After a decade of crisis and another decade of growth the cooperative sector is finally being given the attention it deserves. But its impact does not reside purely in the numbers that mainstream economic analysis provides.

Subsidizing Corporate America has been a policy of both parties, at every level of government, for decades. If politicians really cared about the livelihoods of working people, they would support enterprises that are owned and democratically-governed by their members.

An alternative to depending on state or federal help is membership in a Shelter Cooperative, which provides for people’s needs before the disaster. 

Our friends at Sustainable Human recently created a short video featuring Professor Wolff, where he compares capitalism to feudalism and slavery, and explains how a more democratic economic system is possible.

The largest study comparing worker cooperatives to normal companies shows that cooperatives are more productive.

In this careful and robust examination of all of the evidence currently available, economist Virginie Pérotin compares the performance of worker cooperatives to that of conventional capitalist firms.

Residents of the West Bank village of Kafr Ein have established a modest olive oil cooperative to solve immediate economic problems.

Cooperatives can emerge as an important part of a different economic order, an alternative to an establishment order of insecurity and poverty for the many and privilege and wealth for the few. 

In these Trump times of ours, the case for cooperatives is only likely to become more evident and gather steam. The cooperatives movement can emerge in the eyes of an increasing number of people as a way to stop depending on boss and elite classes and to start taking their security and prosperity into their own hands.

Economist Antonio Callari discusses the 'why now,' the 'how' and the 'so-what' of such a movement. 

The Greek workers of VIOME took-over their old factory, fought off evictions and collectively occupied auction houses to stop the sell-off of the land they work on. In doing so, they are not just creating a better way of doing work, but also offering hints at more supportive and integrated communities and stronger, less-fractured societies. And they are not alone.

Professor Thomas Lambert chats with us about U.S. worker-owned cooperatives and their decision-making structures. His research, which surveyed about 50 co-ops across the country (there are an estimated 200 to 300 worker-owned cooperatives in the United States) sheds light on some of the underexamined aspects of co-op structures, such as the ratio of managers to workers, and the criteria considered in making investment decisions.