ABSTRACT
The co-operative way of organizing economic activity has a history as long as business has existed itself. European guilds and trade associations of the Hanseatic League in the Middle Ages, for example, were organized in a co-operative way (Battilani and Schröter 2012: 4; Catherine Casson in this volume). Still, most of us when thinking of co-operatives relate to the “modern” form developed in the nineteenth century as a response to the downsides of industrialism. Saving banks, consumer-, producer-, and, later, workers’ co-operatives were created to stimulate self-help for the less favored classes (Davis and Payne 1958; Wadhwani 2011; Robertson 2012; Bátiz-Lazo and Billings 2012; McLaughlin 2014; Fernández 2014; Hilson et al. 2017; Toms 2012; Henriksen et al. 2012; Perotin 2012).
