An enterprise owned and governed by its members rather than outside shareholders — the organizational form that asks whether democratic self-governance can survive the pressures of market competition, and that has generated an alternative tradition of economic thinking running alongside capitalism for nearly two centuries.
In 1844, twenty-eight weavers in Rochdale, England, pooled enough money to open a small shop selling butter, sugar, flour, and candles. They owned it together. Each member got one vote, no matter how much they had put in. When the shop made a profit, the money went back to members based on what they had bought — not to outside investors. That principle sounds simple. It has proved hard to kill. There are roughly three million cooperatives worldwide today, from credit unions in rural Kenya to worker-owned factories in Spain to agricultural giants in Scandinavia. The question the cooperative raises has never gone away: who should own the organizations that shape working life?