ABSTRACT
This introductory part explains major features of the book. Firstly, while many social scientists highlighted the emergence of the cooperative movement and stakeholder capitalism as a new ‘third way’ to address inequality from a macroscopic perspective, this book goes one step further by describing a detailed mechanism by which cooperatives create decent work and reduce inequality from a microscopic perspective. To this end, it clarifies the mechanism in which cooperatives create an upper hand over conventional companies in ‘labor-intensive’ sectors, thereby boosting employment potential. Furthermore, this book shows that such a focus on labor-intensive sectors is pivotal from a policy perspective since labor-intensive sectors have become increasingly important for job creation in the twenty-first century. Secondly, this book links the cooperative movement with an emerging global agenda—specifically population aging—and reveals the potential of cooperatives to address the negative effects of aging societies. Thirdly, the current volume seeks to explore the role of governments in supporting the cooperative movement. It provides a foundational work on ‘decentralized supporting mechanisms for cooperatives’ based on the analysis of the South Korean case in particular. Fourthly, this book explains how to use Official Development Assistance (ODA) to support cooperatives in developing countries, especially Private Sector Instruments (PSIs).
