Topic of the Week: the Co-operative Movement
Co-operative modes of property, labor, production, distribution, and consumption have been around as long as their hierarchical alternatives. Sometimes anarchists have argued in favor of cooperatives: that the workers are able to own and manage the enterprise, make decisions together as stake-holders, and operate with an emphasis on other values besides competitive profit-making. Other times, cooperatives have been criticized as self-exploitation, reformist, and/or counter-revolutionary.