Historical research identified only 595 producers' cooperatives in the United States between 1835 and 1935. Given the attention the cooperative movement received during that period, we are led to ask why so few were actually created. Our answer to this question focuses on the development of monopoly capitalism and the mobilization of political and economic resources. Political ideals expressed in populist and trade union movements provided some resources for cooperation, but these resources were not sufficient to promote cooperation over the emerging individualistic incentives of monopoly capitalism.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Abell, Peter
(1979a) 'Hierarchy and Democratic Authority', in Tom Burns, Lars Erik Karlsson and Veljko Rus (eds), Work and Power. London: Sage Publications: 141-172.
2.
Abell, Peter
(1979b) 'The Economic Viability of Industrial Cooperatives', Public Enterprise, 16 (April): 3-6.
3.
Adams, Herbert
(ed.) (1888) History of Cooperation in the United States. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.
4.
Adler, Barry (1979) 'The Cooperative Shingle Mills of Washington State: A Search for Causative Agents', Mimeo, Cornell University, December.
5.
Aldrich, Howard
(1979). Organizations and Environments. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
6.
Bellas, C.
(1972). Industrial Democracy and the Worker Owned Firm. New York: Praeger.
7.
Berman, Katrina
. (1967). Worker Owned Plywood Companies: An Economic Analysis. Pullman, WA: Washington State University Press.
8.
Bernstein, Paul
. (1976) Workplace Democratization. Kent, OH: Kent State Press.
9.
Brooks, Thomas
. (1971) Toil and Trouble. New York: Dell Publishing.
10.
Chandler, Alfred
. (1977) The Visible Hand. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
11.
Clark, Peter B.
and James Q. Wilson. (1961) 'Incentive Systems: A Theory of Organizations', Administrative Science Quarterly, 6 (September): 129-166.
12.
Dawley, Alan
. (1976) Class and Community. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
13.
Derber, Milton
. (1970) The American Idea of Industrial Democracy 1865-1965. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
14.
Destler, Chester McArthur
. (1966) American Radicalism 1965-1901. Chicago: Quadrangle Books (originally published 1946).
15.
Durkheim, Emile
(1933). The Division of Labor in Society. Translated by George Simpson. New York: The Free Press.
16.
Grob, Gerald
. (1961) Workers and Utopia. New York: Quadrangel.
17.
Hoagland, Henry
. (1913) 'The Rise of the Iron Molders International Union', American Economic Review (June): 296-297.
18.
Iron Molders International Union
. 1874. Proceedings, p. 18-18.
19.
Jones, Derek C.
(1977) 'The Economics and Industrial Relations of Producer Cooperatives in the United States 1791-1939', Economic Analysis and Workers' Management, 12 (3-4).
20.
Jones, Derek C. (1979) 'Producer Cooperatives in the U.S.: An Examination of Their Performance', Mimeograph, Hamilton College, Clinton, NY.
21.
Jones, Derek C. (1980) 'U.S. Producer Cooperatives: An Interpretive Essay', Mimeo, Department of Economics, Hamilton College, Clinton, NY.
22.
Kerr, Clark. (1939) Productive Enterprises of the Unemployed. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.
23.
Lescohier, Don
. (1969) The Knights of St. Crispin 1867-74. New York: Armo Press.
24.
LeWarne, Charles
. (1975) 'Labor and Communitarianism, 1880-1900', Labor History, 16 (Summer): 397-397.
25.
Marx, Karl
. (1944) Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts. In T.B. Bottomore, Karl Marx: Early Writings. London: C.A. Watts & Co. Ltd., pp. 121-133.
26.
Marx, Karl
. (1894[1967]) Capital, Vol. III. New York: International Publishers.
27.
North, D.C.
and R.P. Thomas (1973) The Rise of the Western World. New York: Cambridge University Press.
28.
Olson, Mancur
. (1968) The Logic of Collective Action, Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. New York: Schoken.
29.
Powderly, Terence
. (Published 1967) Thirty Years of Labor, 1859-1889. New York: August M. Kelley.
30.
Quint, Howard
. (1953) The Forging of American Socialism. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.
31.
Rothschild-Whitt, Joyce
. (1979) 'The Collectivist Organization: An Alternative to Rational Bureaucratic Models', American Sociological Review, 44 (August): 509-527.
32.
Sewell, William
(1974) 'Social Change and the Rise of Working-Class Politics in Nineteenth-Century Marseille', Past and Present, No. 65 (November): 75-109.
33.
Shirom, Arie
(1972) 'The Industrial Relations System of Industrial Cooperatives in the United States, 1880-1935', Labor History, (Fall): 533-551.
34.
Spencer, William
. (1923) 'The Cooperative Shingle Mills of Western Washington', in The West Coast Lumberman, I May, 15 May and I June 1923.
35.
Stinchcombe, Arthur
(1965) 'Social Structure and Organizations', in Handbook of Organizations, James March (ed.). Chicago, IL: Rand McNally, pp. 142-193.
36.
Stockton, Frank
(1931) 'The Productive Cooperation in the Molders Union', American Economic Review, 21 (June): 261-261.
37.
Stone, Katherine
(1974) 'The Origin of Job Structures in the Steel Industry', Review of Radical Political Economics, 6 (Summer): 61-96.
38.
U.S. Industrial Commission
(1901) Report of the Industrial Commission, Vol. 19. Washington, D.C.: USGPO.
39.
Vanek, Jaroslav
(1975) Self-Management: Economic Liberation of Man. London: Penguin.
40.
Ware, Nelson
(1959) The Labor Movement in the United States, 1860-1895Gloucester: Peter Smith.
41.
Webb, Sidney
and Beatrice Webb (1914) 'Cooperative Production and Profit Sharing', New Statesman, Special Supplement.
42.
Webb, Sidney
and Beatrice Webb (1921) A Constitution for the Socialist Commonwealth of Great Britain. London: Longman.
43.
Williamson, Oliver
(1975) Markets and Hierarchies: Analysis and Anti-trust Implications. NY: Free Press.
44.
Wilson, James
(1975) 'Self-Management, Participation, and Organized Labor in American History', paper presented at the Second Conference of Self Management, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY: 6-8 June.
