Civic Cooperation: The Association Between Cooperative Membership and Civic Engagement
Civic Cooperation:
The Association Between Cooperative Membership and Civic Engagement
by
Scotty C.A. Hendricks
August, 2022
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of Master of Public Policy
School of Public Service
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
DePaul University
Chicago, Illinois
Abstract
This study is an investigation into the association, if any, between being a member of a cooperative and civic engagement. Measures of civic engagement, determined by the number of organizations a person is a member of, were compared between cooperative members in Chicago who responded to a survey and members of the general public. In addition, interviews with members of the Chicago cooperative community provided context for the survey results and explanations for some of the findings.
The study finds a positive association between being in a cooperative and the number of civic organizations joined. This is impacted by demographic factors such as age and education but exists independently of them. Additionally, this study finds that most coop members say they have gained certain skills due to their cooperative membership, feel as though their time in a cooperative has helped them understand other democratically managed organizations, and were nearly certain to vote in the last presidential election.
While this study cannot determine causality, many interview subjects reported a cause-and-effect relationship between their time in a cooperative and their later civic involvement. A larger, more extensive study into this relationship is warranted. Additionally, if the effect is causal, an increased number of cooperatives might be an effective way to reverse the trend of Americans being less engaged than they were in the recent past.
Introduction
The Cooperative model of organizing an enterprise is simultaneously several hundred years old, not well-known, understudied, and enjoys extremely high levels of support. As a method of organizing businesses, modern cooperatives go back to the 1844 establishment of the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers and the creation of their list of principles, known as the “Rochdale Principles,” which form the intellectual foundation of the cooperative movement (NCBA CLUSA). However, older examples of enterprises organizing along these lines can be found. For example, many Caribbean pirate ships were democratically managed businesses in which all members had a vote and a share (Leeson, P. T. (2011).
Despite the age of the modern cooperative model, the sector is often left understudied. What makes cooperatives work, how well they work, and what their impacts on local economies are has been subject to less investigation than has been dedicated to traditional businesses.
In recent years, there has been a correction. An increasing number of studies conducted around the world have investigated cooperatives and the communities they are in. This paper will be a minor addition to this literature. In this paper, I examine the cooperative ecosystem in Chicago and how participation in these democratic enterprises influences the civic engagement of individual members. While this study is unable to examine causality, it is hoped that the data collected here will be able to establish the groundwork for a larger, more extensive study in the future that may be able to do so.
I hypothesize that engagement with a cooperative will be associated with higher levels of engagement with other organizations than for Americans in general as a result of the skills and involvement that being in a cooperative grants to the member-owner. This association, if it exists, will be found through a series of interviews and surveys with cooperative members in Chicago. The questions in both instances will focus on the level of engagement the individual has with the cooperative they are a member of as well as any civic organizations they may also participate in.
The first part of this paper will explain the issues being considered, namely cooperatives and social capital as measured by civic engagement, for the unacquainted reader. The next will be a short review of the literature on cooperatives as a business model and on social capital in the United States. The methodology section follows. The findings section, with subsections for each major finding, proceeds after that. A brief discussion section on the implications of these findings and possible explanations for them is the penultimate section. The appendices, which include maps and lists of Chicago cooperatives, the questions used during the interviews and survey, and the raw data from the wider population are included there.
Cooperatives are an understudied sector of the economy with outsized social and economic effects. Because of their democratic, equalitarian, and participatory nature, it appears highly probable that the individual member-owners have different experiences that lead to different outcomes than members of the general population who are not directly involved in cooperatives. These social outcomes appear to be understudied. This paper intends to correct this error.
The next section of this introduction will explain different types of cooperatives to the reader, the concept of social capital as it is being investigated here, and the connection between the two.
Background
A worker cooperative is likely what a person thinks of when they imagine a cooperative business. In this model, the workers at a company are the owners. Typically, a new employee will have to purchase a share- often deducted from their first few paychecks- as a requirement of working there. As with all other models, the enterprise as a whole is governed democratically, though what that looks like on a day-to-day basis can differ between two given firms. New Era Windows and Glass, formerly Republic Windows and Glass, is a famous manufactory in Chicago governed as a workers cooperative.
