A 

cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of

 businesses owned and managed by the people who use their services (a consumer
cooperative)
 organizations managed by the people who work there (worker cooperatives)
 multi-stakeholder or hybrid cooperatives that share ownership between different
stakeholder groups. For example, care cooperatives where ownership is shared between
both care-givers and receivers. Stakeholders might also include non-profits or investors.
 second- and third-tier cooperatives whose members are other cooperatives
 platform cooperatives that use a cooperatively owned and governed website, mobile app
or a protocol to facilitate the sale of goods and services.
Research published by the Worldwatch Institute found that in 2012 approximately one billion people
in 96 countries had become members of at least one cooperative.[2] The turnover of the largest three
hundred cooperatives in the world reached $2.2 trillion.[3]
Cooperative businesses are typically more productive[4] and economically resilient than many other
forms of enterprise, with twice the number of co-operatives (80%) surviving their first five years
compared with other business ownership models (41%) according to data from United Kingdom.
[5]
 The largest worker owned cooperative in the world, the Mondragon Corporation (founded by
Catholic priest José María Arizmendiarrieta), has been in continuous operation since 1956.[6]
Cooperatives frequently have social goals, which they aim to accomplish by investing a proportion of
trading profits back into their communities. As an example of this, in 2013, retail co-operatives in
the UK invested 6.9% of their pre-tax profits in the communities in which they trade as compared
with 2.4% for other rival supermarkets.[7]
Since 2002 cooperatives have been distinguishable on the Internet through the use of
a .coop domain. In 2014, the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) introduced the Cooperative
Marque, meaning ICA cooperatives and WOCCU credit unions can also be identified through a
coop ethical consumerism label.
Cooperation dates back as far as human beings have been organizing for mutual benefits. Tribes
were organized as cooperative structures, allocating jobs and resources among each other, only
trading with the external communities.[citation needed] In alpine environments, trade could only be
maintained in organized cooperatives to achieve a useful condition of artificial roads such
as Viamala in 1472.[8] Pre-industrial Europe is home to the first cooperatives from an industrial
context.[9] The roots of the cooperative movement can be traced to multiple influences and extend
worldwide. In the English-speaking world, post-feudal forms of cooperation between workers and
owners that are expressed today as "profit sharing" and "surplus sharing" arrangements existed as
far back as 1795.[10] The key ideological influence on the Anglosphere branch of the cooperative
movement, however, was a rejection of the charity principles that underpinned welfare reforms when
the British government radically revised its Poor Laws in 1834. As both state and church institutions
began to routinely distinguish between the 'deserving' and 'undeserving' poor, a movement of
friendly societies grew throughout the British Empire based on the principle of mutuality, committed
to self-help in the welfare of working people.[citation needed]
Robert Owen (1771–1858) was a social reformer and a pioneer of the cooperative movement.
In 1761, the Fenwick Weavers' Society was formed in Fenwick, East Ayrshire, Scotland to
sell discounted oatmeal to local workers.[11] Its services expanded to include assistance with savings
and loans, emigration and education. In 1810, Welsh social reformer Robert Owen, from Newtown in
mid-Wales, and his partners purchased the New Lanark mill from Owen's father-in-law, David Dale,
and proceeded to introduce better labour standards, including discounted retail shops where profits
were passed on to his employees. Owen left New Lanark to pursue other forms of cooperative
organization and develop coop ideas through writing and lecture. Cooperative communities were set
up in Glasgow, Indiana and Hampshire, although ultimately unsuccessful. In 1828, William King set
up a newspaper, The Cooperator, to promote Owen's thinking, having already set up a cooperative
store in Brighton.[12][13]
Also in 1810, Rev. Henry Duncan of the Ruthwell Presbyterian
Church in Dumfriesshire, Scotland founded a friendly society to create a cooperative depository
institution at which his poorest parishioners could hold savings
accounts accruing interest for sickness and old-age, which was the first established savings
bank that would be merged into the Trustee Savings Bank between 1970 and 1985.[14]
[15]
 The Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers, founded in 1844, is usually considered the first
successful cooperative enterprise, used as a model for modern coops, following the 'Rochdale
Principles'. A group of 28 weavers and other artisans in Rochdale, England set up the society to
open their own store selling food items they could not otherwise afford. Within ten years there were
over a thousand cooperative societies in the United Kingdom.[citation needed]
"Spolok Gazdovský" (The Association of Administrators or The Association of Farmers) founded in
1845 by Samuel Jurkovič, was the first cooperative in Europe (Credit union). The cooperative
provided a cheap loan from funds generated by regular savings for members of the cooperative.
Members of cooperative had to commit to a moral life and had to plant two trees in a public place
every year. Despite the short duration of its existence, until 1851, it thus formed the basis of the
cooperative movement in Slovakia.[16][17] Slovak national thinker Ľudovít Štúr said about the
association: "We would very much like such excellent constitutions to be established throughout our
region. They would help to rescue people from evil and misery. A beautiful, great idea, a beautiful
excellent constitution!"[18]
Other events such as the founding of a friendly society by the Tolpuddle Martyrs in 1832 were key
occasions in the creation of organized labor and consumer movements.[19]
Friendly Societies established forums through which one member, one vote was practiced in
organisation decision-making. The principles challenged the idea that a person should be an owner
of property before being granted a political voice. Throughout the second half of the nineteenth
century (and then repeatedly every twenty years or so) there was a surge in the number of
cooperative organisations, both in commercial practice and civil society, operating to
advance democracy and universal suffrage as a political principle.[20] Friendly Societies and
consumer cooperatives became the dominant form of organization amongst working people in
Anglosphere industrial societies prior to the rise of trade unions and industrial factories. Weinbren
reports that by the end of the 19th century, over 80% of British working age men and 90% of
Australian working age men were members of one or more Friendly Society.[21]
From the mid-nineteenth century, mutual organisations embraced these ideas in economic
enterprises, firstly amongst tradespeople, and later in cooperative stores, educational institutes,
financial institutions and industrial enterprises. The common thread (enacted in different ways, and
subject to the constraints of various systems of national law) is the principle that an enterprise or
association should be owned and controlled by the people it serves, and share any surpluses on the
basis of each member's cooperative contribution (as a producer, labourer or consumer) rather than
their capacity to invest financial capital.[22]