[p2p-research] Pay-it-forward Mutuals and Cooperatives

[Kevin Carson]

On 4/25/10, Edward Miller <embraceunity at gmail.com> wrote:
> I am especially interested in feedback from Kevin and Patrick, but anyone is
> free to respond.
>
> I was wondering what examples of mutuals and cooperatives there are which
> are currently serving the mainstream US consumer market. I can think of a
> few insurance mutuals and credit unions, community supported agriculture,
> and igo carsharing which are all close to the mutualist ideal, but all of
> them fall short and only make up a tiny share of the overall market. By the
> way, if anyone has other examples of current institutions I would love to
> hear them.

I don't really know much in the way of statistical info, but my
impression is that credit unions, insurance companies with "mutual" in
the name, and consumer retail co-ops like farmer cooperatives and
natural food stores are the overwhelming bulk of cooperatives.  I'm
not sure how prevalent CSA efforts are, but I hope they're spreading
rapidly.  Unfortunately the most predominant forms of cooperative,
like credit unions, are also the most subject to "capitalist drift" in
abandoning any active programmatic support for the cooperative
principle.  The natural foods co-op I belong to has a mission
statement, which tells me more than I want to know about the extent to
which they've adopted conventional business culture.  I'd also like to
see consumer co-ops take on more of a stakeholder cooperative model,
with representatives of the work force on the board alongside
member-owners (just as I'd like to see customer and community
representatives participating in the governance of worker co-ops).

-- 
Kevin Carson
Center for a Stateless Society http://c4ss.org
Mutualist Blog:  Free Market Anti-Capitalism
http://mutualist.blogspot.com
The Homebrew Industrial Revolution:  A Low-Overhead Manifesto
http://homebrewindustrialrevolution.wordpress.com
Organization Theory:  A Libertarian Perspective
http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/studies-in-anarchist-theory-of.html