Back to (non)basics: Worker cooperatives as economic development

Abstract

Here was no mere Ideology. [Cooperatives] seemed to offer a peaceable way of achieving democratic control over the means of production and distribution. To many who wondered what they might do to transform the profit system, with its cruelties and hardships and the constant threat of breakdown, cooperation appeared as a heaven-sent answer. [...] At any rate, the cooperative movement in America is an actuality, complete with lunatic fringe. Some observers have discounted it as merely another passing fad, like technocracy. And while it is true that past depressions have called forth an interest in cooperation which [sic] has subsided with a rising tide of prosperity, I believe this time it is here to stay.