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Co-operative Enterprise in Comparative Perspective : Exceptionally Un-American?
- Publication Year :
- 2024
-
Abstract
- Co-operative enterprises, which are democratically owned and governed by their workers, customers, or suppliers, have long captured the imagination of activists and social scientists alike. In centering economic democracy and a collectivist-democratic logic, and in embodying a'third way'alternative to profit-maximizing corporations and state-owned enterprises, co-operatives offer the promise of a more sustainable and equitable economy. Despite extensive study of co-operatives'real and imagined benefits, we know little about the conditions under which they achieve the lasting scale needed to be a viable alternative and transform the economy. Under what conditions can co-operatives achieve such scale? And are such conditions present in the United States, where, despite repeated organizing efforts, co-operatives remain exceptionally rare at scale? Through a rigorous comparative-historical analysis of co-operative enterprises in different national contexts, this book seeks to answer these questions. Deploying two different variants of the new institutionalism, Spicer treats the United States as a central case of comparative failure, as contrasted to three rich democracies where the co-operative business model has been more successful: Finland, France, and New Zealand. The cause of co-operatives'comparative weakness in the United States is identified as reflecting the joint effect of economic liberalism and structural racism. Only in the United States did the co-operative face, in its initial development, two well-entrenched incumbents operating with competing ownership models: the investor-owned firm and the race-based chattel slavery system of ownership of people. Proponents of these two models acted to deprive the co-operative movement of resources, and undermined the solidarity at the co-operative business model's heart, splintering the American co-operative movement in the process. In subsequent waves of co-operative organizing, advocates have never fully succeeded in overcoming these initial obstacles, resulting in a different outcome in the United States, consistent with broader conceptions of the United States as a perennial outlier (i.e.,''American exceptionalism''). In contrast, in the successful cases, advocates were better able to leverage resources to animate a national solidarity and procure the necessary political and economic resources to achieve scale.
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISBNs :
- 9780197665077, 9780197665084, and 9780197665091
- Database :
- eBook Index
- Journal :
- Co-operative Enterprise in Comparative Perspective : Exceptionally Un-American?
- Publication Type :
- eBook
- Accession number :
- 3992040