Consumer Cooperatives, like that established at Rochdale, are owned and operated by the shop’s customers. Members buy shares that entitle them to member ownership, often elect the board of directors, and can enjoy dividends from profits- if any- in years when they are issued. Membership is rarely a requirement to shop at the store if a person is uninterested in such involvement. One of the most well-known consumer cooperatives in the United States is Recreational Equipment Inc, often called REI. Credit Unions are also technically consumer cooperatives, as they are owned by their customers, though they are often treated differently.
Housing Cooperatives are apartments or other kinds of housing units owned and operated by those who live there. There are a number of different kinds of housing cooperatives, which can be described by their equity models. A group equity housing cooperative, often seen in student housing, is one where the members own the cooperative collectively, but none is entitled to any of the equity in particular (NASCO, 2021). All financial decisions are made democratically as a group. In Chicago, these houses can often be thought of as “boarding houses without landlords.” Members typically rent their room at rates determined by the membership (Interview subject 1)
There are also housing cooperatives that are much more similar to condominiums. The resident-owner will have their own unit in a larger building and participate in the governance of the entire building democratically alongside their neighbors. This typically requires buying shares of the corporation that owns the building, which entitles a person to the lease of a unit for the cost of an HOA fee (NASCO, 2021). There are a number of models of this kind, including ones that alter how much equity is owned by the individual member-owner and how much is owned by the corporation at large (NASCO, 2021).
This list is not all-inclusive. Other kinds of cooperatives exist, and a few of them will be mentioned later in this study. However, the kinds listed here are certainly the most common and are the primary focus of this effort.
Social capital is defined by Robert Putnam as “connections among individuals – social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them” (Putnam, 2000). In his book Bowling Alone, Putnam often uses membership in civic organizations, such as church groups, PTA boards, service organizations, fraternities, veterans groups, and political clubs, as a proxy measure for social capital in the United States on the grounds that membership lists are both easier to measure directly and indicative of the level of community involvement overall- if people are engaged with their communities they will likely be a member of some kind of organization (Putnam, 2000)
Putnam argues that social capital declined in the United States in the decades leading up to the publication of his book. Many of the trends that he cites when making this claim have continued in the following decades. Putnam considers this decline regrettable, as he ties social capital to a number of positive ends, including “better schools, faster economic development, lower crime, and more effective government” (Putnam, 1995).
As cooperatives are democratically managed businesses that often have a concern for things other than profit, which often explicitly require certain amounts of engagement between member-owners, the question of if being engaged in these institutions has an effect on certain measures of social capital naturally presents itself.
Literature Review
The history of determining the effects of democratic control over a business is long but often limited by the lack of empirical data. The beginnings of serious study on the subject can be traced back to the Victorian era and the philosophy and experiments of Robert Owen. The modern model, the previously mentioned Rochdale Society, followed his work but produced no academic material.
The most important thinker and researcher on this subject for our purposes is the contemporary of both, John Stuart Mill. John Stuart Mill spoke highly of cooperatives in his seminal work Principles of Political Economy and Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy. Beyond their economic benefits, which Mill praises at length, he posits that the nature of cooperative societies can serve as a source of personal and social improvement. Noting that the cooperatives have the potential to turn “each human being’s daily occupation into a social of the social sympathies and the practical intelligence.” (Mill, J. S.). Mill further expresses his belief that economic democracy will eventually become one of the predominant forms of economic organization in the future due to its advantages.
This notion is essentially in line with Mill’s previously expressed notions in On Liberty and Considerations on Representative Government, suggesting that putting the individual in a situation of liberty and democratic control of their environment will promote the development of the skills required to fully operate within their situation and that the reverse, a condition of being told what to do with their lives or work, will cause mental stagnation.
Continuing along the philosophic line, many of these ideas are further developed in the work of Martha Nussbaum, who avoids mention of workplace democracy but frequently speaks of the need for institutions that promote internal capacities (Nussbaum, 2013). Her stance that a minimum requirement for reaching the basic human capacities includes some measure of control over one’s political and material environment may imply that cooperatives would do a better job than traditional businesses at providing a sense of dignity and justice in addition to any other benefits they provide.
