A CENTURY OF VICTORIA’S CONSUMER CO-OPERATIVES

THE CO-OPERATIVE FEDERALIST ECONOMIC MODEL, AN HISTORY OF ITS PRACTICE IN VICTORIA, AND ITS PRACTICAL CRITIQUE OF THE MARXIAN ORTHODOXY ON THE ROLES OF PRODUCTION, THE STATE, AND MORALITY IN SOCIALISM.

By Andrew (Andrius Jonas) Sadauskas.

This thesis is submitted as a partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (Hons.)

Politics Program
School of Social Sciences
La Trobe University
Bundoora

October, 2006.

This thesis is my own work containing, to the best of my knowledge and belief, no material published or written by another person except as referred to in the text.

Signed: ............................................................. Date: ..... / ..... / 2006.
Andrew (Andrius Jonas) Sadauskas

RESEARCH ETHICS APPROVAL

For this thesis, entitled “A Century of Victoria’s Consumer Co-operatives: The Co-operative Federalist Economic Model, an History of its Practice in Victoria, and its Practical Critique of the Marxian Orthodoxy on the Roles of Production, the State, and Morality in Socialism,” submitted for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (Hons.), none of the research undertaken required the approval of a University Ethics Committee,

Signed: ............................................................. Date: ..... / ..... / 2006.
Andrew (Andrius Jonas) Sadauskas

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Before I proceed, I would like to acknowledge my debt of gratitude to a number of people whose support has been essential in creating the thesis that you are about to read. Firstly, I would like to extend my sincerest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Sanjay Seth, whose feedback, suggestions, and expertise have been invaluable over the past year. Secondly, I would like to thank my family and friends, without whose support, understanding, and patience I could not have completed this work. Thirdly, I would like to thank the staff of the Politics Department at LaTrobe University, and my lecturers both this year, and in previous years. In particular, I would like to thank Dr. Gwenda Tavan, for organising the Politics Honours programme; as well as Dr. Robert Manne, Dr. Rowan Ireland, Dr. Beryl Langer, and Dr. Joel S. Kahn, for organising my subjects in first semester. Finally, while Co-operative Studies (unfortunately) remains a niche field in Australia, Australia’s Co-operative theorists and researchers - as well as Victoria’s Co-operative Movement - are second to none in their willingness to assist in any way they can. In this regard, I would like to thank the Co-operative Federation of Victoria’s David Griffiths for taking time out of his busy schedule to have a chat about Victoria’s Co-operatives at the start of the year, as well as Dr. Race Mathews and Dr. Mark Lyon, who were more than willing to answer any questions I could e-mail them.

CONTENTS

ABSTRACT AND WORD COUNT

On this side of the Russian Revolution, when most people think of ‘Socialism,’ they think of Marxism. Yet socialism organised through Consumer Co-operatives - as the experience of the English CWS demonstrates - has been long established as a viable alternative to both corporate Capitalism and Marxism. Unfortunately, the radical possibilities of organising enterprises as Consumer Co-operatives has been all too often forgotten, in the face of the prominence of Marxism. Marx and Engels condemned what they called ‘utopian socialism’ on various grounds, including production, the State, and morality in socialism. The seeming success of Marxian socialism in 1917 seemed to many to confirm that it was ‘scientific’, while other socialisms were ‘utopian,’ and nothing more than a prelude to Marxism. The dual purpose of this thesis is, firstly, to retrieve the history of the Co-operative movement - both its development in Britain, and its experience in Victoria - and, secondly, to demonstrate how the Co-operative challenge to these three points of Marxian orthodoxy - far from being reasons to dismiss the movement - are precisely the reasons why they are so important to us today.

Word Count: 14, 805

GLOSSARY AND ABBREVIATIONS

Agricultural Producers Co-operative: A type of Co-operative, in which the ‘users’ are ‘those who supply agricultural inputs to the Co-operative.’ Membership to such Co-operatives is thus restricted to ‘those who supply agricultural inputs to the Co-operative.’ Such Co-operatives are not a focus of this thesis. Such Co-operatives have a long history in Victoria, but are not a focus of this thesis.

ASL: See Australian Socialists League

Australian Socialists League: According to a Ministerial Advisory Committee on Co-operation (MACC) report from the 1980s, "A forerunner to the Australian Labor Party, the Australian Socialists League, adopted as its objective in the 1890s the Owenite dream of establishing 'a co-operative commonwealth founded on the collective ownership of the land and means of production, distribution and exchange'."¹ Discussed in greater depth in chapter 2.

Bureaucratic Paradigm: The logic commonly used in hierarchal organisations (for instance within Corporations, the State, and the Military). It has been defined by Co-operative theorist John G. Craig as follows:

“Organizations have been premised on the bureaucratic logic for most of the past 200 years. Management in a bureaucracy assumes that organizations have narrow goals, that they are hierarchically organized with external controls through supervisors and specialist staff, they have complicated communication channels which are premised on a hierarchical arrangement... The logic of objectivity and linear causality are central in how organizations are thought to work best and how managers try to make them work.”²

CDP: See Co-operative Development Program

CFV: See Co-operative Federation of Victoria

Community Advancement Society: A type of Co-operative - usually a Consumer Co-operative - which produces ‘social services.’

Comprehensive Communities: A commune. According to John G. Craig:

"Comprehensive co-operation involves people co-operating with each other on a day to day basis. They participate in common decisions, and from this process a sense of community can emerge. As a result, co-operation may become a way of life... The kvutza and kibbutzim in Israel are the best known examples of this kind of arrangement."³

Consumer Co-operative: A type of Co-operative in which the ‘users’ are ‘the end users - or consumers - of the goods and services produced by the Co-operative.’ Membership to such Co-operatives is thus restricted to ‘the end users - or consumers - of the goods and services produced by the Co-operative.’ Such Co-operatives, with the exception of Housing Societies and Credit Unions, are the focus of this thesis.

Co-operative: A class of collective organisations, defined by Paul Lambart as "an enterprise formed and directed by an association of users, applying within itself the rules of democracy, and directly intended to serve both its own [user] members and the community as a whole;"⁴ in the context of this thesis, Consumer Co-operatives are of particular interest.

Co-operative Commonwealth: An economy in which Co-operatives are the predominant, or alternatively sole, model of enterprise. As I note in Chapter 1, there is some debate about whether this would be best achieved through the growth of the Co-operative Sector by itself (as advocated by Charles Gide, for example), or through State power (as advocated by G.D.H. Cole, for example).

Co-operative Development Program: A paternalistic Victorian Ministry of Employment and Training macroeconomic policy programme, run during the Hamer and Cain Governments, to develop State-sponsored Workers Co-operatives as a means of supply-side job creation (see also: Bureaucratic paradigm). Discussed in Chapter 3.

Co-operative Federalism: Both a Co-operative model, and a school of thought about how Co-operatives should ideally be organised in order to control industry. This economic model advocates Consumer Co-operatives federating together through Co-operative Wholesale Societies to organise production, with Co-operative Unions to collectively represent their common political interests.

Co-operative Federation of Victoria: Victoria’s current Co-operative Union. It is a Secondary Co-operative which provides its members with a range of services, including education about Co-operatives, assistance in forming Co-operatives, and maintenance of the Australia.coop internet portal.

Co-operative Logic: The logic in use in Co-operatives, and within the Co-operative Federalist model, instead of the Bureaucratic Paradigm. According to Co-operative theorist John G. Craig:

“The logic of the co-operative activity of federating together is not the logic of hierarchy as assumed in the bureaucratic paradigm but rather the logic of heterarchy. Groups within a community co-operate, provide themselves with goods and services, and they work together through a federated structure with other groups in other communities. The bureaucratic paradigm [assumes] a hierarchy of external controls with a strong centre; but the logic of co-operation is heterarchy, where there are internal controls and self regulating groups co-operating with the centre but not dominated by it... [and thus] The centre is controlled by the periphery and not the reverse, as is assumed in the logic of hierarchy.”⁵

Co-operative Union: A form of Secondary Co-operative whose purpose is to represent the common political interests of its member societies and, in the words of Charles Gide, “to develop the spirit of solidarity among societies and... in a word, to exercise the functions of a government whose authority, it is needless to say, is purely moral.”⁶

Co-operative Wholesale Society: A form of Secondary Co-operative whose role is to collectively organise “bulk purchases, and, if possible, organise production”⁷ on behalf of its member societies.

CWS: See Co-operative Wholesale Society

English CWS: A large Co-operative Wholesale Society in England, the predecessor of the (still existing) Co-operative Group. The Co-operative Group’s website is online at http://www.co-op.co.uk/

Fair Price: As discussed in Chapter I, Fair Price is an economic doctrine created by Robert Owen and elaborated on by Charles Gide, Beatrice Webb, Paul Lambart, and the Rochdale Pioneers. According to this doctrine, the sale price of any given product should be its prime cost, where that prime cost allows each worker who created the product just compensation for their labour. Under capitalism, consumers are exploited if a product’s sale price rises above its fair price, while workers are exploited if their wages fall below fair price. Consumer Co-operatives, which arbitrate wages with Trade Unions and operate under the Rochdale Principles, trade at Fair Price.

Federal Co-operatives: See Secondary Co-operatives.

Food Co-operative: A type of Co-operative - usually a Consumer Co-operative - which predominantly retails food products.

ICA: See International Co-operative Alliance

International Co-operative Alliance: An international Co-operative Union, whose membership constitutes of Co-operative Unions and Co-operative Wholesale Societies from various countries. Still existing today, its website is online at http://www.ica.coop

MACC: See Ministerial Advisory Committee on Co-operation

Ministerial Advisory Committee on Co-operation: A committee in the Ministry of Housing during the Cain Government, whose purpose was to advise on "Policy matters relating to the drafting of new co-operative legislation; and policy development relating to the co-operative movement generally,"⁸ and “to review the development of the co-operative movement in Victoria and to provide input towards new directions for the co-operative sector.”⁹ Discussed in Chapter 3.

Modern Socialists: An early Australian Socialist movement, which advocated Co-operative Federalism in the Australian Socialists League (on the grounds that it fulfilled the French Revolutionary trilogy of liberty, equality, and fraternity).

National Catholic Rural Movement: A progressive Australian Catholic group which advocated building rural community settlements in which enterprises are organised as Co-operatives. Such settlements “should consist of a number of houses and shops in a small township, with a ring of farms surrounding them... in which each farmer owns the soil he [sic] tills.”¹⁰ Such plans would be implemented in the (still existing) Maryknoll Community Settlement in Gippsland, Victoria (between Tyrong North and Nar-Nar-Goon North).¹¹ Discussed in Chapter 2.

NCRM: See National Catholic Rural Movement

New Moral World: The utopian aim of early Socialist Robert Owen, in which all people reside in self-governing Villages of Co-operation which trade with each other at prime cost.

Producers Co-operative: A type of Co-operative in which the ‘users’ are ‘those who supply inputs - usually agricultural inputs - to the Co-operative.’ Membership to such Co-operatives is thus restricted to ‘those who supply inputs - usually agricultural inputs - to the Co-operative.’ Can, alternatively, mean a Workers Co-operative. Such Co-operatives are not a focus of this thesis.

Rochdale Principles: A set of moral guidelines, introduced by the Rochdale Pioneers, which seek:

“...in industry to displace a low moral motive - profit - by a high one - community service - its social programme and its moral aim are its life blood, the principal cause of its vitality and its growth.”¹²

The original Rochdale Principles are listed in Appendix A, while the 1966 and 1995 versions of the Rochdale Principles - as updated by the International Co-operative Alliance, are attached in Appendix B and C respectively.

Secondary Co-operatives: A Co-operative in which all the members are, in turn, Co-operatives.

Sector Association: A Co-operative Union in which all member Co-operatives come from a particular type of Co-operative (for example, in a Food Co-operative Sector Association, all member Co-operatives are Food Co-operatives).

Segmental Co-operative: According to John G. Craig, unlike in a Comprehensive Community (such as an Owenite Village of Co-operation, a commune, or a kibbutz), in a segmental Co-operative “Members do not interact as a community involved in a wide variety of daily activities; rather, they co-operate only in one limited area of their lives - for example, in the procurement of food.”¹³

Socialism: For the purposes of this thesis, the term Socialism will be used in the context of Paul Lambart’s definition of it, the "desire for the fullest possible development of man's [sic] highest faculties... through society and a collective organization,"¹⁴ which "rejects individual property, not absolutely, but as a source of income and even more, as a source of power."¹⁵

In turn, for Co-operators building on the Owenite view of human nature, the “fullest possible development of man's [sic] highest faculties"¹⁶ needs to take into consideration that:

“Men are, and ever will be, what they are and shall be made in infancy and childhood. The apparent exceptions to this law are the effects of... subsequent impressions, arising from the new circumstances in which the individuals... have been placed. ...it is known, that man is ‘the creature of circumstances’, and that he really is, at every moment of his existence, precisely what the circumstances in which he has been placed, combined with his natural qualities, make him.”¹⁷

Socialism outside the State: Political ideologies and theories which, in Paul Lambart’s definition of ‘Socialism’, would read the term ‘collective organisation’ as meaning ‘collective organisation through means other than, or not necessarily involving, State ownership.’ In the context of this thesis, ‘collective organisation’ will generally mean ‘collective ownership through Consumer Co-operatives, ideally linked through Federal structures.’

