ABSTRACT
After the inception of the cooperative movement in the mid-nineteenth century, it was widely held that capital-managed enterprises would soon be replaced by a system of worker-controlled firms and a wealth of political agendas called for a major impulse to cooperation in later years also. Shortly after the establishment of the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers (which is rated as the true prototype of the modern cooperative), John Stuart Mill argued that the form of association which would eventually prevail was “not that which can exist between a capitalist as chief, and work-people without a voice in the management, but the association of the labourers themselves on terms of equality, collectively owning the capital with which they carry on their operations, and working under managers elected and removable by themselves” (see Mill 1871, pp. 720 and 723). A comparable view is perceived behind Marshall’s claim that no serious obstacles stand in the way of the growth of the cooperative movement and that its ultimate assertion is consequently just a question of time.1
