But co-operatives were a dominant economic mode of organisation in capitalism in retail prior to the 1960s… …and in rural areas producer co-ops of petits bourgeois (cane cutters, dairy farmers, etc.) were also highly successful.
The largest socialist economy prior to 1917 was a rural retail co-operative in the central north of the US, larger by far than the economic activity of the Paris Commune, and it was operational within capitalism.
After the failed strikes of the 1890s and prior to the early 1910s, co-ops were the largest organisational relationship of the working class to politics in Australia; larger by far than the defeated ALP or defeated unions.
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Political criticisms of co-ops have centred on their "apolitical" nature; from largely a Social Democratic and Leninist perspective. Concrete criticisms relate to self-payment problems, standard "small organisation" failure rates, and after the 1960s failures to successfully modernise retail tactics. Additionally some co-ops failed as people took the dividend from membership, but didn't shop at the co-op.
I'm aware that there's a growing interest in co-ops, Nikki Balnave (UWS) and Greg Patmore (U Sydney) are doing work on Rochdale retail co-ops in rural Australia, including a number of successful ones which have transitioned post 1960 and remain active.
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I suspect that instead of requiring political change in the Social Democratic and Anarchist movements, what is really needed is a far more successful and aggressive retail strategy. Perhaps if co-ops manage to take on many of the supermarkets tactics which emerged in the 1960s, but implement them in the 1920s; combine this with a credit system that doesn't expose co-ops to liability (some kind of credit brokering system?) and they can lock up the mass retail market before it fully comes into existence.
Then we might see Brecht's vehement condemnation of the co-operative's abuse of workers in the /Three penny credit novel/.
yours,
Sam R.