About 20 years ago I first heard about co-ops, and I thought it was a great idea. So I literally bought every book on the subject that I could find (spent many hundreds) and read all those books. There is a long and rich history of co-ops worldwide. My take away: Most co-ops end up either failing or replicating a power hierarchy - with workers on the losing end. Very few avoid that end, and those that do are those that either exist in markets where they don't have to execute perfectly (such as many successful businesses today) or those that figure out some way to cultivate leaders who make good business decisions (giving them a market advantage, and again letting them operate without exploiting their workers.) In other words, markets still operate as markets, and force business to operate in particular ways unless they can create what are sometimes called "effective monopolies" (based on regions or differentiation or some other advantage). I've become convinced that we need to change the way markets compete if we want any real change.