ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the history of the Italian cooperative movement, and analyzes the main characteristics of the present-day movement. It focuses on how cooperatives have been involved in an ideological renewal that led them to change their structure in favor of both increasing in size and the construction of large cooperative groups, and the subsequent expansion of the movement into other fields. The chapter considers the changes in the internal management of cooperatives, namely in terms of labor relations and social and working conditions. As early as the mid-1950s, the Communist Party Congress and later the Congress of Legacoop marked a turning point in the cooperative movement. The centrality of working-class ideas decreased in favor of an alliance with the middle class through a reformism that could embrace the so-called enterprise culture. Cooperatives not only affect the market by spreading the values of solidarity and democracy, but they can also be overwhelmed by market rules.
