ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the dynamics of history, alterity and obligation in relation to the co-operative movement in England. Co-operatives are often regarded as an alternative to capitalist modes of organisation, with values of mutuality and solidarity prevailing over those of self-interest and profit-seeking. The chapter examines some initial gestures toward the possibility of a genealogy of the co-operative, drawing on the work of Michel Foucault. It argues that the co-operative, as it is understood, was constituted in part through a process of legal recognition in the mid-nineteenth century. The chapter discusses the particular role of law and legal recognition. The co-operative emerges in the mid-nineteenth century as a distinct organisational form in part through a process of legal recognition. The idea that the market could serve this disciplinary function was relatively new in the nineteenth century, and reflects the increasing influence of the discourse of political economy.