Studies that focus on the economic effects of cooperatives are in general agreement that cooperatives provide different economic outcomes than other firms and that these effects can generally be attributed to the democratic nature of their operation and ownership. Many of these differences can easily be considered advantageous without having to take a particular philosophical stance. Several have found that cooperatives do well at building up reserves in preparation for economic downturns, have better survival rates over the first few years of their existence than other enterprises, and provide stable growth in certain sectors (Buendía-Martínez, I., Álvarez-Herranz, A., & Moreira Menéndez, M. and Burdín, G. (2014).
Others suggest that cooperatives are less likely to go bankrupt in the face of economic downturns (B. Sánchez Bajo Claudia, & Roelants, B) and that they have more equitable pay scales than similar businesses that are not cooperatives (Democracy at Work Institute, & US Federation of Worker Cooperatives), and workers at self-managed firms are more productive than those at traditionally owned and operated enterprises. (Craig, B., Pencavel, J., Farber, H., & Krueger, A.).
A number of scholars have also examined the effects of cooperatives on the broader community. One study determined that Italian cities with more cooperatives enjoyed better health, less crime, more education, and a generally higher level of social well-being. (DavidErdal, “Employee Ownership is Good for Your Health,” Journal of Cooperative Thought and Practice, vol. 11, no. 1 (2012)i. Another study in Philadelphia finds that cooperatives can have a major effect on community areas if they are supported by local stakeholders (Zitcer & Dilworth, 2017).
Lastly, the effect of policy on the ability of cooperatives to form, do business, and grow is an increasing area of interest. While there is a tremendous difference in the data on what different polities can do to support cooperatives, there is agreement that something can be done to help promote cooperatives. (Buendía-Martínez, I., Álvarez-Herranz, A., & Moreira Menéndez, M, and Haynes, C., & Nembhard, J. G. (2018) and Brett Fairbaim.).
It should be noted, however, that some of these studies also suggest that there is a cultural element to the success of the cooperative sector of the economy, with at least some difficulty caused by most cultures being less familiar with the cooperative model than with alternatives. (Buendía-Martínez, I., Álvarez-Herranz, A., & Moreira Menéndez, M.).
While the literature on cooperatives is comparatively new, it does tend to conclude that cooperatives are viable businesses that can exist in a number of industries. The studies that look towards the broader social effects of these businesses tend to find that areas with more cooperatives score well on a number of metrics and outpace neighboring regions. More locally, they find that cooperatives can be highly supportive of the communities they are in. However, there is also a cultural aspect to this that may limit the effectiveness of the model in all places at all times and perhaps suggests that the relationships mentioned above are not necessarily straightforward.
For the review of social capital, civic engagement in the United States, and possible side effects of the decline of certain social groups, this study turns to a landmark work on the subject, Bowling Alone, by Robert Putnam. This work, an obvious intellectual descendent of Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, looks into how Americans began to turn away from their long history of civic engagement and joining associations by the end of the twentieth century (Bowling Alone). To do this, he looked at measures of membership in traditional civic organizations, which he treated as a “barometer” of social capital.
Another important point Putnam brings up is the shift in what engagement means for many Americans who are members of groups. He points out that many large organizations have extensive membership lists but that the typical member does very little in the way of anything other than writing yearly checks and reading a newsletter. This is conceptually and functionally rather different than being a highly engaged member of a group with regular meetings.
Reports on how engaged or disengaged with civil society Americans have been since Bowling Alone continue to be compiled. This study uses results from the Pew Charitable Trust and the General Social Survey. The Pew results are from late 2017, while the GSS results cover the time between 1972 and 2004. (Sandstrom & Alper, 2020 and National Data Program for the Social Sciences).
The Pew Graph, shown below, reports that 43% of respondents were not involved in any civic groups or organizations in December 2017. The remaining 57% of the population were engaged at different rates, with 23% of the entire sample being in one group and one group only, another 23% being in either two or three groups, and a much lower 11% reporting being in four or more groups.
This data was also broken down by demographic group, showing that many other factors influence engagement. On the whole, the more educated, higher earning, and older a respondent was, the more likely they were to be a member of at least one civic group.
Exhibit 1. A graph from the Pew Charitable Trusts showing the percentages of Americans who are civically engaged or disengaged by demographic and socioeconomic group, alongside a breakdown of how many groups each engaged respondent was in. This survey was conducted in December of 2017. (Pew Research Center).
