cooperative economy

A list of readings on Black liberation and economic democracy.

Jessica Gordon-Nembhard talks about her research into the history of African-American co-ops.

Luis Razeto closes out his theoretical analysis of equilibrium in cooperative enterprises with a consideration of equilibrium in the “new model” worker cooperatives he proposes. Not only do workers’ enterprises of this type overcome, in theory, the limitations to growth and even tendencies to decline argued to be inherent to community enterprises and traditional cooperatives, they turn out to be superior to capitalist firms in terms of efficiency and innovation, operating in ways that more closely approach “perfect competition.”

This month's Co-op Conversation featured Olivia Champagne and her talk, "Introducing Coops4Coops: Scaling Inter-Cooperation Across Canada". Coops4Coops is a growing, embeddable digital directory that connects co-operatives offering services to other co-operatives across Canada.

In Chapter 10, the author continues the presentation of a mathematical model of equilibrium in cooperative enterprises originally developed by economist and management consultant Ignacio Larraechea.

In this chapter, Razeto offers an analysis of equilibrium specific to two types of popular economic organization: community enterprises and subsistence collectives. 

I want to emphasize the urgent need to reimagine the relationship between NGOs and cooperatives. Instead of NGOs or funders defining projects based on their own interests, support and resources should be offered at the community’s request.

When is a “Coop” not really a cooperative? The short answer is whenever the actual activity of the “cooperative” is not carried out by the members but by employees. The problem is, of course, not in cooperation per se but in the hiring, employing, renting, or leasing of people to carry out the supposedly “cooperative” activities of the “cooperative.”

This timeline presentation goes over the highlights of 20+ years of worker cooperativism in the United States. 

In 2014, the seminal book, Collective Courage: A History of African-American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice debuted, and with it a flame sparked in the cooperative movement.