the.com/cooperative
Capitalism's attempt at friendship, with bylaws instead of feelings.
means An organization owned and run jointly by the people who use it, sharing the profits or benefits among themselves rather than paying outside shareholders.
from From Latin cooperari — 'co-' (together) plus 'operari' (to work, related to opus, 'a work') — literally 'to work together.' The word entered English in the 1600s meaning simply joint effort, but it was the 19th-century workers and weavers, pooling shops and shillings to dodge the middlemen, who bolted it onto 'society' and 'store' and turned a grammatical habit into an economic movement.
- voting power
- one member, one vote, not one dollar, one vote
- profits
- returned to members as patronage dividends, not shareholders
- oldest example
- rochdale pioneers, 1844, sold undiluted flour on principle
- modern giant
- rei and ace hardware are both co-ops