This week, Megan McGee profiles a new media cooperative that's operating under an old name. When the writers for the newly reborn Gourmet Magazine noticed that publishing conglomerate Condé Nast had let the trademark on the shuttered masthead expire, they snapped it up and restarted the storied publication as a worker cooperative.
Then, Luis Razeto thinks through what would be required to achieve a democratic transformation of the market, and analyzes the theoretical and practical obstacles to that goal that cooperators will need to overcome.
A Gourmet for the People
by Megan McGee
On choosing the co-op model for their startup, Dean says, “It was both ideological in that we believe in co-ops as a good thing to do in the world, and also functionally, it doesn't seem like there is any other way to make things work.” The outside-investor profit motive, he says, has made newspapers into little more than capitalist products of profit generation, and the business model of trying to extract extra money through things like ad revenue seems to him “destructive to the creation of information.
Cooperative Enterprise and Market Economy: Chapter 18
by Luis Razeto Migliaro; transl. by Matt Noyes
Even in capitalism, other categories are economically active: the State, cooperatives, unions, etc., just as in socialism there remain cooperative enterprises and spaces of private property. The decisive thing, though, is that in capitalism the ruling economic category is capital and in socialism it is the State, while the other factors remain subordinated, and it is this difference that defines them as distinct and opposed economic systems.)
Women-owned co-op works to bring good food to all with pay-as-you-can model
City Beat — Big Table Farm Cooperative today announced its official formation as a producer co-op, a move designed to strengthen local agriculture through farm businesses banding together. Founded by a group of three women farmers, the co-op aims to offer fresh, seasonal local produce to its Cincinnati area farm subscription members through a democratically run, producer-owned business model, according to a press release...
Topia Coffee Co-Op Rebrands as Radical Bean Cooperative
Cincinnati Magazine — “We were changing the vision a little bit,” says Kennelly-Gaither. “The prices of the old pour-overs were too expensive for the area. Our focus being more community-driven, we felt that rebranding would help the community be reintroduced to us.”...“What we’re trying to do is create a third space that is realistically meeting the needs of the community as well as an affordable place,” Kennelly-Gaither says...
Building a solidarity economy, even in authoritarian times
Laura Flanders — The People’s Network for Land & Liberation consortium includes six community-based organizations that are doing politics and economics differently. That looks like a Black cooperatively-owned sea moss business in Atlanta, or a digital fabrication lab where people can 3-D print the things they need. “We can stop feeding the monster that’s consuming us, and actually disconnect from that process and use what we have,” says PNLL Network Member Blair Evans...
Review of 'Cooperatives in the Global Economy'
Academia.edu — After a foundational chapter on the meaning of cooperative enterprise and its distinction among the endless models and forms of economic activity, the rest of the book essentially looks at geographic profiles. Readers learn about the thriving cooperative movement in Tanzania, India, Philippines, Argentina, South Africa, Armenia, ‘Post-Yugoslav Space’ and others. Some of the chapter contributions are historical and qualitative, while others implement fresh quantitative research on a particular aspect of cooperative economics...
Co-ops: Pledge your commitment to labor neutrality
USFWC — In 2025, the USFWC membership voted unanimously to endorse labor neutrality as a standard for the cooperative sector...Labor neutrality is when an employer commits to taking no position for or against their workers organizing and to voluntary recognize a labor union without requiring an election facilitated by a third party (commonly through a “card check” process)....We are now calling on USFWC members and the broader cooperative sector to take the next step and make a public commitment to labor neutrality in their organization. This is a call to action for all types of co-op businesses, nonprofits, support organizations, and networks alike. Pledges will be made publicly and listed on the USFWC’s website. By publicly committing to respect workers’ rights, we are proudly demonstrating the cooperative difference to workers and leaders across the US...
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