State - based Socialism: Political ideologies and theories which, in Paul Lambart’s definition of ‘Socialism’, would read the term ‘collective organisation’ as meaning ‘collective organisation through State ownership.’ In the context of this thesis, the term will predominantly be used to refer to Marxism (or Social Democracy).

The Brotherhood: See The Brotherhood of St. Laurence

The Brotherhood of St. Laurence: An Australian charity, based in Fitzroy, linked to the Anglican Church.

The Pioneers: See The Rochdale Pioneers

Three Principles / Three Tenets of Marxism: The three principles are listed as follows:

1) PRODUCTION: Marx and Engels’ materialist conception of history places production as its primary concern, and rejected earlier socialisms which did not share these concerns;¹⁸ from this perspective, consumption is seen as derivative (and, thus, less important).¹⁹

2) THE STATE: The socialism of Marx and Engels rejected socialism outside the State, and is contingent on the working class seizing state power, and the State wrestling all capital from the bourgeoisie.²⁰ Yet Marxian thought cares not to delve too deeply into what sort of society such a Dictatorship of the Proletariat, or its successor, Communism, will produce.²¹

3) MORALITY: While Marxism is clearly built upon a morality of emancipation, in which that which promotes proletarian revolution is held to be virtuous, Marx was reluctant to engage in the discourse of morality, was dismissive of the notion of a universal moral code, and was dismissive of religion (the opiate of the masses) in particular.²²

Victorian Food Co-operative Study Group: A Support Group for Food Co-operatives (founded by The Brotherhood of St. Laurence), which received funding, under the Cain Government, to undertake a study into Victorian food co-operatives.

VFCSG: See Victorian Food Co-operative Study Group

Villages of Co-operation: Completely rational Comprehensive Communities, or communes, proposed by Robert Owen.

Workers Co-operative: A type of Co-operative in which, in Paul Lambart’s definition of ‘Co-operative’, the term ‘[user] members’ means ‘those who are employed by the Co-operative.’ Membership is thus restricted to ‘those who are employed by the Co-operative.’ Such Co-operatives are not a focus of this thesis.

YCW: See Young Christian Workers

Young Christian Workers: A progressive Catholic movement which had been inspired both by the Antigosh Movement in Nova Scotia and the Rochdale Principles, believing that “People can build a middle course, upholding the rights of the individual and serving the common good. Co-operatives give them the means of building.”²³ Discussed in Chapter 2.

INTRODUCTION

On this side of the Russian Revolution, when most people think of ‘Socialism,’ they think of Marxism. Yet socialism organised through Consumer Co-operatives - as the experience of the English CWS demonstrates - has been long established as a viable alternative to both corporate Capitalism and Marxism. Unfortunately, the radical possibilities of organising Socialism through Consumer Co-operatives has been all too often forgotten, in the face of the prominence of Marxism. Marx and Engels condemned what they called ‘utopian socialism’ on various grounds, including production, the State, and morality in socialism. The seeming success of Marxian socialism in 1917 seemed to many to confirm that it was ‘scientific’, while other socialisms were ‘utopian,’ and nothing more than a prelude to Marxism. The dual purpose of this thesis is, firstly, to retrieve the history of the Co-operative movement - both its development in Britain, and the key events of its experience in Victoria - and, secondly, to demonstrate how the Co-operative challenge to these three points of Marxian orthodoxy - far from being reasons to dismiss the movement - are precisely the reasons why they are so important to us today.

Before proceeding further, I would like to clarify what is meant by my statement that ‘Socialism organised through Consumer Co-operatives is an alternative to Marxism.’ In using the term ‘socialism,’ I am referring to economist Paul Lambart’s inclusive definition of it, as the "desire for the fullest possible development of man's [sic] highest faculties... through society and a collective organization,"²⁴ which "rejects individual property, not absolutely, but as a source of income and even more, as a source of power."²⁵ In the context of this definition, ‘collective organization’ is all too often (and erroneously) interpreted as necessarily meaning ‘as advocated by Marx.’ Yet to take such an interpretation is to ignore the radical potential of ‘collective organization’ through a Consumer Co-operative; "an enterprise formed and directed by an association of users, applying within itself the rules of democracy, and directly intended to serve both its own [user] members and the community as a whole,"²⁶ in which the ‘user members’ are those people who ‘consume’ the Co-operative’s goods or services. In turn, the Co-operative movement is more than a collection of such institutions, in that it can form the basis for a socialist (in the sense described above) economic model known as ‘Co-operative Federalism’ (which I will discuss in greater depth in Chapter I), which draws on the work of philosophers such as Robert Owen, the Rochdale Pioneers, Beatrice Webb, and Charles Gide.

And what makes Co-operative Federalist economic model stand out over the countless utopian socialist experiments and visions which have come and gone over the last one and a half centuries is that, far from being a mere 'utopian vision' of how things could or should be, it has successfully been used to organise production, and on a large scale. Consider, for instance, that by the 1920s the English CWS (by then counting 1,200 societies amongst its members) owned 70 factories (including a tallow factory in Australia), employed 21,000 people, grew strawberries and tomatoes on its 18,000 acres of farmland, and even owned tea plantations in Sri Lanka and India.²⁷ Consider that in 1958 - over a century after the Rochdale Pioneers - the English CWS was Britain’s largest non-nationalised business, and was the largest importer of Australian primary produce (its imports including one-third of Australia’s entire wheat crop); supplied mostly through the Westralian Farmers Co-op.²⁸ And, after overcoming a number of challenges,²⁹ the English CWS has survived into the new millennium, acquiring the Alldays convenience store chain (with its 10,000 employees) for £131m in 2002,³⁰ and is active in a number of industries, including food, pharmacy, distribution, property, travel, insurance, banking, and farming. Thus, while Soviet Socialism is a dead movement, the English CWS (now known as The Co-operative Group) is a dead movement in a very different sense: in 2005, it carried out 14% of all British Funerals.³¹

As this thesis will explore, this tradition of Co-operative Federalism diverges from Marxism on three key points: the roles of production, the State, and morality in socialism. Firstly, Marx and Engels’ materialist conception of history places production as its primary concern, and rejected earlier socialisms which did not share these concerns;³² from this perspective, consumption is seen as derivative (and, thus, less important).³³ Secondly, the socialism of Marx and Engels rejected socialism outside the State, and is contingent on the working class seizing State power (with the State subsequently wresting all capital from the bourgeoisie).³⁴ Yet Marxian thought cares not to delve too deeply into what sort of society such a Dictatorship of the Proletariat, or its successor, Communism, will produce.³⁵ And thirdly, Pre-Marxian socialisms, and contemporary non-Marxian socialisms, were rejected by Marx and Engels on the grounds of their moral critiques.³⁶ While Marxism is clearly built upon a morality of emancipation (in which that which promotes proletarian revolution is held to be virtuous), Marx was reluctant to engage in the discourse of morality, was disagreed with the notion of a universal moral code, and was dismissive of religion (the opiate of the masses) in particular.³⁷ Related to these two points, there is little emphasis on the transformation of people in the course of struggle against capitalism; the core idea is that after the revolution the shift in material conditions will cause people to change.³⁸ These three tenets of Marxism, and their implicit (or explicit) rejections, were presented as being to Marxism’s credit by Engels. Engels, in turn, dismissed any socialism which did not uphold these three points as being ‘utopian.’

The Co-operative movement is alive and well today, in Victoria. The first purpose of this thesis is to retrieve the history of the Co-operative movement (including both its British roots, and the key events in its practice in Victoria). The second purpose of this thesis is to examine how the Co-operative movement’s challenge of these three points of Marxian orthodoxy (both through its theoretical framework of Co-operative Federalism, and its practice), far from being a reason to dismiss it, is precisely the reason why it is so important to us today.

In Chapter 1, I will provide a general outline and background of the Co-operative movement in Britain, examining how it managed to construct a socialism challenging these three key points of Marxian orthodoxy. In Chapter 2, we will examine how key events in the practice of Victorian Co-operation from the 1870s to the 1970s have challenged these three key points of Marxian orthodoxy. These key events include its emergence in the context of Colonial Victoria and subsequent adaptation to rural conditions, the battles of Modern Socialism, local attempts to federate, the impact of the Russian Revolution, the emergence of Christian co-operation, and how the movement has adapted to modern Australia.

A key question raised in this discussion is what the role of the State is in socialism outside the public sector, as advocated by Co-operative Federalism. Given this, Chapter 3 will explore three different programmes representing approaches to co-operative policy (under Hamer and Cain) during the 1980s - the Co-operative Development Program, Ministerial Advisory Committee on Co-operation, and Victorian Food Co-operative Study Group - which represent three different approaches to Co-operative policy (and its development). What was their experience and how compatible were they with the social philosophy of co-operation?

LIMITATIONS AND SCOPE
Before proceeding, I would like to point out the limits on the scope of discussion in this thesis. Firstly, this thesis will focus on Consumer Co-operatives (where the ‘users’ are defined as the end users of the products of the co-operative, in particular retail / community advancement co-operatives), although as Housing and Credit Unions have unique characteristics they will not be a focus of this thesis. Secondly, this thesis is concerned with Co-operative Federalism and will not focus on competing schools of thought on Co-operatives. Thirdly, while there are, or have been, strong traditions of Co-operation in many parts of the world, this thesis is particularly concerned with the movement’s early development in Great Britain, and the experience of Co-operatives in Victoria. Fourth, the primary concern is how Co-operative Federalism, in theory and practice, has diverged from Marxian Socialism on the three key points of the role of production, the role of the State, and the role of morality in socialism. Finally, this discussion is intended as a general overview of the movement rather than an in-depth examination of any individual co-operative.

CHAPTER I: PRODUCTION, THE STATE, AND MORALITY IN BRITISH CO-OPERATION

To understand the Co-operative movement in Victoria, we must first understand its history in Britain. Our aim in doing so is also to explore the multitude of ways through which the British Co-operative movement had created a socialism which has challenged the Marxian orthodoxy on the roles of production, the State, and morality in socialism. As we will discover in this chapter, these challenges manifest themselves in the Fair Price doctrine, the social programme of Robert Owen and - later - the Rochdale Pioneers, the Rochdale Principles, Co-operative Federalism, and the differences between a Dictatorship of the Proletariat and a Co-operative Commonwealth as an ultimate aim.

OWEN’S FAIR PRICE DOCTRINE: CONSUMPTION AND PRODUCTION CRITIQUED.
Of the Pre-Rochdale socialists, the most important was a Welsh Quaker named Robert Owen. In the post-Russian Revolution world, it is often forgotten that, prior to the 1840s, "The word 'Socialist... meant 'Owenite', and had hardly, in Great Britain, any other meaning."³⁹ Owen had recognised that the squalor of the English working class hindered, rather than helped, the British Economy, yet his attempts to have his reforms legislated through Parliament failed,⁴⁰ leading to his growing disillusionment with reform through the State. In response to such setbacks, Owen developed both an economic theory, and social critique, upon which he premised a programme for radical reform. This resulting theory was, in a sense, the Apple Lisa of Socialism: a series of theoretical ideas ahead of their time, yet often flawed or implemented poorly.⁴¹

Unlike Marx, Owen's economic theory - the 'Fair Price' doctrine - was concerned with both production and consumption. Owen’s doctrine, like Marx’s, was premised on the idea "That the natural standard of value is, on principle, human labour, or the combined manual and mental powers of men called into action."⁴² Owen noted that such a standard of value was in place in bartering, where "The genuine principle of barter was, to exchange the supposed prime cost of, or value of labour in, one article, against the prime cost of, or amount of labour contained in any other article."⁴³ Given that barter involves two or more individuals equitably exchanging goods they have produced for goods of equal value they wish to consume, Owen’s economic analysis begins examining consumption, as well as production. As economic transactions became more complex (particularly with the introduction of the gold standard), the equitable exchange of barter “was superseded by [monetised] commerce, [in Marxian terms, Capitalism,] the principle of which is, to produce or procure every article at the lowest, and to obtain for it, in exchange, the highest amount of labour;”⁴⁴ the margin between the total labour cost of a product and its sale price price amounting to profits taken through such deception along the way. Owen (as Marx would do later) recognised that there were benefits to commerce, but these were outweighed by the downsides of profit-taking (including ignorance, individual greed, fraud, and deceit). Based on his advocacy of barter, Owen differs from Marx by suggesting that commerce should be replaced by a system of "exchanging all articles at their [‘Fair Price’] prime cost... and by permitting the exchange through a convenient medium to represent this value,"⁴⁵ where the Fair Price of a given product (where the term ’product’ includes both goods and services) is its prime cost where wages take into account that "the labourer who produces [said product] is justly entitled to his [sic] fair proportion... calculated in reference to the amount of wealth, in the necessaries [sic] and comforts of life."⁴⁶