The GSS data shows the trends in American civic engagement over the three decades covered. It suggests a gradual decline in engagement, as suggested by Bowling Alone, and begins to approach the values seen in the Pew results. Importantly, it features a slightly lower rate of non-participation among the sample size as of 2004.
Exhibit 2: This chart shows the increase in the percentage of Americans reporting no membership in civic groups by year, as recorded in the General Social Survey. (Created by the author from GSS data).
As mentioned in a previous section, this decline could be the prelude to or the cause of a number of social issues.
There is a wealth of data showing that cooperatives are effective businesses, that social capital is declining, and that both cooperatives and social capital have positive effects on the communities that have them. Let us now turn to how this study will determine if there is an association between cooperatives and capital.
Methodology
This study involved two primary sources for new data- a survey of Chicago cooperative members and a series of interviews.
The survey consists of 19 questions, listed in the appendix, focusing on the demographics of the respondent, the cooperative involvement they have, any civic engagement they report, and any perceived connection between the two kinds of involvement. Twenty-eight respondents answered survey questions, though several did not complete all 19. The respondents were largely collected by sharing a link to the survey through social networks and a forum for members of Chicagoland co-ops.
The 27 interview subjects were all members of Chicago area cooperatives, associated with Chicago area cooperatives, or historians. The interviews were semi-structured, conversational, and recorded over Zoom. The question list served as a guide for the conversations, which were allowed to naturally diverge from the list into relevant areas of discussion after the primary questions had been answered.
The goals of each interview included learning about the cooperative that the subject is a member of, the broader context that it operates in, their involvement with the co-op and civil society, and how their answers might be generalized in a way that can inform the survey data. One other interview was conducted separately in hopes of gaining more information about cooperative housing operations in Chicago.
The interview and survey subjects were self-selecting and should not be thought of as representative of either the general population or as a perfect subsection of the cooperative sector in Chicago. The typical respondent has a college education, is in their 40s, is white, and resides in a cooperative housing establishment.
I relied on five fundamental sources for my list and map of cooperatives in Chicago. One of these, the Chicommons’ map, is an attempt at a definitive map of cooperatives and solidarity economy locations in Chicago. I also turned to printed sources on all members of certain cooperative sectors, such as a list of all workers cooperatives in Chicago published by the Chicago Co-op Ed center and directors of housing cooperatives and credit unions (Chicago Co-op Ed Center, AND, ChiCommons, 2022, and Cooperative communities of Chicago, and Credit Unions Online, 2022, and US Federation of Worker Cooperatives, 2022 and Trulia and all interview subjects).
The list I have created includes elements from all of these sources but also relies on some subjectivity. Locations that have not legally defined themselves as cooperatives, despite recently being able to do so, are included on the list if they have been included in one of the others. One location that informed me in an email that they are not a cooperative, despite being listed on all the other collections and widely considered one, is also included.
Lastly, the actual levels of democracy, member engagement, and personal investment that exist at each location are going to differ in meaningful ways. While an objective measure of this sector could be made with a definition based on functionality, doing so in the time permitted for this study was impractical.
Findings
Based on a comparison with Pew Charitable Trust data from 2017, cooperative members in Chicago tend to be more civically engaged than most Americans.
The Pew survey indicates that 43% of Americans are completely uninvolved with civic groups or organizations; by comparison, 31% of this survey’s respondents reported not being a civic or community group member. Additionally, those who are members of groups are members of slightly more groups than Americans as a whole, and 83% of them report being active members of those groups (Sandstrom & Alper, 2020).
Of the survey respondents who are in a civic organization, 36% of them reported being in a single group, 47% reported being in two or three groups, and 16 percent reported being in four or more. Out of the entire sample, this translates to 26%, 33%, and 11% of the sample being in one, two or three, and four or more groups, respectively. This can be compared to the values for the general population of 23%, 23%, and 11%.
Respondents were more likely to be a member of a group than Pew respondents in their age brackets, though it was not universally true that they would be in more groups as a result. In the under-30 bracket, we see fewer unaffiliated people overall, but these extra group members appear to be in a single organization other than their cooperative. A lower percentage of them are in four groups or more than was the case for the Pew cohort. Something similar can be said for the respondents between 30 and 40, with the extra joiners deciding to be in two or three groups. None of the respondents to this survey in that age group were in four or more organizations.
