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Cooperative, organization owned by and operated for the benefit of those using its services. Cooperatives have been successful in a number of fields, including the processing and marketing of farm products, the purchasing of other kinds of equipment and raw materials, and in the wholesaling, retailing, electric power, credit and banking, and housing industries. The income from a retail cooperative is usually returned to the consumers in the form of dividends based on the amounts purchased over a given period of time.
Modern consumer cooperatives, usually called co-ops in the U.S., are thought to have begun in Great Britain in 1844, with the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers. The society created a set of organizational and working rules that have been widely adopted. They included open membership, democratic control, no religious or political discrimination, sales at prevailing market prices, and the setting aside of some earnings for education. The cooperative movement developed rapid. ly in the latter part of the 19th century, particularly in the industrial and mining areas of northern Britain and Scotland. It spread quickly among the urban working class in Britain, France, Germany, and Sweden, and among the rural population of Norway, The Netherlands, Denmark, and Finland.
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In the United States, attempts at consumer and agricultural marketing cooperatives were made at the beginning of the 19th century. The movement in general was not- as successful in the U.S. as elsewhere. Although consumer and housing cooperatives developed on a small scale in large metropolitan areas, most U.S. cooperatives have been set up in rural areas.
Cooperatives were introduced in Latin America by European immigrants in the early 20th century; later they were often fostered by state action in connection with agrarian reform. In some newly developing countries, cooperatives are encouraged in the effort to increase agricultural productivity. Marketing and credit cooperatives have been important in many African nations, especially since World War II.
In the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, where marketing cooperatives are prevalent, they function as part of the centrally controlled purchasing network for farm produce. The cooperative idea is also applied widely there in retail and wholesale distribution. Cooperative farms in those countries are modelled on the Russian artel, in which all land is pooled and worked in common and income is distributed according to the work performed by each member. Cf. credit union; cooperative farming.