Owen’s economic analysis has been expanded upon by later theorists such as Charles Gide and Paul Lambart. Both Gide and Lambart noted that the logic of Owen’s Fair Price doctrine suggests that, under capitalism, it is possible for workers (as producers) to be exploited, where the total labour cost for a given product falls below that item’s fair price. So too, however, can workers (as the end users of a product; its consumers) be exploited, where the sale price of a given product rises above its fair price. And, where the fair price falls in the profit margin between wage costs and the finished product’s sale price, the worker is exploited both as a consumer and as a producer. Thus, in contrast to Marx, Fair Price analysis is interested in both consumption and production, rather than viewing consumption as a by-product of production (as Marx had done).⁴⁷

Owen’s economic analysis was also expanded upon by the early Fabian and feminist pioneer Beatrice Potter (later Webb), who suggested that a coalition between Consumer Co-operatives and Trade Unions would be desirable. Rather than having a fixed, universal ‘fair pay’ rate for all jobs as Owen had suggested (a noble aim in theory but, given that this would have meant that an hour of hard manual labour would be rewarded with equal wages to an hour’s ‘labour’ attending a conference in Vanuatu, one which has failed to carry across into practice), Webb suggested Trade Unions should fix fair wages with Consumer Co-operatives, as per Owen’s Fair Price doctrine,⁴⁸ ensuring workers are paid fair wages. Webb recognised that beyond Co-operators and Trade Unionists having a common interest in protecting their common constituents from exploitation through the profit motive, Unionists could use centralised purchasing through Co-operatives to boycott Corporations which employ labour at less than fair price, to break corporate monopolies which hurt the working class (as both workers and consumers), and unite with co-operators in supporting legislation protecting against unfair wages and poor quality goods.⁴⁹

CHAPTER II: KEY EVENTS DURING A CENTURY OF VICTORIAN CO-OPERATION: PRODUCTION, THE STATE, MORALITY, AND THE PRACTICE OF VICTORIAN CO-OPERATION (1870 - 1970)

The British Co-operative Movement - both its institutions and theories - formed the model upon which the Co-operative movement in Australia (and Victoria) would be built. In the preceding chapter, we first defined a number of key concepts in our present discussion. Then, we traced the theoretical and institutional development of the Movement in Britain, from which it became apparent that there was a variety of ways through which early British Co-operation challenged the Marxian orthodoxy. Having done so, the purpose of this chapter is to explore a few key events in the development of the Co-operative movement in Victoria from its first emergence in the mid 1870s through to the 1970s. These include its emergence in the context of Colonial Victoria and subsequent adaptation to rural conditions, the factional battle in the Australian Socialists League between the Modern Socialists and the State Socialists, local attempts to federate, the impact of the Russian Revolution, the emergence of Christian Co-operatives, and how the movement has adapted to modern Australia.

VICTORIA’S FIRST CO-OPERATIVES: ADAPTING WITHOUT THE STATE
The earliest Consumer Co-operative in Victoria that I could find primary-source evidence of was called The Mutual Store. This store, which had been established in 1872, appears to have been based around the Rochdale Principles (in that it featured, for instance, fixed interest on shares, dividends on purchases, and cash payments). By 1881, it offered a range of goods to its members (including groceries, liquor, toys, stationary, and trade services) from its store at 5 Flinders Street East, holding around £20,000 capital between over 10,000 shares at £2 each.⁸⁴ Other Rochdale-style Consumer Co-operatives in Melbourne included the “Equitable Co-operative Society” of 32 Collins Street West (registered April 22nd, 1882),⁸⁵ and “The People’s Co-operative Society”⁸⁶ of Williamstown.

These early societies are interesting because they demonstrate that co-operative ideas were part of Melbourne’s colonial experience, and emerged in the broader context of the Australian colonial period. According to Mark Lyons, the socio-political theories, and institutions, of Britain and Ireland provided a model for the institutions of these new colonies, and were adapted for local conditions:

"Australia has always had a high proportion of migrants in its population. During the nineteenth century, most of these came from Great Britain, which then included what is now the independent Republic of Ireland. They bought with them many of the institutions, aspirations and quarrels of 'home'. But Australia was a different environment and these institutions, aspirations and quarrels developed in some different ways. Several of these imported ideas and practices had a direct bearing on the development of Australia's third sector. These included middle-class notions of charity and a strong lower class tradition of mutual association and democracy [which had included British Co-operation]... By the late nineteenth century these imports had taken root and were beginning to develop peculiarly Australian forms."⁸⁷

Thus the wave of co-operatives which developed in the wake of the Rochdale Pioneers had, within a couple of decades, spread to Melbourne. For the lower classes, co-operatives would be important because although colonial governments "played a vital role in encouraging business enterprise, by linking in labour and capital, and building an extensive infrastructure of railways, ports and roads... in other areas of social policy, governments were reluctant to intervene."⁸⁸ Yet Co-operative societies would not be granted legal recognition as a distinct organisational form until the 1950s; these early societies were thus registered as Friendly Societies (in the case of the Equitable Co-operative Society) and under the Companies Statute of 1884 (in the case of The Mutual Store).

RURAL AND WORKING CLASS CO-OPERATIVES: ADAPTING TO LOCAL CONDITIONS
Indeed, a major feature of co-operative logic is its ability to adapt to local circumstances, needs and conditions, without the State. Craig notes that a key feature of co-operative logic is that “groups must apply their own perspectives to situations as they arise and make decisions... The solution for one community may in fact be a major problem for another. The solution to problems are in-determinant and both the problem and solution can best be defined by those who are involved in that community at that point in time.”⁸⁹

As Victoria had a largely agricultural economy prior to World War II, this was reflected in where its Consumer Co-operatives developed.⁹⁰ Their spread across rural Victoria, rather than being a result of State promotion, instead owes a great deal to the tireless efforts of Co-operative evangelists, such as J.A. Burke of Swan Hill, who went from town to town, explaining co-operative solutions, and raising funds to convert existing businesses into Co-operatives. The situation in Victoria also differed from New South Wales, where the largest Consumer Co-operative, prior to the Great Depression, was based in the (then) working-class suburb of Balmain.⁹¹ The difference, summed up by Burke, was that “Whereas your members [in New South Wales] are chiefly of the artisan class, the members of the Co-operative Stores in Victoria are chiefly of the farmer class.”⁹² That the prospect of the Co-operative store could flourish in rural Victoria - a territory in which the Labor Party (let alone radical Marxism) has had trouble capturing - could perhaps be understood as being a product of the Co-operative movement’s adaptability as a non-state socialism, coupled with it (by virtue of having an economic analysis not solely focusing on production) not being tied to the urban working class with the same necessity as the project of Proletarian revolution is. This was evident in Burke’s belief that “Co-operation is such a mighty principle, and so all-embracing, that there is no class that cannot practice it.”⁹³

THE BATTLES OF MODERN SOCIALISM: SOCIALISM WITH OR WITHOUT THE STATE?
Given this, it was in New South Wales that, until the 1890s, co-operation would battle state-centric left wing theories in the battle to become the orthodoxy of the Australian urban working class. The Australian Socialist League (ASL) was the focus of a factional battle between the Modern Socialists (who advocated Rochdale-style Co-operatives) and those advocating State Socialism (including Marxism). A Ministerial Advisory Committee on Co-operation (MACC) report from the 1980s (discussed in greater depth in chapter 3) noted of the league that, "A forerunner to the Australian Labor Party, the [ASL] adopted as its objective in the 1890s the Owenite dream of establishing 'a co-operative commonwealth founded on the collective ownership of the land and means of production, distribution and exchange'."⁹⁴

According to historian Gary Lewis, the Modern Socialists, including Bob Winspear's journal The Radical, had advocated "the French revolutionary trilogy of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, believing that democratic co-operation, alone, conformed to this in every respect."⁹⁵ This simple yet compelling argument highlights an interesting advantage of Co-operative Federalism: rather than requiring a rejection of liberal morality a priori, it is instead arguably more compatible with these core values of liberal morality than corporate capitalism itself. Firstly, there is greater equality embodied in the Rochdale Principle of ‘one member one vote’ than there is in ‘one share one vote’. Secondly, co-operative logic embodies a fraternity that monetised commerce (at least in Owen’s analysis) does not. And, thirdly, enterprises being socially controlled by end users outside the State allows a greater freedom from the State than is possible under a dictatorship of the proletariat, without resorting to the liberal ‘free’ market . Thus the Modern Socialists rejected both state-centred socialism and capitalism, arguing that "only by self-help through co-operation in a democratic, decentralised system of economic power-sharing could the creative power of the people be realised."⁹⁶

These debates ended when, in the wake of the Great Maritime Strikes (and in spite of the Modern Socialist arguments to the contrary), the Union movement had been “Convinced that capturing the state was necessary to the overcoming of capitalism.”⁹⁷ The subsequent Royal Commission enshrined class conflict, rather than co-operativism, as the basis of the Industrial Relations system (as recently dismantled by John Howard).⁹⁸ The resulting Industrial Relations system somewhat reflected Webbs’ vision of fair price, although wages are fixed between workers and companies (rather than between workers and consumers, through Co-operatives), and thus the profit motive remained. But this, in turn, raises a fundamental question when viewed through Fair Price analysis: if award wages have historically represented a fair price for labour, and thus the sale prices of Australian - made goods and services historically been above their ‘fair price’, it suggests that Australian workers may have historically been exploited more as consumers than as producers.

CHAPTER III: CO-OPERATIVES AND THE CAIN GOVERNMENT: THREE CO-OPERATIVE POLICY APPROACHES

In the last two chapters, we have noted that one fundamental regard in which Co-operative Federalism differs from Marxism is in how it views the State. For Marx and Engels, policies building socialism were to be directed by the State (after the proletariat has seized State power); in contrast, Co-operative Federalism did not view the seizure of state power as a precondition for forming socialist enterprises. The question for this chapter is that if we accept, as Co-operative Federalism suggests, that socialism should take place outside the public sector through Consumer Co-operatives, and further accept Cole’s assertion that the State can be used to promote such Co-operatives, then how should State policy go about doing so?

During the 1980s, a push emerged to encourage Co-operatives through Victorian State Government Policy. According to Craig, across most of the world, “Before World War II, the formation of co-operatives usually occurred with very little governmental encouragement and in the face of hostility from the social and economic establishment;”¹³⁴ a state of affairs clearly existing in Victoria prior to World War II, and arguably continuing through to the 1970s. Craig continues by noting that the post-war years (in many countries) were “marked with a new dimension: the extension of government-directed co-operation.”¹³⁵ Emerging later in Victoria than elsewhere, this push was institutionalised in the Ministry of Employment and Training’s (MEAT) Co-operative Development Program (CDP), the Ministry of Housing’s Ministerial Advisory Committee on Co-operation (MACC), and the Victorian Food Co-operative Study Group (VFCSG).

The experience of these three programmes, beyond representing a key event in the history of Victoria’s Co-operative movement, also provides us with examples of different Government policy approaches to promoting co-operative development. The purpose of this chapter is, firstly, to recount their experience of these three programmes, and to examine the insights it gives us into the movement at the time. The second purpose is to compare the compatibility of the practice (or recommendations) of these programmes to co-operative logic. We will undertake this comparison based on five criteria: first, the impetus for their creation; second, whether the problems they identified were primarily of concern for the Government or the movement; third, who formulated their policies; fourth, their solutions to these problems; and fifth, the State’s role in these solutions. We will then examine implications of this discussion for our comparison with Marxism, and how policy accommodating co-operative logic varies from good Marxist policy.

THE CDP: THE INTERVENTIONIST APPROACH
The impetus of our first programme was a Government problem; the problem of youth unemployment. It was in the closing remarks of the Work for Tomorrow conference (on the end of full employment, held in December 1978), that the then-Premier, Sir Rupert Hamer, noted that “several suggestions have been made about supporting the establishment of new small businesses, often on a co-operative basis for unemployed young people.”¹³⁶ He responded to such suggestions by announcing that:

“The government is prepared to fund three appropriate pilot schemes... and later to review and evaluate these schemes after a period in order to determine whether they are an effective way of creating new jobs.”¹³⁷

In 1981, under the Minister for Employment and Training at the time (Brian Dixon), these pilot schemes in supply side job creation through worker co-operatives evolved into the Ministry of Employment and Training’s (MEAT) Co-operative Development Program (CDP). The CDP continued after the election of the Cain Government (in April 1982) under the auspice of Jim Simmonds,¹³⁸ who increased its annual funding from $600,000 to $850,000.¹³⁹

The CDP’s solution for tackling youth unemployment (a Government concern) was to establish (or expand) viable ‘community employment’ co-operatives¹⁴⁰ which would see employees in control, with ownership in the hands of either the workers themselves, or ‘the community’ (rather than the end-users of the co-operative’s products).¹⁴¹ It is worth pointing out that workers co-operatives (co-operatives in which employees, rather than consumers, are members) had died out in Victoria by World War I,¹⁴² thus this was policy attempting to create a new co-operative sector whole cloth, rather than strengthen the existing movement.