Exhibit 3: A direct comparison of the rates at which survey respondents in cooperatives joined groups against that of the general population who responded to the Pew Charitable Trusts survey shown in Exhibit 1. As you can see, cooperative members tend to join civic organizations more often than the general public. (Chart by author from original data and that provided by the Pew Research Center).
The comparison between education levels of the Pew subjects and the respondents in this survey can be seen in this exhibit:
Exhibit 4: A direct comparison of the rates at which survey respondents in cooperatives joined groups against that of the general population with a college degree who responded to the Pew Charitable Trusts survey shown in Exhibit 1. Overall rates were similar, but differ in interesting ways.(Chart by author from original data and that provided by the Pew Research Center).
The respondents to this survey are highly skewed towards those with at least an undergraduate degree. This is caused by the substantial number of housing cooperative members that filled in the survey, many of which function as graduate student housing in Chicago, the fact that Chicago has a higher education rate than the rest of the United States, and the nature of the social networks used to find survey respondents. This may explain why the data is so similar to the general population data on the involvement of Americans with a four-year degree.
Respondents who did not have a four-year college degree reported higher levels of civic engagement than other Americans in the same category. All of the test subjects without a college degree reported membership in at least one civic organization, with those reporting “some college” being more involved than those reporting “some high school.” An extrapolation of the data, in which 100 data points for both this survey’s respondents and the Charitable Trust survey with a college degree were created based on the percentage reporting to be in zero, one, two or three, or four or more organizations, was compared. The difference between the two sets was statistically significant at p<.05. This data can be found in the appendix.
Cooperative members are active voters. Ninety-two percent of survey respondents voted in the last presidential election. This is well above the national rate of 66.2% and the state rate of 67% (State of Illinois and United States Election Project, 2020). This higher voting participation exists despite 96% of respondents saying there were either “not very satisfied” or “not at all satisfied” with the way democracy is working in the United States today. This rate of engagement is well above that of what would be expected merely by looking at demographics of age, race, or education. (Bureau, 2021).
The data from surveys and interviews also suggest differences in engagement levels by cooperative type.
While there are too few responses to make a definitive statement, members of consumer cooperatives were much less engaged with civic organizations than the members of other cooperatives. Only a third of respondents who listed being a member of a consumer cooperative indicated that they were engaged in civic organizations.
This limited engagement is not confined to civic engagement but also appears common in certain aspects of the membership experience itself. Unlike the other cooperative types mentioned in this study, the individual members of a consumer cooperative can often be very uninvolved in its operations. Many members merely shop at the store they are a member of and perhaps occasionally vote for its board (Interview subject 5). A third of these respondents also “strongly disagreed” the idea that they were highly involved with their cooperative, or that they had any connection to the other members. None of them claimed to have gained skills as a result of their membership.
Members of worker cooperatives who responded to the survey were more highly involved, with all of them reporting to be members of at least one civic group. Half of them stated that they strongly agreed with the statement that they were highly involved with their cooperative, while the same number reported that they have gained skills as a result of their experience.
Two-thirds of housing cooperative member respondents are engaged with civic groups, often very many of them. However, unlike the comparatively disengaged consumer cooperative respondents or the comparatively active worker cooperative respondents, there were more examples at both extremes.
A set of graphs comparing different cooperatives follows:
Exhibit 5: A majority of respondents claimed to have gained skills as a result of their time in a cooperative. However, none of the consumer cooperative respondents did. (Author’s work)
Different levels of engagement with cooperatives
A point that appears in the survey responses implicitly, in the interviews explicitly, and in several publications is that different levels of engagement are required or expected at different cooperatives.
In the group equity housing cooperatives, such as Qumbya, members generally have regular meetings and are expected to do a fair amount of work (both manual and intellectual) for the organization. This is a common feature of such housing cooperatives (Rothstein, 2018, Interview subject 1). In some other types of housing cooperatives, a management company handles the major affairs of the organization, and the only real requirement for members is to attend meetings. Others, in effect, split the difference, with a strong culture of engagement but a varying level of actual requirement (Interview subjects 7 and 8). As previously mentioned, engagement requirements for consumer cooperatives are often low to the point that there is little real engagement at all (Interview subject 5).
