[105] In the HBO drama television series The Wire, several drug dealers create a democratic alliance called the New Day Co-Op with the interests of cutting back on violence and increasing business.