The Government’s role in establishing such ‘community employment’ co-operatives came through a mixture of financial and technical support.¹⁴³ Such support was subject to co-operatives meeting a raft of Government conditions, including them becoming economically viable, meeting award wages and conditions, upholding the 1966 ICA Principles, and achieving workplace democracy, as listed in a key Cain Government macro-economic policy document.¹⁴⁴ As David Griffiths points out, such an interventionist approach was fundamentally flawed:

"In the 1980's, for example, a number of co-operatives were formed in Victoria to create employment for the unemployed under a Victorian Government Co-operative Development Program. Some of the co-operatives were formed by local business people and professionals and others committed to doing something for their community. But many of the citizens and directors who formed these co-operatives did not become users - the users were meant to be the unemployed others. These co-operatives no longer exist and a major contributing factor being that the others either did not become users or if users they did not form the co-operative and the non-users remained the controllers of the co-operative."¹⁴⁵

Given such external control, the CDP appears to have been based upon the bureaucratic paradigm rather than on co-operative logic. It is unsurprising, then, to find an article in Society stating that the CDP was wound-down in 1986 “after a change of minister and restructuring of the Ministry for Employment and Training (now Department of Labour).”¹⁴⁶ The programme of co-operative development through interventionist grants had failed.

THE MACC: EDUCATION AND STATE STRUCTURAL REFORM
As with Simmonds’ CDP, the impetus for the MACC also came from within Government, this time in the Ministry of Housing. Continuing the work of a 1982 Ministry of Housing Legislative Review Committee,¹⁴⁷ in 1984, the then Minister for Housing and Minister administering the Co-operation Act (Ian Cathie) established the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Co-operation (MACC).¹⁴⁸ The aim of the MACC - listed in its terms of reference - was to advise on "Policy matters relating to the drafting of new co-operative legislation; and policy development relating to the co-operative movement generally,"¹⁴⁹ and “to review the development of the co-operative movement in Victoria and to provide input towards new directions for the co-operative sector.”¹⁵⁰ The primary aim of this programme, then, was to strengthen the existing movement, rather than to fulfil a Government policy aim external to the movement.

Where the MACC began to vary from the CDP is in the level of participation from the movement. The MACC, in turn, comprised of five working parties, representing consumer (including credit, housing, food, and rental housing co-operatives), worker, producer, and community co-operatives, as well as a working party representing Trades Hall. By June of that same year, the MACC had already produced a preliminary report on policy weaknesses, and was published to elicit feedback from the movement. The submissions the MACC received, and the findings of its working groups, were published under the title “Co-operation in Victoria” and, in turn, formed the basis of the problems the MACC identified, and its policy recommendations.¹⁵¹

One of two areas of major concern for the movement at this time was the interventionism of the CDP. The MACC recognised that, when it came to government co-operative policy, contrary to the practice of the CDP:

“In providing support to co-operative development where it is consistent with the Government’s programs and priorities, the government should:
(a) Assist co-operative development in a manner which is consistent with co-operative principles and practice;
(b) Recognise that co-operatives are organisations whose autonomy and democratic management are critical to their success and that government support should not subvert that autonomy.”¹⁵²

At the same time, it was recognised that Co-operatives could form an important part of Victoria’s economic base,¹⁵³ but for this to happen:

“The relationship between the government and the co-operative movement needs to be based on a clear statement of government support for the co-operative sector and recognition that it is clearly distinguishable from both the public and private sectors.”¹⁵⁴

Consistent with this need for policy recognising co-operative democracy and autonomy, the MACC recognised that ongoing grants (such as those handed out through the CDP) lead to Government dependancy.

The second area of major concern for the movement at this time had been co-operative education which, as a result of consultation, also became a problem the MACC would deal with. Quite alarmingly, in spite of a very broad audience for co-operative education, only a fraction was being fulfilled. The MACC found that Victoria’s education system was failing to give even the most general of overviews of co-operation to its students; noting that “Education and training for potential co-operators (schools, general public and specific) is virtually non-existent, [and that] ...research undertaken did not find any substantial co-operative education and training activity in schools in Victoria.”¹⁵⁵ The report noted that Co-operative Unions like the CFV did follow the Rochdale Principles by providing education for existing co-operatives. However, ‘Multiplier agents’ - a category of people who could inform or educate people who may potentially be interested in becoming involved with a Co-operative(s) (even if they personally are not interested or involved), comprising of teachers, educators, solicitors, accountants, researchers, and policy makers - were not catered for in either the State education system, or in the co-operative sector.¹⁵⁶ Given the importance of socialisation into co-operative logic, such a lack of widespread co-operative education had almost certainly constrained Victorian Co-operation.

Responding to these two areas of concern for the movement (and reducing government intervention) would form the basis of the MACC’s policy solutions. The MACC responded to the fundamental flaw of the CDP (the State intervening with ongoing grants to artificially create a form of co-operative whole cloth) by stating that it “believes that there is no single correct or incorrect co-operative practice, but simply a number of equally valid practices.”¹⁵⁷ As a result, the “MACC believes that encouraging co-operative development through the establishment and utilisation of sector associations is the model best suited to meeting the diverse needs of Victoria’s co-operative movement.”¹⁵⁸ In other words, each type of co-operative (‘sector’) should ideally have its own Co-operative Union (or ‘sector association’), with a single peak body per sector to be encouraged. The MACC recognised that while ongoing government expenditure may be appropriate to fund co-operative infrastructure (for instance Co-operative Unions, or Government departments which deal with co-operatives), such ongoing grants are absolutely inappropriate for individual co-operatives (unless those co-operatives are providing a government service). Similarly, once-off seeding grants should be available through sector associations, as well as research grants to academics studying co-operation, but that loans are a preferable ongoing means for individual co-operatives to raise capital.¹⁵⁹ Under these arrangements, the MEAT’s CDP would amalgamate with the Registry of Co-operatives’ Policy and Research Branch, forming a Co-operative Development section (OOC-CDS) of a new Office of Co-operatives (OOC), which would supersede the current Registry.¹⁶⁰ This new OOC-CDS would bring together all government co-ordination of co-operative development, to be done primarily through assistance creating sector associations (and the development agencies which these sector associations would oversee).¹⁶¹

To encourage Co-operative education, the MACC recommended creating two new bodies between the movement and the OOC (that is to say, Government bodies controlled from below by the movement): the Victorian Co-operatives Council (VCC) and the Co-operative Education and Training Authority (CETA). The VCC would serve as a permanent organisation which would fill the MACC’s temporary policy research and development role. It would be governed by representatives of each Sector Association, plus two ministerial appointments (one perhaps representing Trades Hall, another perhaps with expertise in Finance or Education), greatly enhancing communications between the movement and the State Government. Alongside the VCC, CETA would design and implement education programmes and courses to overcome the shortcomings in co-operative education identified by the MACC. CETA would be made up of members from the VCC, the CFV (or a future Federation), and a representative of each Sector Association’s education and training Committees; as well as nonvoting membership by the Victorian Education Department and other relevant institutions. Implementing CETA, and the courses it would manage, would cost $100,000 per annum, although this could be partially funded by a special ‘education levy’ on co-operatives.¹⁶²

Unfortunately, the MACC’s recommendations, following the closure of the CDP, would not be implemented. This is unfortunate because, in regards to the State providing a beneficial environment for co-operatives while not overruling co-operative logic, the MACC’s policy recommendations represent a vast improvement over the practice of the CDP.

THE VFCSG: THE BROTHERHOOD OF ST. LAURENCE AND REFORM FROM BELOW
Unlike the CDP and MACC, the impetus for the third initiative (the VFCSG) would come from the grassroots itself, and from the social welfare policies of the Brotherhood of St Laurence (the Brotherhood). Following the example of the unemployed weavers of Rochdale, and consistent with the findings of its Pride and Poverty report,¹⁶³ the December 1983 issue of the Brotherhood’s newsletter (“Action”) reported that “Now low income people too can save, buying better quality goods at low prices, through the co-operatives established by the Brotherhood’s Sharing Centre in Fitzroy.”¹⁶⁴ Used by an average of 100 people per trading day, the Sharing Centre’s Under Current Co-operative retailed clothes, shoes, and food exclusively to its inner - urban pensioner and welfare recipient members, allowing them to collectively buy in bulk at wholesale prices, and gain practical experience from volunteer (as well as paid¹⁶⁵) work. By early 1982, the Sharing Centre began examining the feasibility of making Under Current a viable standalone concern, by examining other food co-operatives in Victoria,¹⁶⁶ and also organised the Food Co-operative Support Group, through which representatives of 30 Victorian food co-operatives met monthly.¹⁶⁷ The Support Group acted as a ‘sector association’ for food co-operatives and was governed by consensus decision making.¹⁶⁸

In February 1984, the Support Group received funding through the CDP to undertake a study into Victorian food co-operatives. This study group consisted of three staff and a management committee, and operated as the Victorian Food Co-operative Study Group (VFCSG).¹⁶⁹ Where the initial impetus had come from below, it was thus aided by State resources.

In July 1984, the VFCSG published its groundbreaking first report, “Food Co-operatives in Victoria”,¹⁷⁰ which focused on the problems faced by Victoria’s food co-operatives at that time. These low income food co-operatives included, for example, the Carlton Community Milk Bar (which ran under the legal auspice of the Carlton Community Health Centre, with assistance from the Brotherhood, and several nearby housing estates) and the Doveton Food Co-operative (which had originally run out of a room in a member’s house, and whose members had low incomes, received social security, or were pensioners). The VFCSG found that such Food Co-operatives reported a range of problems in supply, purchase, transport, organisation, planning, management, limited finance, the problems of volunteerism, and low levels of education.¹⁷¹

The resulting policy recommendations from this research should come as no surprise to the student of Co-operative Federalism. The VFCSG recommended centralised purchasing through a CWS would be essential to further sector development, and would receive support from 70% of Victorian food co-operatives.¹⁷² Secondly, it recommended that the MEAT immediately fund a sector association (referred to in the report as a ‘Resource Centre’) for Food Co-operatives. Thirdly, it recommended that the CDP ought to turn its attention (and resources) to assisting these objectives, and lift its ban on funding food Co-operatives.¹⁷³ In regards to the first finding, the CDP’s failure to create a CWS should surely be counted as a major oversight: centralised purchasing (through a CWS) would have increased the buying power of its members, created a market for their products, and would rather have created a co-operative economy rather than merely a string of Co-operative candles in the winds of capitalism, dependant on State benevolence for survival.

It also created a business plan for establishing a CWS in Victoria (which was to be named ‘Moving Food’). The Moving Food business plan demonstrated that if it were established in May 1985, on the assumption that it would undertake wholesale purchasing exclusively on behalf of Victoria’s food co-operatives, it would have run a surplus of $14,168 within 3 years (based on a grant of $80,000 and a loan of $165,000; a result achieved without doing even a single dollar of trade on behalf of any other type of co-operative).¹⁷⁴

The commitment to fund the Moving Food CWS and the Food Co-operative Resource Centre appeared as a key antipoverty commitment in the Cain Government’s 1985 Social Justice election platform, which explicitly stated that “We will set up a co-operative warehouse and development centre. This will in effect be a ‘master co-operative’ serving existing and developing co-operatives.”¹⁷⁵ Unfortunately, as was the case with the MACC recommendations, with the end of the CDP, the Cain Government turned its back on these promises¹⁷⁶ (keep in mind that the same Government lent $500 million to Christopher Skase and Alan Bond through Tricontinental).¹⁷⁷

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE AND INSIGHTS
The experience of these three programmes - the CDP, the MACC, and the VFCSG - is interesting in the context of recovering the history of the Victorian Co-operative movement. In itself, the existence of these programmes (in particular, the interventionist CDP) is interesting in that they were a unique event in the history of the Victorian Co-operative movement. They were both a stark departure to how Victorian State Governments had dealt with Co-operatives up until that point (as we have witnessed in the previous chapter), or since (for better or worse). Beyond their uniqueness, however, they are interesting because of the research carried out within these programmes - in particular the MACC and VFCSG - also represents perhaps the most comprehensive and systematic studies of the Victorian movement to date. When viewed against the background of the movement’s history, this research provides us with a ‘detailed snapshot’ of the movement after the end of its first century, revealing both its continuities and its changes, as well as its problems and concerns.

