Cooperatives have spread across virtually all continents. Today, the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) recognises over 3 million cooperatives with 1 billion cooperative members or about 12% of the human population and serving many more members of the public, collectively owning trillions in assets. This handbook provides a comprehensive introduction to the subject and the current state of affairs with regard to the study of cooperation in the economy generally and of the cooperative and related sectors particularly. It highlights the essential issues and debates; provides a future research agenda, outlining the distinctions and similarities between individual and (inter)organisational cooperation; and explores the connections of cooperative economics and management to fundamental ethical principles. This book examines coopetition and the similarities and differences between competitive economics and cooperative economics, identifying to what extent and how cooperative economics and management are more capable of addressing the problems of global neoliberalism, such as ecological collapse, wealth inequity, value capture, and distribution, including via online platforms and social/relational problems. This book offers a variety of new research and theory‑building from various disciplines, particularly focusing on the fields of economics and management but extending beyond these disciplines to domains such as sociology, psychology, anthropology, and political science. It will become the standard reference work for not only a broad and large audience of scholars, researchers, and students but also interested professionals, policymakers, regulators, and cooperators in the field wishing to orient themselves in a global, rapidly developing movement and field of study with reference to issues of producing and allocating resources and focusing on the impact of cooperation on issues like risk, trust, the development of preferences, institutional governance, networks, and inequity. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license. The handbook has received an Honorable Mention for the Joyce Rothschild book prize.
The Cooperative Economy (@cooperatives.bsky.social)
Advocating for a democratic, equitable, and inclusive world through cooperatives, worker ownership, unions, mutual aid, and workplace democracy. 💜 #EconomicDemocracy 🌲🌲 usworker.coop | ncbaclusa.coop | workers.coop | ica.coop
After Capitalism: A Cooperative Economy (Documentary)
Start.coop | Empower Cooperative Growth
Discover resources and support to build and grow cooperatively-owned businesses, fostering community wealth-building and economic stability.
Cooperative non-profit social media for Canada - CoSocial Community Cooperative
CoSocial, officially CoSocial Community Cooperative, is a member-owned organization with the purpose of providing democratically-run open social media.
CommonsCloud – Eines lliures tecnoètiques cooperatives
Eines lliures tecnoètiques cooperatives
Liberating work - workers.coop
Worker cooperatives enable workers to unite and collectively advance their economic, social, and cultural interests.
cooperative/Formation Documents at main · NorthskySocial/cooperative
Information about our Cooperative. Contribute to NorthskySocial/cooperative development by creating an account on GitHub.
Proto-Social Infrastructure and Stewardship of Commitment Pooling
This paper examines Commitment Pooling as a commons-based resource coordination framework. The Commitment Pooling protocol establishes rules for the exchange of resources, emphasizing reciprocity and mutual support. The infrastructure, blending proto-social systems like rotational labor with modern technologies such as blockchain, enables a transition from extractive to cooperative models. Central to this framework is stewardship, ensuring responsible governance and long-term sustainability of the commons. By integrating protocol, infrastructure, and stewardship, Commitment Pooling provides a flexible, scalable model for fostering cooperative, resilient economies and addressing contemporary challenges in resource management.
The most powerful institution in most people’s lives is their workplace. We care deeply about governmental democracy but accept dictatorships where we spend most of our waking hours. The cooperative movement has proven it doesn’t have to be this way.
What Is a Cooperative? How to Start One in 6 Simple Steps
Learn what a cooperative is, why it’s different from other business types, and how to start one in six simple steps with this beginner-friendly guide.
Indigenous Cooperatives in Canada: The Complex Relationship between Cooperatives, Community Economic Development, Colonization, and Culture
This paper describes the intersection of the cooperative movement and Indigenous communities in Canada. The paper brings a lens of nation and race to an analysi
The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT): Cooperative governance for network innovation, standards, and community
A PDF version of this book is available for free in open access via www.tandfebooks.com as well as the OAPEN Library platform, www.oapen.org. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license and is part of the OAPEN-UK research project. This book traces the history and development of a mutual organization in the financial sector called SWIFT, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. Over the last forty years, SWIFT has served the financial services sector as proprietary communications platform, provider of products and services, standards developer, and conference organizer ("Sibos"). Founded to create efficiencies by replacing telegram and telex (or ‘wires’) for international payments, SWIFT now forms a core part of the financial services infrastructure. It is widely regarded as the most secure trusted third party network in the world serving 212 countries and over 10,000 banking organizations, securities institutions and corporate customers. Through every phase of its development, SWIFT has maintained the status of industry cooperative thus presenting an opportunity to study broader themes of globalization and governance in the financial services sector. In this book the authors focus on how the design and current state of SWIFT was influenced by its historical origins, presenting a comprehensive account in a succinct form which provides an informative guide to the history, structure, activities and future challenges of this key international organization. This work will be of great interest to students and scholars in a wide range of fields including IPE, comparative political economy, international economics, business studies and business history.
The corporation—a return to origins?
This paper contributes to contemporary debates in political theory about the power of business corporations by offering a genealogy of the corporation through the lens of a series of historical mutations of the corporate form. Originally, there were two corporate forms, both non-profit: member corporations (today's associations) and property corporations (today's charitable foundations). The contemporary business corporation arguably is a hybrid of both of these original forms, introducing unique commercial features (shares with profit distribution rights that are transferable). These commercial features are largely responsible for the corporation's extractive nature, that is, its tendency to prey on non-shareholder interests. The future of the corporation may well lie in a partial return to the two original non-profit forms. Two corporate forms developed in the nineteenth century can provide the format for such a return: cooperatives (which reinforce the idea of membership) and foundation-owned companies. The cooperative structure is a halfway house between a business corporation and a member corporation (association), and in a parallel fashion, a foundation-owned company is a halfway house between a business corporation and a property corporation (foundation). If we want to reduce corporations’ extractive nature, facilitating the spread of cooperatives and foundation-owned companies seems the way forward.
Cooperate Now! @ DWeb Camp Cascadia
Links for talk: Cooperate Now! @ DWeb Camp Cascadia: Learn about cooperatives, their history and traditions, and what cooperating looks like in practice. Through a short presentation and small group dialogue, participants will reflect on solidarity, mutual aid, and co-ownership. Putting it all together to consider legal cooperatives as one tool for collaborative democracy and building livelihoods together.
Indigenous Cooperatives in Canada: The Complex Relationship between Cooperatives, Community Economic Development, Colonization, and Culture
Meet the Team — Freedom Dreams Co-operative Education
CiviCRM | CMC CRM
Coops 4 Coops
geo.coop
Framework for Economic Reconciliation
