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What We're Thinking
Co-operatives Present a Positive, Alternative Reality
A billion of the world's citizens own them. They employ in the range of a 100 million people. Together, the largest 300 of them constitute the equivalent of the world's 10th largest economy. They are sustainable, long-standing organizations. They fuse purpose and profit. They can be found in almost any sector of commerce, from finance and insurance to producers of energy and purveyors of commodities (often Fair Trade).
They are the world's co-operatives.
Co-operatives, large and small, together constitute for humanity a massive-scale building block for the future.
Co-operatives have been around for 150 years. They are organized in local communities and as a movement nationally and internationally. They employ well-developed practices that are documented and shared. Training is available in starting a co-operative, running and governing a co-operative. They are a historically-tested vehicle for getting social results by the application of commercial tools and abilities.
It has been our experience that when an organization is democratic and the voice of the people in it is heard, the more obvious its social inclinations - ranging in expression from heightened community work to a direct linking between the work people do every day and some higher purpose.
Co-operatives themselves are democratically owned. Their owner-members are the people who work in them, and/or who buy from them.
In a co-operative each member exercises the same power, one-member, one vote.
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