When viewed in the context of its history, this snapshot of the movement reveals both some interesting changes, as well as a number of continuities. For example, while, since the mid 1970s, Victorians increasingly used Consumer Co-operatives to provide social services (a key shift we noted in the previous chapter), as of the mid 1980s, traditional food co-operatives were still empowering some of Victoria’s poorest citizens. The welfare recipients and pensioners of Doveton pooling together their meagre resources to buy food at a fair price is not altogether different to what the unemployed weavers of Rochdale were doing in the 1840s; yet that this was taking place in suburban Melbourne rather than rural Victoria is an interesting change from where such Co-operatives were used a century earlier. That a charity (such as the Brotherhood of St. Laurence) linked to a church (the Brotherhood is affiliated with the Anglican Church) would allow a Co-operative to run under its legal auspice (such as Under Current) and start a support group is not altogether different to what progressive Christian groups (such as the YCW) had done earlier, even though the YCW’s CDS had already secularised into the CFV.

The research also provides some insights into the movement’s problems and concerns at this point in time. Victorian Co-operators at the time identified supply, purchase, transport, organisation, planning, management, limited finance, and the problems of volunteerism as their concerns; where the State did not take care of these issues, it was left to the movement itself to take care of them. There appears also to have been an interesting paradox in regards to Co-operative education, in which people who were self-educated, or educated within the movement, were seeking to improve the state of Co-operative education and sought to use the State education system as a means of doing so. And, finally, the movement was one which had survived for over a century with minimal State support, and was one to which State paternalism (as represented by the CDP) was seen as a threat; to which control from below - and forming appropriate federal arrangements, was seen as a preferable means of resolving problems. There was a need to create solutions in a manner compatible with co-operative logic.

THE THREE APPROACHES COMPARED
These three programmes are also interesting in that they also represent three different strategies for formulating policy encouraging socialism outside the State. Given that the MEAT’s and VFCSG’s recommendations were not implemented, we cannot test their effectiveness, but we can measure their relative compatibility with co-operative logic. They could also (if they are compatible) point out a preferable alternative for any future co-operative development policy over the interventionist approach of the CDP. As I noted earlier, we will compare them on the impetus for their creation, the problems they identified, who formulated their policies, their solutions to the problems, and the State’s role in the solutions.

So how compatible were these approaches with Co-operative logic? The impetus for the CDP, as we have seen, came about as a result of a Hamer Government concern (the end of full employment) and the MACC was the product of a Cain Government legislative review; the VFCSG, in contrast, was created from below by The Brotherhood, and food Co-operatives themselves. The CDP thus identified a Government concern (youth unemployment) as its key problem; in contrast the MACC identified a mixture of concerns within the movement (for example, Co-operative education and adequate representation) alongside Government concerns (for example having appropriate Government infrastructure to deal with Co-operatives), while the VFCSG largely dealt with concerns within the food co-operative movement itself (such as problems with supply, purchasing, transport, and information). In the CDP, policy was formulated from above by Government, with the aim of overcoming Government concerns; the MACC used working parties and submissions from the Movement itself, and the VFCSG was run within the movement itself, with State funding. Finally, where there was heavy State involvement in the CDP’s solution (in the form of financial support, and technical support subject to meeting numerous Government conditions) leading to an attempt to create a new Co-operative sector whole - cloth, the MACC made a point of minimising State dependancy in assisting the existing sector (while it recommended State funding of sector associations and statutory bodies, individual co-operatives could receive only once-off grants or loans) while the VFCSG’s Moving Food CWS required only a once-off grant and a medium term loan. In short, while the CDP was largely a product of the bureaucratic paradigm, the VFCSG and - to a lesser extent - the MACC represent policies formulated by, and open to, co-operative logic.

Returning to the central question of this thesis - the three key differences between Marxism and Co-operative Federalism - the experience of the three Cain Government programmes highlights a fundamental difference between how State power can be used to advance Co-operative Federalist economy, as opposed to a Marxist economy. For Marx, the initiative for economic policy in a Dictatorship of the Proletariat was to come from the ‘vanguard’ of the the proletariat (as the representative of the proletariat) following the seizure of State power. Yet to maximise the scope of co-operative logic, initiatives should either come from below with delegated State resources (VFCSG), or alternatively come from the State in the forms of initiatives designed to identify concerns within the existing movement (MACC), rather than fulfilling Government policy concerns. Marx had already defined their problem - the State seizing control of production and wrestling capital from the bourgeoisie; co-operative logic demands movement input (MACC) or the movement itself (VFCSG) identifying the concerns and problems it faces at a historical point in time. Marx and Engels wanted the State (as representative of the proletariat) to dictate how solutions to the pre-identified problem of production were to be implemented, where co-operative logic (as per the MACC and VFCSG) calls for the movement to identify its own solutions to its own concerns at a given point in historical time. Finally, where the ends, for Marx, was the seizure of State power on behalf of the proletariat, the MACC and VFCSG defined solutions which avoid State dependancy, and are institutionalised in a manner that maximises the scope and possibilities of co-operative logic through control from below.

In short, then, the development of the Co-operative movement through the State calls on a very different kind of political programme (in initiative, the problems it identified, its solutions, and the State’s role in these solutions) to that called for by Marx.

CONCLUSIONS

The question underlying this thesis - as with any academic work - is why all this is relevant and important.

The answer lies in the world we live in today. We live in the aftermath of the end of the Keynesian consensus, in the wake of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and in a post-Cold War world. It is a world in which the idea of a mass proletarian uprising imposing a Dictatorship of the Proletariat in most of the West appears to be, in the foreseeable future, about as utopian as anything suggested by Owen. Indeed, it is a world in which - in one of history’s cruellest ironies - the Communism advocated by Marx and Engels is often dismissed as being ‘utopian,’ and the Soviet Union is deemed a failed utopian experiment as Orbiston, Queenswood, and Harmony Hall were in generations past. It is a world in which Free Trade and the Neoliberal orthodoxy reign supreme. The question is whether the project of socialism (that is, the project of the "desire for the fullest possible development of man's highest faculties... through society and a collective organization,"¹⁷⁸ which "rejects individual property, not absolutely, but as a source of income and even more, as a source of power"¹⁷⁹) is still relevant in the contemporary world. More precisely, the question is whether socialism is relevant to the academic (as a vantage point from which to critique the status quo), the social activist (as a course of action), and the policy-maker.

For the project of socialism to be relevant to the modern world, it requires a socialism relevant to the modern world. And, for many in the political left, the challenge has been in identifying a socialism for the modern world; a process which has often involved questioning the Marxian orthodoxy on the roles of production, the State, and morality in socialism. It is a process which has led to a number of movements reinventing (or rediscovering) Co-operative ideas, some examples of which include the theories of Participatory Democracy, the Open Source Movement, the student radicals of the 1960s and 1970s, and the words of a former leader of the Federal ALP.

The implications of this challenge has been realised by the Participatory Democrats, who seek to increase active participation by users of government services, rather than to replace these services with services provided by the private sector.¹⁸⁰ Participatory Democrats, such as Leo Panitch, reject traditional Government Bureaucracy as "an administrative apparatus that is itself structured in a fundamentally undemocratic fashion, along principles of strict hierarchy that owe much to the organization of the nineteenth-century British Colonial Office.”¹⁸¹ Their solution is to be found by “replacing, wherever possible, the 'appointment' principle with an elective one, or at least the appointment of those who already have a democratic mandate and means of popular sanction from the group."¹⁸² In other words, Participatory Democrats seek to replace the Bureaucratic paradigm with co-operative logic, as the MACC had advocated. What this would mean in practice, according to Meyer Brownstone, is that:

...the forms of delivering [Government / social] services should be decentralised, self-managed, and democratically organized - in terms... of the clients, broadening and enriching their experience with a democratic social structure. ...there should be an active policy for effective - i.e. authoritative - decentralization of functions, entailing (a) community / neighbourhood discretion (e.g., libraries, recreation, parks, community health center[s], housing); (b) popular sector organizational control (including co-operatives in various fields); and (c) worker -controlled enterprises and agencies.¹⁸³ (Emphasis mine.)

Consider, secondly, the Open Source Movement, and perhaps its biggest achievement to date, Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a free, online encyclopaedia which - unlike traditional printed encyclopaedias - allows any of its end users to ‘edit’ its articles, contribute their own articles, and participate in its decision-making process. This open source encyclopaedia is based on software called a Wiki, which allows people with no knowledge of HTML to dynamically edit articles. It is not produced by the State, but rather an end-user owned non-profit organisation known as the Wikimedia Foundation.¹⁸⁴ Just as Co-operatives trading at Fair Price subverts monetised commerce, the Wikimedia Foundation subverts copyright law by licensing its articles under the GNU Free Documentation License; a license allowing the freedom to make copies or create derivative works, on the condition that any copies or derivative works, in turn, allow others the same freedoms.¹⁸⁵ In short, it is an encyclopaedia built on co-operative logic.¹⁸⁶

Consider, thirdly, the ideas of the student radicals of the 1960s and 1970s. According to historian Eric Hobsbawm, one of the long term implications of the Russian Revolution, both locally and abroad, had been that:

”The young who thirsted to overthrow capitalism became... orthodox communists, and identified their cause with the Moscow-centred international movement... Though anyone with the slightest knowledge of ideological history could recognize the spirit of Bakunin, or even Nechaev, rather than Marx in the student radicals of 1968 and after, it led to no significant revival of anarchist theory or movements.¹⁸⁷

While the student radicalism of the new left indeed embodied the spirit of Bakunin and Nechaev, it appears to have also contained undertones of the spirit of Owen and the Rochdale Pioneers. Consider, for instance, that according to Charles Landry, et. al.,:

“An essential feature of the political culture of the 1970s was its rejection of formal, bureaucratic structures in favour of loose-knit informal networks. This replacement of one type of organization by another was of central importance, given that the emphasis at the time was as much on how things were to be done as on what was to be done. The belief in the importance of non-hierarchical structures and ‘networking’ was strongly influenced by the women’s movement and by the forms of organization, such as the consciousness-raising groups, which that movement had generated.”¹⁸⁸

Based on this account, there appears to be more than a passing resemblance between the student radicalism of the 1960s / 1970s, and the ideals of Co-operative Federalism. Some similarities are immediately obvious: viewing control of State power a means but not necessarily an end in itself, a resulting emphasis on change through consciousness raising and education (a Rochdale Principle), and social analysis concerned with - but not solely focused on - production, to cite but three examples. But the most significant similarity was their rejection of the bureaucratic paradigm, and attempt to reinvent co-operative logic. It is perhaps unfortunate, then, that the Marxian Orthodoxy may have prevented them from taking aboard the lessons of Post-Rochdale Co-operation.

While the student radicals may have overlooked the lessons of Rochdale, (at least some) of their modern successors, in the Green movement, have embraced these lessons. For example, prominent environmentalists David Suzuki and Holly Dressel argue that non-profits and co-operatives can be a viable, environmentally friendly alternative to corporate capitalism. They demonstrate the point by examining a Co-operative known as the ‘Recycling Centre’ in Portland, Oregon.¹⁸⁹ In this case study, Dressel and Suzuki cite this organisation’s annual revenues (over $1 million per annum), that its conditions and pay are better than its competitors, low staff turnover, and environmentally sound business practices as an example to emulate.¹⁹⁰

Consider, finally, the words of a former Leader of the Federal Australian Labor Party, Mark Latham, who has stated that:

“Marx was wrong in predicting the alienation of labour from the economy as the catalyst of social discontent. It is the alienation of the individual from community life that is the cause of so many social problems.
...
I regarded this as the big challenge for Left-of-centre politics, to overcome the impersonal nature of bureaucracies and the market economy, to help people reconnect with society, to get them more involved in political and community life. In my eyes, it didn’t make sense for the Left to condemn McDonald’s but to support Centrelink - both were large-scale organisations that treated people as clients, not citizens. I concluded that the true cause of Labor involved the dispersal of power and influence. We need to break down the entrenched hierarchies that sustained social elites and insiders, and to enable disenfranchised people in the suburbs and regions - the outsiders - to do more for themselves.
...
This is best achieved by transferring influence and resources to communities, devolving as many decisions and public services as possible. Real power comes from giving power away. But this is not how the parliamentary system works, especially a machine political party... The square peg of Labor politics does not fit into the round hole of social capital.”¹⁹¹

There is already a term for what Latham is calling for: co-operative logic. Similarly, there is a term for what Latham is arguing against: the bureaucratic paradigm. If Latham’s discussion of ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’, of devolving power and giving the community control is to be more than hollow rhetoric, it calls for a practical socialism which is not (necessarily) tied to the Marxian orthodoxy on production, the State, and, perhaps, morality.

