Co-operative movement

A socialist tradition, which emerged in the industrial areas of northern England and Scotland in the 19th century, based on the idea of replacing economic competition with the mutual cooperation of producers and/or consumers. The key features of the cooperative movement included (1) control over all economic activities related to production, distribution and exchange (2) removal of capitalist ownership and management (3) creation of a network of voluntary associations run and owned by workers or consumers, not investors (4) net earnings being shared directly among members of the association. The Rochdale Pioneers (1844) provide an early example of this type of cooperative organization. Beatrice Webb’s early socialist work, The Cooperative Movement in Great Britain (1891), drawing on her experiences in Lancashire and research into poverty, argued that the ‘gathering together of the whole working class in a Cooperative Union on the one hand, and in a Federation of Trade Unions on the other hand, would make the workers practically paramount in the State.’ In her analysis, Webb distinguished between cooperative federalism, which she favoured, and cooperative individualism. Cooperative federalism promotes the formation of consumer cooperative societies which would come together as cooperative wholesale societies or federal cooperatives to acquire factories or farms. Under this system, profits or surpluses would be paid as dividends to member cooperatives. In contrast, cooperative individualism endorses workers’ cooperatives where the producers have greater control over organization and management and share the profits or surpluses in the form of dividends. Webb rejected cooperative individualism because, in her view, workers’ cooperatives did not provide a viable path to her conception of socialism and, up to that point, such ventures had been largely unsuccessful.