Co-operative economics

Co-operative economics is a field of economics that incorporates socialist economics, co-operative studies, and political economy toward the study and management of co-operatives.

Notable theoreticians who have contributed to the field include Robert Owen,Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Charles Gide,Beatrice and Sydney Webb,J.T.W. Mitchell, Peter Kropotkin,Paul Lambart,Race Mathews,David Griffiths, and G.D.H. Cole. Additional theorists include John Stuart Mill, Laurence Gronlund and modern theoretical work by Benjamin Ward,Jaroslav Vanek,David Ellerman, and Anne Milford. Additional modern thinkers include Joyce Rothschild,Jessica Gordon Nembhard,Corey Rosen et al.,William Foote Whyte,Gar Alperovitz,Seymour Melman,Mario Bunge, Richard D. Wolff and David Schweickart.

A major historical debate in co-operative economics has been between co-operative federalism and co-operative individualism. In an Owenite village of cooperation or a commune, the residents would be both the producers and consumers of its products. However, for a co-operative, the producers and consumers of its products become two different groups of people, and thus, there are two different sets of people who could be defined here as its 'users', but are generally referred to as the co-op's "members". As a result, we can define two different modes of co-operative organisation: consumers' cooperative, in which the consumers of a co-operative's goods and services are defined as its users (including food co-operatives, credit unions, etc.), producer co-operatives, in which the producers of a co-operatives goods and services are defined as its users. (Some consider worker co-operatives, which are owned and run exclusively by their worker owners as a third class, others view this as part of the producer category.) .

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