I have been listening to Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and he is pro-cooperative.
He says “A lot of cooperatives in Europe are very successful as another model. One of the challenges is that as they get bigger, they often lose that initial spirit. But if you look at some of the most amazing examples of this in Bangladesh, for example, there are two agencies. BRAC and Grameen – you could call them co-operatives – have over five million members each and have managed to maintain that spirit, and an entrepreneurial spirit.”
I did internships at both of those organisations after University. I remember thinking micro-credit was a fantastic innovative new idea. When I came back to the UK I realised we had been doing something similar in the co-op movement for years (Credit Unions). Funny how I good idea gets re-discovered all over the world.