While it may not be demonstrable due to the limits of the survey, minimum engagement requirements appear to have influenced the development of new skills and the level of civic engagement. Eighty percent of housing cooperative respondents reported gaining new skills as a result of their involvement, along with half of worker cooperative members. None of the consumer cooperative respondents claimed to have gained new skills as a result of their cooperative involvement.
Conversely, this also means that some cooperative members will have much more free time than others. For example, one interview subject noted that they were not highly involved with civic groups, in part because of how much time they were dedicating to their housing cooperative (Interview subject 1).
Beyond this, some interview subjects pointed to the dedicated social outreach aspects of their cooperatives or other programs of their operations which all but required them to be engaged with their communities or local governments (Interview subjects 2 and 7). A future, more extensive study on this subject would do well to look into the question of how much each cooperative member is required to do in more detail and how this affects the activities they pursue.
A Synergy exists between the skills required to be an active member in a cooperative and those needed to be an engaged citizen, including public speaking skills, business acumen, confidence, and an understanding of meetings. This is evident in both the interviews and survey results.
While this study does not attempt to demonstrate causality, it does show that there is a tendency of survey respondents and interview subjects to report that they have acquired skills while living and working in cooperatives that are of use in other areas of their lives, including work at non-cooperative enterprises, civic organizations, and community engagement.
Seven in ten respondents slightly or strongly agreed with the statement that “Being involved with my cooperative has helped me to develop new skills.” A similar number (though at a higher rate due to attrition) agreed to the statement, “Many of the skills that I use/ have developed at my cooperative are transferable to other parts of my life.” Just over half, 54% of respondents also stated, “Being involved in a cooperative helps me understand other democratic organizations (example, community groups, church groups, civic groups, government, groups/etc.) better.”
In a certain sense, this finding might seem obvious. Typically, cooperatives are a kind of business enterprise providing goods and services. That a person would gain skills as a member of a business enterprise is widely accepted. However, the skills mentioned in the interviews are not necessarily typical for most workers. Perhaps most notable among these skills are those required to participate in meetings.
Additionally, Interview subject 2 explained that their cooperative experiences led them to understand that people in positions of power are in the same position that they were- trying their best, not always certain of the best route, and dealing with other people when trying to get things done.
Interview subject 5, however, had a different view. While they did gain certain skills as a cooperative member, they held that these skills were not unique to their situation and could have been gained in any similar form of organizational involvement- they just happened to get them at a cooperative.
The survey responses also differed based on which kind of cooperative the respondent claimed to be a member of. Only a third of the worker cooperative respondents felt that they had gained new skills due to being in a cooperative. Conversely, none of the consumer cooperative respondents attested that they had gained new skills due to being in a cooperative. Nearly all of the findings mentioned above are attributable to members of housing cooperatives, in part due to the much higher rate of response from them.
The cooperative sector in Chicago is larger and older than the casual observer might expect. It is widely spread all over the city and has a supportive ecosystem of education and incubation around it.
Viewing the cooperative ecosystem in Chicago in its totality leads one to realize that it is surprisingly large, with a number of firms existing to cater to it directly and foster its development. Moreover, since 2018, there have been yearly meetings of members of the cooperative sector and an increasing sense of unity among many of the firms (Interview subjects 3 and 6).
The sector took a hit during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of these changes are highly comparable to those seen in other workplaces and enterprises regarding regular levels of engagement. One key difference between traditional businesses and some cooperatives mentioned, based on the interviews, was the difficulty of maintaining federalized business structures during lockdowns. While some of the organizations described were quite used to remote meetings by the time the pandemic set in, others were not and had to suddenly adjust to the idea (Interview subjects 1 and 2). Given that many cooperatives engage with other cooperatives in a federalized manner, this caused some difficulty which was eventually managed.
Let us now turn to each major part of the cooperative sector in Chicago.
Worker cooperatives
At the time of writing, there are 35 worker cooperatives in Chicago. This number is best thought of as being close to the right answer for several reasons.
Although there is no single authoritative list of worker cooperatives in Chicago, there are several lists assembled by various members of the cooperative ecosystem, each with differing levels of completeness. For example, a list created by The United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives only includes eight member firms, while that complied by the Chicago Co-op Ed Center has 32. Both lists include firms that could be excluded, such as a firm outside of Chicago proper on the latter. Some firms I include are not found on any of the lists I relied on (Co-op Ed Center, 2021, Chicommons 2022, and United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives). In my count, I have erred on the side of generosity, given the recent changes in the law, the generally broad acceptance existing lists tend to offer, and the assumption that my sources are accurate.
