In the long read (There is now an alternative, 25 June) Andy Beckett repeats the canard that co-operatives are another form of capitalism. No they are not. In a capitalist business the owners, because they are protected by private wealth laws, take away a part of the value created and do what they want with it: hide it in tax havens, buy other businesses, spend it on megayachts.
Co-operatives are democratic. The workers and other members decide what to do with all the value they create. More is distributed in the community via higher wages and local purchasing, in most cases. The far higher level of engagement of worker owners in their businesses solves the “productivity deficit”. Regions where co-operatives form a substantial part of the economy, such as Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy, enjoy higher levels of community wealth. As they say in Bologna: “When 30% of the local economy is co-operative, capitalism has to behave itself”, because there is an alternative.
Bob Cannell
Bradford, West Yorkshire
• What is it about the UK that has made it less tolerant of its own radical innovations – of economic dissent? The UK has a long history of radical economic practice and thought. It is something of a paradox that greater recognition and impact for our innovative solutions is found overseas rather than at home.
The co-operative model of business, formed by weavers and workers in Fenwick and Rochdale, is one of our most successful exports. There are 2.9m co-ops around the world, co-owned by around 1 billion people. But in the UK the co-op model continues to bubble below the surface, struggling to gain anything approaching critical mass despite giving people a genuine say in how a business is run. And despite evidence that new co-op businesses are almost twice as likely to survive the difficult first five years as other business forms.
Whatever the reasons for our failure to fully embrace creative solutions to modern-day problems, the limits of neoliberal economics – in terms of market failures and environmental realities – are increasingly evident and extreme. Now is a good time to profile the alternatives, and co-operatives are a very good place to start.
Ed Mayo
Secretary general, Co-operatives UK
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