by Dave Pollard from How To Save the World.
Coops will always find it difficult to compete with privately owned enterprises, especially those associated with large corporations. To succeed they would need a politically conscious local community that would be willing to support the coop even by paying higher prices. Private enterprises can always benefit by paying low wages and buying cheap products from foreign countries where environmental and labor laws are either non-existent or not enforced.
I think that their main benefit would be a training school for people to learn various business related skills and cooperative ethics and behaviors.
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