As this thesis has demonstrated, it is precisely such a socialism that has been maintained, in theory and practice, by the co-operator for over a century and a half. And Victorians continue to use the Co-operative model to serve themselves a range of goods and services to this very day, in some cases adapting the model for tasks that Robert Owen and the Rochdale Pioneers could never have imagined. Victorian co-operators provide themselves with telecommunications services (NET-C),¹⁹² web hosting (TauCeti),¹⁹³ books (the New International Bookstore),¹⁹⁴ a radio station (PBS 106.7FM),¹⁹⁵ childcare (the East Melbourne Childcare Co-operative),¹⁹⁶ film-making services (including equipment hire, training, studios, and production) (Open Channel),¹⁹⁷ healthcare (Victorian Aboriginal Health Service),¹⁹⁸ sporting facilities (Bendigo Squash Centre),¹⁹⁹ holiday accommodation (Olinda Ski Club),²⁰⁰ and countless other goods and services, without profit, through Co-operatives.²⁰¹ Co-operatives, as well as local Government and non-profit associations can, in turn, collectively purchase goods and services through a CWS called Co-operative Purchasing Services,²⁰² and the Co-operative Federation of Victoria - which now maintains the Australia.coop web portal - still acts as the sector’s Co-operative Union.²⁰³

For the academic, Co-operative Federalism holds a variety of useful theoretical tools forged by practical experience, yet challenges the Marxian orthodoxy on production, morality, and the State. In chapter 1, we explored how the Rochdale Pioneers built on the ideas of Robert Owen, whose Fair Price doctrine was concerned with production and consumption (rather than just production), and sought to build a New Moral World outside the State. Drawing both on Owen and other pre - Marxian socialisms, the Rochdale Principles were designed to enshrine the replacement of a low moral motive in enterprise - profit - with a production as a community service, which was seen by the Pioneers as being a high moral motive. In establishing federal co-operatives (such as the English CWS), the Pioneers established an economic model - Co-operative Federalism - which operates outside the State, and is governed by co-operative (rather than bureaucratic) logic. To Co-operative Federalists, State power may be a means to enshrining Co-operative Federalism as the dominant mode of production, yet is not an end in itself.

For the social activist, there are important lessons to be drawn from the first century of Victoria’s Co-operative movement; both from its successes, and its challenges. In chapter 2, we noted how Victorians have successfully used the Co-operative model, and have adapted it to a range of different environments and circumstances, including colonial Melbourne, a rural economy, the emergence of a service economy, and the limitations of the Registrar’s resources. In light of the emergence of the Conservative Christian Right in both the United States and Australia (and the question of how the left should respond), the history of progressive Christian groups (including the NCRM and the YCW), and the adaptability of co-operative logic to progressive religious beliefs, is particularly noteworthy today. Meanwhile, the challenges faced by the early attempts by Co-operatives to federate highlights the necessity of having an adequate support base in order to collectively organise outside the State.

Finally, the experiences of the MACC and VFCSG illustrate the implications of formulating policies in a manner consistent with co-operative logic (as advocated by the Participatory Democrats, Latham, and others). In chapter 3 we noted, firstly, that in order to maximise the scope of co-operative logic, initiatives should either come from below with delegated State resources (VFCSG), or alternatively come from the State in the forms of initiatives designed to identify concerns within an existing movement (MACC). Secondly, co-operative logic demands movement input (MACC) or a movement itself (VFCSG) identifying the concerns and problems it faces at a historical point in time. Thirdly, co-operative logic (as per the MACC and VFCSG) calls for a movement to identify its own solutions to its own concerns at a given point in historical time. Finally, the scope and possibilities of co-operative logic needs to be maximised through control from below, and institutionalised in a manner which avoids State dependancy (as defined in both the MACC’s and the VFCSG’s solutions).

Marxian Socialism rejected its contemporaries (and predecessors) as being ‘utopian,’ on the grounds of their views of production, the State, and morality in socialism. The Russian Revolution had seemed to confirm, for a time, that the Marxian analysis was ‘scientific.’ However, in a post-Cold War world, the left is increasingly rediscovering economic focuses other than production, collective organisation outside the State, and morality. In doing so, it is (usually unwittingly) drawing upon the long and rich traditions that this thesis has sought to document.

APPENDIX A: THE ORIGINAL ROCHDALE PRINCIPLES

As listed in Cole, G.D.H., “A Century of Co-operation”, Oxford: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1944, p. 64 and discussed pp. 64-74.

1) Democratic control

“so that each member shall have only one vote”

2) Open membership

“anyone... could join the society”

3) Fixed or limited interest on shares

4) Distribution of the surplus

“in proportion to [members’] purchases”

5) Trading strictly on a cash basis

6) Selling only pure and unadulterated goods

7) Providing for the education of the members in Co-operative Principles

8) [Partisan] political and religious neutrality

APPENDIX B: THE CO-OPERATIVE PRINCIPLES (1966 ICA REVISION)

As listed in Craig, John G., “The Nature of Co-operation”, Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1993, p. 42.

1) Open and voluntary membership

2) Democratic control

3) Limited (if any) interest on shares

4) Return of surplus to members

a) by provision for the development of the co-operative

b) by distribution among the members in proportion to their transactions with the society

5) Co-operative education

6) Co-operation between Co-operatives

APPENDIX C: THE CURRENT CO-OPERATIVE PRINCIPLES (1995 ICA REVISION)

As downloaded from International Co-operative Alliance, “Statement on the Co-operative Identity,” http://www.ica.coop/coop/principles.html, downloaded 1/8/ 2006.

1) Voluntary and open membership

“Co-operatives are voluntary organisations, open to all persons able to use their services and willing to accept the responsibilities of membership, without gender, social, racial, political or religious discrimination.”

2) Democratic member control

“Co-operatives are democratic organisations controlled by their members, who actively participate in setting their policies and making decisions. Men and women serving as elected representatives are accountable to the membership. In primary co-operatives members have equal voting rights (one member, one vote) and co-operatives at other levels are also organised in a democratic manner.”

3) Member economic participation

“Members contribute equitably to, and democratically control, the capital of their co-operative. At least part of that capital is usually the common property of the co-operative. Members usually receive limited compensation, if any, on capital subscribed as a condition of membership. Members allocate surpluses for any or all of the following purposes: developing their co-operative, possibly by setting up reserves, part of which at least would be indivisible; benefiting members in proportion to their transactions with the co-operative; and supporting other activities approved by the membership.”

4) Autonomy and independence

“Co-operatives are autonomous, self-help organisations controlled by their members. If they enter to agreements with other organisations, including governments, or raise capital from external sources, they do so on terms that ensure democratic control by their members and maintain their co-operative autonomy.”

5) Education, training and information

“Co-operatives provide education and training for their members, elected representatives, managers, and employees so they can contribute effectively to the development of their co-operatives. They inform the general public - particularly young people and opinion leaders - about the nature and benefits of co-operation.”

6) Co-operation among Co-operatives

“Co-operatives serve their members most effectively and strengthen the co-operative movement by working together through local, national, regional and international structures.”

7) Concern for community

“Co-operatives work for the sustainable development of their communities through policies approved by their members.”

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Registrar of Co-operative Societies (Victoria), “General Guide for Co-operative Registered Under the Co-operation Act 1981”, Melbourne: Registry of Co-operatives, October, 1985.

Santamaria, B.A., “The Earth our Mother: A study of Australian Agriculture”, Melbourne: Araleven Publishing Co., 1945.

Smith, Kevin, "A Bunch of Pirates: The story of a Farmer Co-operative - Wesfarmers," Perth, W.A.: Westralian Farmers Co-operative, 1984.

Souter, Gavin, “A Peculiar People: The Australians in Paraguay,” Melbourne: Angus & Robertson Ltd., 1968.

South Australian Co-operative Association, “Co-operation: Rules of the Rochdale Society, Adapted to Colonial Requirements by the Provisional Committee of the South Australian Co-operative Association, Proposed for Adoption,” Adelaide: J.D. Bouran, 1866.

Staines, Sharon, “It’s Everyone’s Business: Co-operative Bookkeeping and Budgeting for Social Gain,” Melbourne: Ministry of Housing / Collingwood, Richmond, and Fitzroy Credit Co-operative Limited, 1984.

South Kingsville Health Services Co-operative Ltd., “Model Rules: Adopted July 2004: Rules for the South Kingsville Health Services Co-operative Ltd.,” South Kingsville: South Kingsville Health Services Co-operative Ltd.

South Kingsville Health Services Co-operative Ltd., “Pulse,” Volume 2, Issue 3, November 2004.

Suzuki, David; and Dressel, Holly; “Good News for a Change: Hope for a Troubled Planet”, St. Leonards, N.S.W.: Allen & Unwin, 2002.

Tau Ceti Co-operative Ltd., “About the Tau Ceti Co-operative," http://www.tauceti.org.au/aboutTauCeti.shtml, downloaded 1/8/ 2006.

The Co-operative Federation of South Australia Inc., “Co-operative Newsletter,” Morphett Vale, S.A.: Co-operative Federation of South Australia Inc., Autumn, 2006.

The Co-operator, “CDP: What Next?”, in “The Co-operator: Victoria’s Journal of Co-operative Affairs”, No. 2., Sept. / Oct. 1984.

The Industrial Exchange, “The Industrial Exchange: A Provident Society for the Exchange of Goods and Services on Co-operative Lines,” Melbourne: Tytherleigh Press, 1933.

The Mutual Store Limited on the Co-operative Principle, “Objects and Constitution of the Society with Catalogue of Stock”, Melbourne: Stillwell and Co. Printers, April 1881.

The New International Bookshop Cooperative, “The New International Co-operative Bookshop Cooperative: About Us”, http://www.nibs.org.au/?page_id=2, downloaded 1/8/ 2006.

The People’s Co-operative Society, Williamstown, Limited, “Articles of Association of The People’s Co-operative Society, Williamstown, Limited”: Williamstown: Publisher and date unknown.

TransNational Co-operative Ltd., and Labour Resource Centre, “Worker Co-operatives in New South Wales and Victoria: A Policy Review”, Melbourne: Ministry of Employment and Training, 1984.

United Nations General Assembly Economic and Social Council, Fifty Sixth Session, “Co-operatives in Social Development: Report of the Secretary General,” Geneva: United Nations General Assembly Economic and Social Council, 14th May, 2001.

Vaneveld, Elizabeth, “Communities at Work: The Future of Work,” Fitzroy: Brotherhood of St. Laurence Future of Work Project, February 1998.

Victorian Aboriginal Health Service Co-operative Ltd., “Victorian Aboriginal Health Service Co-operative Ltd.”, http://www.inform.webcentral.com.au/t_vicaborig.htm, downloaded 1/8/ 2006.

Victorian ALP 1985 Election Platform (authorised by Peter Batchelor), “Social Justice: The Next 4 Years: John Cain and Victoria. The Partnership Works.”, Carlton: Victorian ALP, 1985

Victorian Food Co-operative Study Group, “Moving Food Co-operative Limited, the Food Co-operatives’ Warehouse: Business Plan,” Collingwood, Vic.: Victorian Food Co-operative Study Group, 1985.

Wallis, Christopher G., and the Co-operative Development Unit, “Final Report of the Review of Co-operatives and Capital Raising,” Melbourne: Department of the Attorney General Corporate Affairs Office, 17th June, 1991.

Wickremarachchi, Jayo, “New Co-operative Motivations and barriers: ACCORD Paper No. 10,” Bathurst, Charles Sturt University / Australian Centre for Co-operative Research and Development, June 2003.

Wickremarachchi, Jayo; and Passey, Andrew; “State of the Sector: New South Wales Co-operatives 1990 - 2000: ACCORD Report No. 3,” Sydney: University of Technology Sydney / Australian Centre for Co-operative Research and Development, June 2003.

Williams, Gretrude, “The Economics of Everyday Life: Third Edition”, Ringwood: Penguin Books, 1972.

Winter, Ian (ed.), "Social Capital and Public Policy in Australia," Melbourne: Australian Institute of Family Studies, 2000.

Yeo, Stephen (ed.), “New Views of Co-operation,” London and New York: Routledge, 1988.

¹ Ministerial Advisory Committee on Co-operation, “The Co-operative Way: Victoria’s Third Sector: M.A.C.C. Report 1986”, Melbourne: Ministerial Advisory Committee on Co-operation, pp. 35-6.

² Craig, John G., “The Nature of Co-operation”, Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1993, p. 166.

³ ibid., p. 107.

⁴ Lambart, Paul; as translated by Létarges, Joseph; and Flanagan, D.; “Studies in the Social Philosophy of Co-operation”, (originally published March 1959), Manchester: Co-operative Union, Ltd., 1963, p. 231.

⁵ Craig, John G., “The Nature of Co-operation”, p. 164.

⁶ Gide, Charles; as translated from French by the Co-operative Reference Library, Dublin; "Consumers' Co-operative Societies", Manchester: The Co-operative Union Limited, 1921, p. 122.

⁷ ibid.

⁸ ibid., p. 23.

⁹ Ministerial Advisory Committee on Co-operation, “Co-operation in Victoria”, Melbourne: Ministerial Advisory Committee on Co-operation, 1985, p. 5.

¹⁰ ibid., p. 114.

