Closing Remarks

The Rest of the Story...

This series of essays has outlined the rise of the cooperative movement from its origins in the tumultuous changes that accompanied the Industrial Revolution to the successful establishment of the Rochdale cooperative. However, this is only one small part of a much larger and longer story. The Rochdale Principles, having been applied to many different ventures and refined by experience, have proven to be a sound basis for the practical operation of cooperatives throughout the world. In fact, the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) estimates that over 700 million people are involved in cooperative enterprises in over 90 countries worldwide. Examples of such enterprises include:

retail (like University Co-op Bookstore, Austin, Texas, USA and REI, Austin, Texas, USA)
food (like Wheatsville Food Co-op, Austin, Texas, USA),
financial (like University Federal Credit Union, Austin, TX, USA),
agricultural (like Sun-Maid Raisins, California, USA and Land O' Lakes Dairy Products, USA)
health care (like Group Health Cooperative, Pacific Northwest, USA)
media (like Associated Press)
Internet (like Colorado Internet Cooperative Association, Denver, Colorado, USA)

just to highlight a few.

Student Housing Cooperatives

As it turns out, student housing cooperatives are really a very small proportion of the total number of cooperatives in the world. For example, College Houses is a member of the North American Students of Cooperation (NASCO) which, in turn, is a member organization of the National Cooperative Business Association which, in turn, is a member of the ICA. Nevertheless, the ICA has recognized that students are critical to the continued support and growth of cooperatives and has recently sponsored initiatives to increase communication between student cooperatives.

Additional Information

Much has been published about cooperatives and cooperation. The short annotated bibliography below lists some of the printed resources that I found to be most useful in the preparation of this series. Additional resources are available online at
<http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~laurel/cooporg.html>.

References

[1]

J. Birchall, The International Co-operative Movement (Manchester University Press, Manchester, UK, 1997).

This book moves beyond the Rochdale cooperative and reviews the history and diversity of the international cooperative movement. It also includes many illustrations and photographs. Highly recommended.

[2]

J. Birchall, Co-op: The People's Business (Manchester University Press, Manchester, UK, 1994).

This book reviews the origins, philosophy, establishment, and expansion of the retail cooperative movement in Great Britain. It also includes a chapter about the growth of international cooperatives and kinds of cooperatives other than retail. The book includes many illustrations and photographs. Highly recommended.

[3]

P. R. Dubhashi, Principles and Philosophy of Co-operation (Sangham Press Ltd., Poona, India, 1970).

This book discusses in detail the various principles of cooperation and their consequences, based primarily upon the 1966 version of the Rochdale principles. Although most of the writing is fairly general, several parts are specific to the cooperative efforts in India. Worthwhile reading for the thoughtful cooperator.

[4]

E. S. Bogardus, History of Cooperation (Cooperative Publishing Association, Superior, Wisconsin, USA, 1955).

This book, while somewhat dated now, does have some interesting information about the history of cooperatives, especially in regards to the United States (something which Birchall's 1994 book lacks somewhat).

[5]

G. J. Holyoake, The History of the Rochdale Pioneers, (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1918), 10th ed.

This book is a collection of Holyoake's writings (propaganda) about the Rochdale Pioneers and the subsequent evolution of their cooperative. This is a primary source document in many ways because Holyoake was involved relatively early in the Rochdale cooperative. However, this is not a text written by an objective historian-Holyoake has unabashed pro-cooperative views and essentially engages in glorification of the founders. Still, this is for the most part fascinating reading.

[6]

J. Jones, The Student Cooperatives Movement in North America (unpublished).

This brief history of the student cooperative movement is currently being written by Jim Jones, Executive Director of ICC-Ann Arbor and may be obtained from him upon request. Very interesting.

Web References

International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) <http://www.ica.org>
University Co-op Bookstore, Austin, TX, USA <http://www.coop-bookstore.com>
REI, Austin, Texas, USA <http://www.rei.com>
Wheatsville Food Co-op, Austin, TX, USA
<http://csf.colorado.edu/co-op/wheatsville.html>
University Federal Credit Union, Austin, TX, USA <http://www.ufcu.org>
Sun-Maid Raisins, California, USA <http://www.sunmaid.com>
Land O' Lakes Dairy Products, USA <http://www.landolakes.com>
Group Health Cooperative, Pacific Northwest, USA <http://www.ghc.org>
Associated Press <http://www.ap.org>
Colorado Internet Cooperative Association, Denver, Colorado, USA <http://www.coop.net>
College Houses, Austin, Texas, USA <http://www.collegehouses.org>
North American Students of Cooperation (NASCO) <http://www.umich.edu/~nasco>
National Cooperative Business Association <http://www.ncba.org>
Laurel House Cooperative <http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~laurel/>

Laurel House Co-op & Laurel Net Cooperative / Austin, Texas, USA / Created 11 Mar 1999 / Updated 11 Mar 1999

This page is published by Laurel Net Cooperative, a registered student organization. This page is not an official publication of The University of Texas at Austin and does not represent the views of The University or its officers.

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