Journal of Co-operative Studies, 51(1), 43-51

Abstract

While the origins of the modern co-operative model are well known, it is possible to situate that story within a longer set of tradition and practice around mutuality. Drawing on a looser definition than that of the modern co-operative business, of people working together equitably as members of a formal and open body that exists to meet their economic and wider needs, a range of initiatives across cultures and centuries emerge from relevant sources as possible cases of early co-operation and mutuality. This paper sets out twelve examples as illustrations of this.  The limits to an exercise such as this are considerable. While there may be evidence of the function or the rules governing the activities concerned in these cases, it is harder to find evidence of a culture of mutuality. The names used for different initiatives are varied and to look for consistency by applying modern labels retrospectively can be misleading. However, as a tentative conclusion, forms of co‑operation appear both adaptable and capable of reinvention. If true, then today’s co-operatives are perhaps expressive of a pattern of mutuality that is deep and recurrent in the ways that people choose to organise over time.

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