Co-operative Enterprise in Comparative Perspective Exceptionally Un-American?

The cause of co-operatives' comparative weakness in the US is identified as reflecting the joint effect of economic liberalism and structural racism. Only in the US did the co-operative face, in its initial development, two well-entrenched incumbents operating with competing ownership models: the investor-owned firm and the race-based chattel slavery system of ownership of people. Proponents of these two models acted to deprive the co-operative movement of resources, and undermined the solidarity at the co-operative business model's heart, splintering the American co-operative movement in the process. In subsequent waves of co-operative organizing, advocates have never fully succeeded in overcoming these initial obstacles, resulting in a different outcome in the US, and consistent with broader conceptions of the US as a perennial outlier (i.e., American exceptionalism). In contrast, in the successful cases, advocates were better able to leverage resources to animate a national solidarity and procure the necessary political and economic resources to achieve scale.

Despite extensive study of co-operatives' real and imagined benefits, we know little about the conditions under which they achieve the lasting scale needed to be a viable alternative and transform the economy. Under what conditions can co-operatives achieve such scale? And are such conditions present in the US, where, despite repeated organizing efforts, co-operatives remain exceptionally rare at scale?

A rigorous comparative-historical analysis of co-operative enterprises in different national contexts, this book seeks to answer these questions.Deploying two different variants of the new institutionalism, Spicer treats the US as a central case of comparative failure, as contrasted to three rich democracies where the co-operative business model has been more successful: Finland, France, and New Zealand.

Through an institutional approach, the cause of co-operatives' comparative weakness in the US is identified as reflecting the joint effect of economic liberalism and structural racism. Only in the US did the co-operative face, in its initial development, two well-entrenched incumbents operating with competing ownership models: the investor-owned firm and the race-based chattel slavery system of ownership of people. Proponents of these two models acted to deprive the co-operative movement of resources, and undermined the solidarity at the models' heart, splintering the American co-operative movement in the process. In subsequent waves of co-operative organizing, advocates have never fully succeeded in overcoming these initial obstacles, resulting in a different outcome in the United States, consistent with broader conceptions of the US as a perennial outlier (i.e., American exceptionalism). In contrast, in the successful cases, advocates were better able to leverage resources to animate a national solidarity and procure the necessary political and economic resources to achieve scale.