A Global History Of Consumer Co Operation Since 1850

With contributions from over 30 scholars, A Global History of Consumer Co-operation surveys the origins and development of the consumer co-operative movement throughout the world from the mid-nineteenth century until the present day.

Co-operatives provide a different approach to organizing business through their ideals of member ownership and democratic practice. Every co-operative member has an equal vote regardless of his or her own personal capital investment. The contemporary significance of co-operatives was highlighted by the United Nations declaration of 2012 as the International Year of Co-operatives. This book provides an international perspective on the development of co-operatives since the mid-nineteenth century, exploring the economic, political, and social factors that explain their varying fortunes and transformation into different forms. By looking at what co-operatives are; how they have changed; the developments as well as the persecutions of the co-operative movement; and how it is an important force in promoting development and self-sufficiency in non-industrialized areas, this book provides valuable insight not only to academics, but also to practitioners and policy makers.

Globally, consumer co-operation has experienced a difficult period since the 1970s. Large scale failures in France, Germany and Austria were accompanied by loss of market share in the UK (including the failure of the Scottish Co-operative Wholesale Society and its takeover by its English counterpart). Even in the Nordic countries, where consumer co-operation has always been more robust, new challenges from the non-co-operative sector had to be confronted. How did co-operative organizations in different countries cope with these challenges? What were the processes of strategic renewal that they undertook? How successful were they? These are the key questions that the collection will address, culminating in an analysis by the editors of the effectiveness of strategic renewal in the co-operative sector. This book is a study of strategic renewal in the consumer co-operative sector, using eleven international case-studies to demonstrate how the concept has been applied over the last fifty years.

Contributors examine Euro-American consumer cooperation in order to challenge the assumption that these consumer economies, institutions, and cultures were necessarily and inevitably capitalist, individualistic, and apolitical. Topics include the political economy of consumer cooperation in Belgium, 1860-1980; the rise and fall of working-class cooperatives in the US; French consumer cooperation, 1885-1930; consumer cooperation in Denmark, 1850-1940; and the consumer co-op in Japan: building democratic alternatives to state-led capitalism. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Consumer co-operatives provide a different approach to organizing business through their ideals of member ownership and democratic practice. Every co-operative member has an equal vote regardless of his or her own personal capital investment. The co-operative movement can also be an important force in promoting development and self-sufficiency in poorer areas, particularly in non-industrialised countries. This book explores in depth the fortunes of the Berkeley Consumer Co-operative, which became the largest consumer co-operative in the United States with 116,000 members in 1984 and viewed nationally as a leader in innovative retail practices and a champion of consumer rights. The Berkeley Consumer Co-operative is promoted by both supporters and opponents of the co-operative business model as a significant example of what can go wrong with the co-operatives. This book will provide the first in depth analysis of the history of the Berkeley Co-operative using its substantial but little used archives and oral histories to explore what the Berkeley experience means for the co-operative business model. The specific chapters relating to Berkeley will be organised around particular themes to highlight the issues relating to the co-operative business model and the local context of Berkeley. The themes relate to developments in Berkeley and the Bay Area in terms of the economy, politics and the retail environment; the management of the Berkeley co-operative, looking at governance, financial management and strategic decisions; relationship of management with members and employees; and finally, the relationship of the Berkeley Co-operative with the community. The core message of the book is that it is not inevitable that consumer co-operatives fail, but that the story of Berkeley story can provide insights that can strengthen the co-operative business model and minimise failures on the scale of Berkeley occurring in the future.

Retail history is a rich, cross-disciplinary field that demonstrates the centrality of retailing to many aspects of human experience, from the provisioning of everyday goods to the shaping of urban environments; from earning a living to the construction of identity. Over the last few decades, interest in the history of retail has increased greatly, spanning centuries, extending to all areas of the globe, and drawing on a range of disciplinary perspectives. By offering an up-to-date, comprehensive thematic, spatial and chronological coverage of the history of retailing, this Companion goes beyond traditional narratives that are too simplistic and Euro-centric and offers a vibrant survey of this field. It is divided into four broad sections: 1) Contexts, 2) Spaces and places, 3) People, processes and practices and 4) Geographical variations. Chapters are written in an analytical and synthetic manner, accessible to the general reader as well as challenging for specialists, and with an international perspective. This volume is an important resource to a wide range of readers, including marketing and management specialists, historians, geographers, economists, sociologists and urban planners.

Globalisation is associated with capitalist multinationals dedicated to the enrichment of wealthy, corporate shareholders. However, less well known is that the English and Scottish Co-operative Wholesale Societies, owned by the growing number of local co-operative societies across the country, were early leaders in global commerce. Owned by their working-class members, by 1900 there were over 1,000 societies and millions of individual members. Spreading profits widely through the ‘divi’ which rewarded members shopping at the co-op store, and selling safe and wholesome food, the co-operative movement was a successful part of the emerging labour movement. This success depended on the wholesale societies supplying societies with commodities from all over the world. Because local societies were free to source produce from whoever they chose, competitive pressures required the wholesale societies to develop the world’s most formidable network of international supply chains, with branches, depots, plantations and factories in the USA, Canada, Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Greece, France, Germany, India, Ceylon, Australia, New Zealand, colonial West Africa and Argentina. This book explains how the wholesales developed and managed these networks, giving them a competitive advantage in their dealings with the local societies. It will explore why and how this ‘People’s Global Colossus’ declined in the later 20th century, and how its focus in international commerce moved onto ethical sourcing, investment and Fair Trade. Integral to these global networks were the UK movement’s relations with foreign co-operative movements, especially through involvement in the International Co-operative Alliance, and promotion of co-operatives in the Empire by successive British governments as a tool for economic development. The ‘People’s Colossus’ was thus a political as well as a commercial player in the increasingly complex world of the late 19th and 20th centuries.