¹¹ National Catholic Rural Movement, “Fruits of the Vine: Handbook of the National Catholic Rural Movement”, Fitzroy: Australian Catholic Publications, 1958, pp. 113 - 5.

¹² Pulsford, Frank, “The Place and Power of Idealism in the Co-operative Movement”, in New South Wales Co-operative Union, “First Australian Congress of Consumers’ Co-operative Societies, Held 6th to 10th April, 1920”, Sydney: The Worker Trade Union Print, p. 30.

¹³ Craig, John G., “The Nature of Co-operation,” p. 28.

¹⁴ Lambart, Paul, “Studies in the Social Philosophy of Co-operation,” p. 40.

¹⁵ ibid.

¹⁶ ibid.

¹⁷ Owen, Robert, "A New View of Society" (originally published in 1813/1814), in Gartrell, V.A. (ed.), "Report to the County of Lanark / A New View of Society", Ringwood: Penguin Books, 1970, p. 246.

¹⁸ Engels, Frederick; as translated by Aveling, Edward; “Socialism: Utopian and Scientific”, Melbourne: Andrade’s / Smithson Bros., 1918, p. 27.

¹⁹ ibid., p. 37.

²⁰ Marx, Karl; and Engels, Frederick; “The Communist Manifesto”, Melbourne: Communist Party of Australia / Ruskin Press, 1932?, p. 39.

²¹ Lukes, Steven, “Marxism and Morality”, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985, pp. 9 - 11.

²² ibid., pp. 17-29.

²³ Long, Ted,”Helping Each Other Through Co-operatives: Revised Edition”, Melbourne: Co-operative Development Society, 1961, pp. 10 - 5, and 22.

²⁴ Lambart, Paul; as translated by Létarges, Joseph; and Flanagan, D.; “Studies in the Social Philosophy of Co-operation”, (originally published March 1959), Manchester: Co-operative Union, Ltd., 1963, p. 40.

²⁵ ibid., p. 40.

²⁶ ibid., p. 231.

²⁷ Gide, Charles; as translated from French by the Co-operative Reference Library, Dublin; "Consumers' Co-operative Societies", Manchester: The Co-operative Union Limited, 1921, pp. 131-2.

²⁸ Lewis, Gary John, “A Middle Way: Rohcdale Co-operation 1859 - 1985”, Curtin: ACT: Australian Association of Co-operatives, 1992.p. 180.

²⁹ "The share of retail trade done by the Co-operative Societies has been dropping fairly steadily during the decade of the sixties; while the multiples increased their turnover by over 80 per cent the Co-operative increased by only 10 per cent and indeed, except in foods, the volume of their sales actually decreased... the Co-ops find change difficult simply because they are not solely commercial organizations but have a social philosophy and political affiliations. Each store has a good deal of autonomy and committee members are often unwilling to close down a small shop - even if it is demonstrably inefficient." - Williams, Gretrude, “The Economics of Everyday Life: Third Edition”, Ringwood: Penguin Books, 1972, p. 117.

³⁰ Haymarket Business Publications Ltd., "Careers: Company CV: The Co-operative Group" in "Marketing", accessed via Expanded Academic ASAP / Thomson Gale / La Trobe University Library, 27 March 2006, p. 50.

³¹ Co-operative Group (CWS) Limited, “The Co-operative Group Annual Review 2005”, New Century House, Manchester: Co-operative Group (CWS) Limited, 2005, pp. 4 - 6.

³² Engels, Frederick; as translated by Aveling, Edward; “Socialism: Utopian and Scientific”, Melbourne: Andrade’s / Smithson Bros., 1918, p. 27.

³³ ibid., p. 37.

³⁴ Marx, Karl; and Engels, Frederick; “The Communist Manifesto”, Melbourne: Communist Party of Australia / Ruskin Press, 1932?, p. 39.

³⁵ Lukes, Steven, “Marxism and Morality”, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985, pp. 9 - 11.

³⁶ Engels, “Socialism: Utopian and Scientific”, p. 25.

³⁷ Lukes, Op. Cit., pp. 17-29.

³⁸ ibid., pp. 40-1.

³⁹ Cole, G.D.H., “A Century of Co-operation”, Oxford: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1944, p. 28.

⁴⁰ Potter, Beatrice, “The Co-operative Movement in Great Britain”, London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1891, pp. 15-6.

⁴¹ The Apple Lisa, the predecessor of the Apple Macintosh, was a desktop computer introduced in the early 1980s. It introduced consumers to a number of features that were ahead of their time (such as a mouse-driven graphical interface, virtual memory, multitasking, etc.) which have since become standards. Yet, due to its flawed implementation, the Apple Lisa failed in the marketplace.

⁴² Owen, Robert, "A New View of Society" (originally published in 1813/1814), in Gartrell, V.A. (ed.), "Report to the County of Lanark / A New View of Society", Ringwood: Penguin Books, 1970, p. 207.

⁴³ ibid., p. 222.

⁴⁴ ibid., p. 222.

⁴⁵ ibid., p. 223.

⁴⁶ ibid., pp. 222-3.

⁴⁷ Lambart, Paul, “Studies in the Social Philosophy of Co-operation”, pp. 180-4.

⁴⁸ Potter, Beatrice, “The Co-operative Movement in Great Britain”, p. 215.

⁴⁹ ibid., pp. 199-204.

⁵⁰ Owen, Robert, "A New View of Society", pp. 242, 246-7.

⁵¹ Lambart, Paul, “Studies in the Social Philosophy of Co-operation”, p. 40.

⁵² Owen, Op. Cit., p. 246.

⁵³ ibid., p. 236.

⁵⁴ Cole, G.D.H., “A Century of Co-operation”, p. 19.

⁵⁵ Owen, Robert, "A New View of Society", pp. 18-9.

⁵⁶ Cole, op. Cit., pp. 59 and 408.

⁵⁷ ibid., pp. 62-3.

⁵⁸ ibid., p. 155.

⁵⁹ Lyons, Mark, “Third Sector: The Contribution of Nonprofit and Co-operative Enterprise in Australia”, St. Leonards, N.S.W.: Allen & Unwin, 2001, p. 13.

⁶⁰ Cole, Op. Cit., p. 37.

⁶¹ ibid., p. 63.

⁶² Pulsford, Frank, “The Place and Power of Idealism in the Co-operative Movement”, in New South Wales Co-operative Union, “First Australian Congress of Consumers’ Co-operative Societies, Held 6th to 10th April, 1920”, Sydney: The Worker Trade Union Print, p. 30.

⁶³ This discussion is based on Cole, “A Century of Co-operation”, pp. 63-74; as well as analysis of co-operatives and corporations in Donnelly, Mary, “Co-operatives: What are They? What do They do? How Can They Help You?”, Sydney: Australian Association of Co-operatives Ltd., 1989, p.4; Charles, Graeme, and Griffiths, David, “The Co-operative Formation Decision: Discussing the Co-operative Option”, Frankston: Co-operative Federation of Victoria Ltd., 2003 and 2004, p.3.

⁶⁴ Birchall, Johnston, “Co-op: The People’s Business”, Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1994, p. 54.

⁶⁵ Op. Cit.

⁶⁶ Craig, John G., “The Nature of Co-operation”, Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1993, p. 33.

⁶⁷ Cole, G.D.H., “A Century of Co-operation”, p.89.

⁶⁸ Craig, Op. Cit., pp. 24-5.

⁶⁹ ibid., p. 34.

⁷⁰ Gide, Charles, "Consumers' Co-operative Societies",p. 122.

⁷¹ ibid., p. 122.

⁷² Craig, John G., “The Nature of Co-operation”, p. 164.

⁷³ ibid., p. 166.

⁷⁴ ibid., p. 165.

⁷⁵ ibid., p. 166.

⁷⁶ Lukes, Steven, “Marxism and Morality”, pp. 9 - 11.

⁷⁷ Gide, Charles, "Consumers' Co-operative Societies",p. 198.

⁷⁸ ibid., pp. 5 - 6.

⁷⁹ ibid., p. 7.

⁸⁰ ibid., p. 9.

⁸¹ Cole, G.D.H., “The British Co-operative Movement in a Socialist Society: A Report for the Fabian Society”, London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1951, pp. 77, 82-3, and 118.

⁸² ibid., pp. 140-2.

⁸³ ibid., pp. 81-2.

⁸⁴ The Mutual Store Limited on the Co-operative Principle, “Objects and Constitution of the Society with Catalogue of Stock”, Melbourne: Stillwell and Co. Printers, April 1881, pp. iii - 2, and 162.

⁸⁵ Equitable Co-operative Society Limited, Melbourne; “Rules of the Equitable Co-operative Society Limited, Melbourne”, Melbourne: Mason, Firth, & McCutcheon, General Printers, 1882.

⁸⁶ The People’s Co-operative Society, Williamstown, Limited, “Articles of Association of The People’s Co-operative Society, Williamstown, Limited”: Williamstown: Publisher and date unknown.

⁸⁷ Lyons, Mark, “Third Sector”, p. 99.

⁸⁸ ibid., p. 99.

⁸⁹ Craig, John G., “The Nature of Co-operation”, p. 164.

⁹⁰ Australian News and Information Bureau, “Co-operatives in Australia”, Canberra: Australian News and Information Bureau, 1972, p. 4.

⁹¹ Lewis, Gary John, “A Middle Way”, p. 56.

⁹² Burke, J.A., “The Starting of New Societies” in New South Wales Co-operative Union, “First Australian Congress of Consumers’ Co-operative Societies, Held 6th to 10th April, 1920”, Sydney: The Worker Trade Union Print, pp. 141-4.

⁹³ ibid., p. 142.

⁹⁴ Ministerial Advisory Committee on Co-operation, “The Co-operative Way: Victoria’s Third Sector: M.A.C.C. Report 1986”, Melbourne: Ministerial Advisory Committee on Co-operation, pp. 35-6.

⁹⁵ Lewis, Gary John, “A Middle Way”, p. 18.

⁹⁶ ibid., p. 18.

⁹⁷ ibid., p. 25.

⁹⁸ ibid., p. 26.

⁹⁹ Australian News and Information Bureau, “Co-operatives in Australia”, p. 9.

¹⁰⁰ Lane, M.J., "Opening Remarks", in Co-operative Federation of Australia, "Australian Co-operatives National Convention Report", Canberra: Co-operative Federation of Australia, August 1973, p. 14.

¹⁰¹ New South Wales Co-operative Union, “First Australian Congress of Consumers’ Co-operative Societies, Held 6th to 10th April, 1920”, Sydney: The Worker Trade Union Print, 1920, pp. 56 - 65, and pp. 86 - 99.

¹⁰² ibid., p. 70.

¹⁰³ Burke, J.A., “The Starting of New Societies”, p. 146.

¹⁰⁴ Griffiths, David, "Co-operation Between Co-operatives", http://www.australia.coop/publish/article_240.php Uploaded 12/2/2006 Downloaded 23/2/2006.

¹⁰⁵ Lyons, Mark, "Co-operatives in Australia: A Background Paper," Sydney: University of Technology, June 2001, p. 10.

¹⁰⁶ Hobsbawm, Eric, “The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century: 1914 - 1991”, London: Abacus Books, 1994, p. 74.

¹⁰⁷ ibid., p. 66.

¹⁰⁸ O'Sullivan, Hugh, "The Chatter of Wooden Clogs: A Challenge for Today's Young Worker", Granville: Australian Young Christian Workers Movement, 1991, p. vii.

¹⁰⁹ Long, Ted,”Helping Each Other Through Co-operatives: Revised Edition”, Melbourne: Co-operative Development Society, 1961, p. 4.

¹¹⁰ National Catholic Rural Movement, “Fruits of the Vine: Handbook of the National Catholic Rural Movement”, Fitzroy: Australian Catholic Publications, 1958, p. 7.

¹¹¹ Giddens, John, “Invest in the Future of Your Credit Society”, Melbourne: The Australian Catholic Truth Society, 20th October, 1963, p. 3; and Long, “Helping Each Other Through Co-operatives”, pp. 5, and 13. This having been said, in 1966 the ICA updated the Rochdale Principles (as listed in Appendix B), removed “[Partisan] political and religious neutrality”, “Trading strictly on a cash basis”, and “Selling only pure and unadulterated goods” as principles, and officially added in “Co-operation between co-operatives” (i.e. Co-operative Federalism) as a principle.

¹¹² Long, ibid., pp. 10 - 5, and 22.

¹¹³ Long, ibid., pp. 5-7.; as well as Pepper, Susan, “ GIving Credit to the People: A History of the Credit Co-operative Movement in Victoria”, Windsor, Vic: The Victorian Credit Co-operative Association, 1985, pp. 11 - 34.

¹¹⁴ Griffiths, David, "Co-operation Between Co-operatives", http://www.australia.coop/publish/article_240.php Uploaded 12/2/2006 Downloaded 23/2/2006.

¹¹⁵ National Catholic Rural Movement, “Fruits of the Vine”, p. 9.

