Preface: politics and politics -- Introduction : cooptation and corruption in social movements -- Capitalist politics of cooperation and co-ops -- Populist politics of cooperation and co-ops -- Toward a socialist politics of cooperation and co-ops
Summary
The current co-op movement in the U.S. seeks to be a structural alternative to capitalism; this book seriously questions whether the current movement can accomplish that task. Carl Ratner offers a rich and unique political analysis and critique that provides helpful insights into the practice and problems of the contemporary cooperative movement. Noting that cooperators tend to view their work as apolitical because the explicit influence of national political parties is absent, the author constructs a compelling argument that cooperators nonetheless operate unwittingly with implicit political
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 131-133) and index
