@hosford42 @RamenJunkie I definitely agree that co-operatives and credit unions are a great way to reduce inequality.

For anyone reading this who isn't familiar with co-ops, there's broadly four different kinds: consumers co-operatives (where the members are the customers of the co-op), workers co-operatives (owned by workers) and farmers or producers co-ops (where the people who supply the raw materials own the co-op).

The big advantage is that there's no shareholders or investors creaming profits off the top.

Any surplus funds are either reinvested, or (depending on what type of co-op it is) are returned to the customers (so they effectively buy the products at cost price), the workers, or the farmers (so they get the full value of the products they create).

The best known example of a consumer co-op is the Cooperative Group in the UK (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Co-operative_Group ). It was founded by a group of coal miners called the Rochdale Pioneers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochdale_Society_of_Equitable_Pioneers ) back in 1844, and is still going strong nearly 180 years later!

#coop #cooperative #ConsumerCooperative #RochdalePioneers #economics

If you are interested in #CooperativeEconomics or #Mutualism, I'm very much looking forward to read from you! 🌺

🔗 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative
🔗 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism_(movement)

🏷️ #Coop #Cooperative #Mutuals #MutualAid #ICA #InternationalCooperativeAlliance #SCE #SocietasCooperativaEuropaea #EuropeanCooperativeSociety #ConsumerCooperative #PlatformCooperative #ProducerCooperative #PurchasingCooperative #RochdalePrinciples #Genossenschaft #Gegenseitigkeit #Versicherungsverein #Introduction

Feeling grateful to Ryoko Shimizu of #SeikatsuClub in #Tokyo for taking time to walk me through the basics of their really impressive cooperative structure so I can share it with others here in Colorado. At 400,000 members, Seikatsu Club is one of the smaller #ConsumerCooperative organizations in Japan...

Congrats to @dmokreis on his just-announced election to the Hanover #ConsumerCooperative Society's board of directors! It was an 8-way race for four seats, so it could of gone any number of ways, but glad to have a solid #coop movement advocate in that perch... :)

#vtbiz #nhbiz #vt #nh