Worker cooperatives failed from capital scarcity and capitalist supplier discrimination

Evidence

1860s, the National Labor Movement, located the oppression of workers in the “wages system” and promoted cooperative worker enterprises while remaining hostile to strikes. The cooperative movement reached a peak shortly after the Civil War but failed because sufficient capital could not be raised. The cooperative effort of the even more influential Knights of Labor in the 1880s foundered on the same problem, as well as the overt discrimination by capitalist suppliers and transporters. — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America, 641

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Cooperatives defined profit as benefiting workers, not invested capital — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 425; Elite economists branded worker cooperatives as Bolshevik threats to established enterprise. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 430; Gradualist worker cooperatives still depended on surviving inside capitalist markets — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 444 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Competing with capitalist firms forces worker cooperatives into managerial domination and democratic decline. #expands (0.82) — Adrian Josef Amon, Organizing the study of degeneration…, 19
• Worker guilds thrived in industries requiring little capital and where capitalism had failed housing #qualifies (0.80)
• Worker organizations mimicking corporate structure neutralize rather than challenge capital #complicates (0.78) — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 393
• Capitalist rationalization attempts to co-opt worker militancy through co-operative management schemes #complicates (0.75)