¹¹⁶ ibid., pp. 87-92.

¹¹⁷ ibid., p. 26.

¹¹⁸ ibid., p. 114.

¹¹⁹ ibid., pp. 113 - 5.

¹²⁰ Registrar of Co-operative Societies (Victoria), “Annual Report of the Registrar”, 1955 Edition, Melbourne: Government Printer, 1955, pp. 1 - 5.

¹²¹ Registrar of Co-operative Societies (Victoria), “Annual Report of the Registrar”, 1972 Edition, p. 4.

¹²² Registrar of Co-operative Societies (Victoria), “Annual Report of the Registrar”, 1975 Edition, p. 3.

¹²³ ibid., p.5.

¹²⁴ Jenkinson, Jo, “A History of The Emerald and District Co-operative Society”, Emerald: Emerald Museum, 2005, pp. 32-9.

¹²⁵ Registrar of Co-operative Societies (Victoria), “Annual Report of the Registrar”, 1971 Edition, p. 5.

¹²⁶ The YCW Central Credit Co-operative, for instance, being folded into the Hibernian Credit Co-operative in 1977 (Registrar of Co-operative Societies (Victoria), “Annual Report of the Registrar”, 1977 Edition, p. 9.) while the YCW Co-operative’s breakaway Geelong branch folded in 1971. (Registrar of Co-operative Societies (Victoria), “Annual Report of the Registrar”, 1971 Edition, pp. 4-5.)

¹²⁷ Mathews, Race, “B.A. Santamaria and the Marginalising of Social Catholicism: A Study in Unintended Consequences,” Unpublished paper preparaed for ‘The Great Labor Split 1955: Fifty Years Later’ Conference, Parliament House, Melbourne, 15th and 16th April, 2005.

¹²⁸ Griffiths, David, "Co-operation Between Co-operatives", http://www.australia.coop/publish/article_240.php Uploaded 12/2/2006 Downloaded 23/2/2006

¹²⁹ Registrar of Co-operative Societies (Victoria), “Annual Report of the Registrar”, 1971 Edition, p. 4.

¹³⁰ Griffiths, Op. Cit.

¹³¹ Registrar of Co-operative Societies (Victoria), “Annual Report of the Registrar”, 1973 Edition, p. 4.

¹³² Registrar of Co-operative Societies (Victoria), “Annual Report of the Registrar”, 1974 Edition, p. 5.

¹³³ Registrar of Co-operative Societies (Victoria), “Annual Report of the Registrar”, 1976 Edition, p. 4.

¹³⁴ Craig, John G., “The Nature of Co-operation”, p. 38.

¹³⁵ ibid.

¹³⁶ Hamer, Hon. Sir R.J., “Closing Address to the Conference on Structural Change and Employment”, in State Government of Victoria, “Work for Tomorrow!: Proceedings of the Victorian Government Conference on Structural Change and Employment”, Stonnington: State Government of Victoria, 12th to 14th December, 1978, p. 444.

¹³⁷ ibid., p. 444.

¹³⁸ The Co-operator, “CDP: What Next?”, in “The Co-operator: Victoria’s Journal of Co-operative Affairs”, No. 2., Sept. / Oct. 1984, p. 5.

¹³⁹ Greer, Brian, “A Review of Worker Co-operative Development Agencies in Australia”, Canberra: Department of Education and Youth Affairs, 1984, p. 10.

¹⁴⁰ ibid.

¹⁴¹ Kison, Rose (ed.), “Managing a Community Employment Co-operative”, Melbourne: Victorian Ministry of Employment and Training, 1951, pp. 1-3, and 9.

¹⁴² Ministerial Advisory Committee on Co-operation, “The Co-operative Way”, p. 53.

¹⁴³ Greer, Brian, “A Review of Worker Co-operative Development Agencies in Australia”, p. 10.

¹⁴⁴ Department of Management and Budget, "Victoria: The Next Step: Economic Initiatives and Opportunities for the 1980s: Detailed Papers", Melbourne: State Government of Victoria, April 9th, 1984, p. 25.

¹⁴⁵ Charles, Graeme; and Griffiths, David; "The Co-operative Formation Decision: Discussing the Co-operative Option", Frankston: Co-operative Federation of Victoria, 2003, p. 7.

¹⁴⁶ Burke, Joe; and Griffiths, David; “Democracy at Work”, in Society: Magazine of Social Issues, Woden: Australian Institute of Criminology, November 1986, p. 16.

¹⁴⁷ Ministerial Advisory Committee on Co-operation, “The Development of the Co-operative Movement in Victoria”, Melbourne: Ministerial Advisory Committee on Co-operation, 1984, p. 5.

¹⁴⁸ Ministerial Advisory Committee on Co-operation, “The Co-operative Way”, p. 23.

¹⁴⁹ ibid., p. 23.

¹⁵⁰ Ministerial Advisory Committee on Co-operation, “Co-operation in Victoria”, Melbourne: Ministerial Advisory Committee on Co-operation, 1985, p. 5.

¹⁵¹ ibid., pp. 5 and 10.

¹⁵² Ministerial Advisory Committee on Co-operation, “The Co-operative Way”, p. 65.

¹⁵³ ibid., p. 66.

¹⁵⁴ ibid., p. 63.

¹⁵⁵ Meredith, Geoffrey Grant; and Greer, Brian; “Democracy Through Education: The Development of Co-operative Education and Training in Victoria: Prepared for the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Co-operation,” Melbourne: Ministerial Advisory Committee on Co-operation, December, 1984, pp. 36 and 101.

¹⁵⁶ ibid., pp. 15, 36, and 41.

¹⁵⁷ Ministerial Advisory Committee on Co-operation, “The Co-operative Way”, p. 94.

¹⁵⁸ ibid., p. 71.

¹⁵⁹ ibid., pp. 69-70, and 73.

¹⁶⁰ ibid., pp. 119-21.

¹⁶¹ ibid., pp. 83 - 4.

¹⁶² ibid., pp. 67, 82, 102 - 4 and 119.

¹⁶³ Alderton, Glen, “Pride and Poverty: An Examination of Unfilled Needs”, Fitzroy: The Brotherhood of St. Laurence Needs Action Review, 1980.

¹⁶⁴ Brotherhood of St. Laurence, “Co-ops Save”, in “Action”. no. 250, December 1983, p. 3.

¹⁶⁵ Brotherhood of St. Laurence, “Mr Vu” in “Action”, No. 249, October 1983, p. 4.

¹⁶⁶ Manton, Joe, et. al., “Under Current Co-op Helpful Information for Co-ops”, Fitzroy: Under Current Co-op., September 1983, p.2.

¹⁶⁷ Brotherhood of St. Laurence, “Co-ops Save” in “Action”, No. 250, December 1983, p. 3.

¹⁶⁸ Bourn, Alison, et. al., “Food Co-operatives in Victoria by The Victorian Food Co-operative Study Group”, Collingwood: Victorian Food Co-operative Study Group, July 1984, p. 2.

¹⁶⁹ Victorian Food Co-operative Study Group, “Moving Food Co-operative Limited, the Food Co-operatives’ Warehouse: Business Plan,” Collingwood, Vic.: Victorian Food Co-operative Study Group, 1985, p. 13.

¹⁷⁰ Bourn, Alison, et. al., Op. Cit.

¹⁷¹ Bourn, Alison; Hayward, Louise; Luker, Trish; “Development of the Food Co-operative Sector: Appropriate Resource Provision,” Collingwood, Vic: Victorian Food Co-operative Study Group, 1985, pp. 29-30, 37- 8, 52 and 703.

¹⁷² Bourn, Alison, et. al., Op. Cit., pp. 47, 57, 67, and 70.

¹⁷³ ibid., pp. 94-5.

¹⁷⁴ Victorian Food Co-operative Study Group, “Moving Food Co-operative Limited:”, pp. 53-5, p. 70.

¹⁷⁵ Victorian ALP 1985 Election Platform (authorised by Peter Batchelor), “Social Justice: The Next 4 Years: John Cain and Victoria. The Partnership Works.”, Carlton: Victorian ALP, 1985, p. 9.

¹⁷⁶ Keenan, Michelle, “Government Wastes Resources in Food Co-operative Sector”, in “The Co-operator”, No 12: June 1986, p. 6.

¹⁷⁷ Murray, Robert, and White, Kate, “The Fall of the House of Cain”, Melbourne: Spectrum Publications, 1992, p. 67.

¹⁷⁸ Lambart, Paul, “Studies in the Social Philosophy of Co-operation”, p. 40.

¹⁷⁹ ibid.

¹⁸⁰ Albo, Gregory, “Popular Power and Democratic Administration,” in Albo, Gregory; Langille, David; and Panitch, Leo (eds.), “A Different Kind of State? Popular Power and Democratic Administration”, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1993, p. 32.

¹⁸¹ Panitch, Leo, “A Different Kind of State?”, in Albo, Gregory; Langille, David; and Panitch, Leo (eds.), “A Different Kind of State? Popular Power and Democratic Administration”, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1993, pp. 6-7, p. 11.

¹⁸² ibid.

¹⁸³ Brownstone, Meyer, “Moving Beyond the Limited Democracy of Social Democracy”, in Albo, Gregory; Langille, David; and Panitch, Leo (eds.), “A Different Kind of State? Popular Power and Democratic Administration”, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1993, p. 183.

¹⁸⁴ Wikimedia Foundation, “Home - Wikimedia Foundation”, http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home

¹⁸⁵ Free Software Foundation, “GNU Free Documentation License”, http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/fdl.html

¹⁸⁶ Leadbeater, Charles, “The Enterprises that People Trust,” in “The New Statesman,” Vol. 129, No. 4428, 1996.

¹⁸⁷ Hobsbawm, Eric, “The Age of Extremes, pp. 74-5.

¹⁸⁸ Landry, Charles; Morley, David; Southwood, Russell; and Wright, Patrick; “What a Way to Run a Railroad: An Analysis of Radical Failure”, London: Comedia Publishing Group, 1985, pp. 9-10.

¹⁸⁹ Suzuki, David; and Dressel, Holly; “Good News for a Change: Hope for a Troubled Planet”, St. Leonards, N.S.W.: Allen & Unwin, 2002, p. 42.

¹⁹⁰ ibid., pp. 41 - 4.

¹⁹¹ Latham, Mark, “The Latham Diaries”, Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 2005, pp. 9 - 18.

¹⁹² North East Telecommunications Co-operative Ltd., “NETC Portal - About NetC”, http://www.netc.coop/about_netc, downloaded 1/8/ 2006.

¹⁹³ Tau Ceti Co-operative Ltd., “About the Tau Ceti Co-operative,” http://www.tauceti.org.au/aboutTauCeti.shtml, downloaded 1/8/ 2006.

¹⁹⁴ The New International Bookshop Cooperative, “The New International Co-operative Bookshop Cooperative: About Us”, http://www.nibs.org.au/?page_id=2, downloaded 1/8/ 2006.

¹⁹⁵ Progressive Broadcasting Service Co-operative, “PBS 106.7FM - About”, http://www.pbsfm.org.au/Index.asp?Action=Section&ID=232&Title=About, downloaded 1/8/ 2006.

¹⁹⁶ East Melbourne Childcare Co-operative “What is the EMCC?”, http://emcc.org.au/index.php?page=emccwhat, downloaded 1/8/ 2006.

¹⁹⁷ OPEN CHANNEL Cooperative, “Membership”, http://www.openchannel.org.au/a_join.html ; and “About Us”, http://www.openchannel.org.au/about.html, downloaded 1/8/ 2006.

¹⁹⁸ Victorian Aboriginal Health Service Co-operative Ltd., “Victorian Aboriginal Health Service Co-operative Ltd.”, http://www.inform.webcentral.com.au/t_vicaborig.htm, downloaded 1/8/ 2006.

¹⁹⁹ Bendigo Squash Centre Co-operative Limited “Bendigo Squash Club... Proving Fitness can be Fun!: History of the Bendigo Squash Centre Co-operative Limited”, http://www.bendigosquashclub.com/about.htm, downloaded 1/8/ 2006.

²⁰⁰ Olinda Ski Club, “About Olinda Ski Club”, http://www.skioldina.org.au/, downloaded 1/8/ 2006.

²⁰¹ A list of Victorian Co-operative society websites is online at: Co-operative Development Services Ltd., “Links to Victorian Co-operatives”, http://www.coopdevelopment.org.au/viclinks.htmldownloaded 1/8/ 2006; a number of Co-operative profiles is available online at: Co-operative Federation of Victoria, “Co-operative Profiles”, http://www.australia.coop/case_studies.htm, downloaded 1/8/ 2006.

²⁰² Co-operative Purchasing Services Ltd., “About CPS”, http://www.cps.asn.au/about_cps.cfm, downloaded 1/8/ 2006.

²⁰³ Co-operative Federation of Victoria, “Australia.coop Front Page”, http://www.australia.coop/publish/index.php, downloaded 1/8/ 2006.

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