There is also a bit of a question about how to properly define worker cooperatives in an environment like ours, where it has only recently been possible to legally organize as one. While it is clear that there is some broad agreement on what a worker cooperative is and, in many cases, which firms count as one, some controversy remains. This problem even extends to those firms listed as worker cooperatives in the mentioned sources. One such business I contacted responded in an email that they were not a cooperative. Interestingly, they were one of the few firms to be listed on all of the collections of worker cooperatives in Chicago I used (ChiCommons, 2022 and; Co-op Ed Center, 2021 and United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives).
One of my interview subjects expects the number of worker cooperatives to rise in the next few years in response to the law permitting their incorporation, both due to businesses that are incorrectly categorized adjusting their legal status and of the model’s availability (Interview Subject 6). The existence of both consultant companies specifically geared towards worker cooperatives and several other umbrella organizations designed to support co-ops at all stages of their existence seems to support this idea.
Consumer Cooperatives
Turning to consumer cooperatives in Chicago, we see approximately five firms. Again, this estimate is somewhat approximate and requires decision-making on the part of the observer.
At the time of writing, there are only three food coops in Chicago, all of which are on the North Side. Many previous attempts ended in failure. They included the Hyde Park Cooperative, open for seventy-five years, which closed in 2008 after a period of decline. (Grossman, 2008; CN, 2022)
One interview subject noted that the limited number of food coops is likely due to the state of the grocery market in general, where scale is extremely important, and single-location stores, in turn, are often limited to niche markets (Interview 4). Larger consumer cooperatives, such as REI, also exist.
Retail Cooperatives/ Federation Cooperatives
There is an idiosyncratic kind of cooperative that must be explained now. A “retail cooperative” is a cooperative owned and operated by the owners of individual stores (Baron, 2007). It does not have the same kind of membership as the previously mentioned models- being limited to the few owners of business locations rather than the mass of workers or customers- and has a more limited place in this study. Nevertheless, examples of this model do exist in Chicago.
The most famous of these cooperatives is Ace Hardware, which has several Chicago locations. The Do It Best Hardware and NAPA Auto Parts chains are also examples of Retail Cooperatives that can be found in the city. Back Office, a local cooperative, also appears to be a cooperative of this type with organizational member-owners who are not necessarily retail stores. Similarly, there is the North American Students of Cooperation (NASCO), a Chicago-based cooperative federation whose members are housing cooperatives rather than individuals (NASCO, 2022). It is a “democratic workplace,” landing it on some lists of worker cooperatives in Chicago, but member organization representatives control the enterprise’s actual direction.
Housing Cooperatives
The most widespread and diverse sector of the cooperative economy in Chicago is undoubtedly its housing cooperatives. Housing cooperatives, which can come in various models, exist at both extremes of the pricing scale, even within the same neighborhoods. I estimate that there are at least 80 housing cooperatives in Chicago, with some as small as a nine-unit house in Bronzeville and others as large as a 481-unit complex in Noble Square (Cooperative Communities of Chicago). This number is likely a low estimate.
With this estimate, there is also the additional consideration that many condominiums are democratically managed- making the distinction between co-op and condo minimal for the sake of this study.
The cause of the extensive number of housing cooperatives in Chicago is partly explained by an Illinois law that prohibited condominiums until the 1960s (Interview subject 4). As a result, many apartment buildings and multi-unit developments built before that time turned to cooperative models, both “market” and “limited” equity, to operate. Despite the ability of cooperative housing corporations to change into condos, many have elected not to do so, and they remain an important part of Chicago’s housing stock. It is also worth mentioning that many luxurious co-ops were planned for Chicago and the neighboring suburbs in the twenties that were never constructed due to the onset of the Great Depression (Interview subject 4).
On the other end of the scale, we see several “group equity cooperatives” in Chicago. These cooperatives, which can be typically thought of as boarding houses without landlords, tend to be designed for affordability. Two of these associations, Qumbya and Stone Soup, are members of NASCO.
Credit Unions
Chicago also has 60 different credit unions, which are essentially cooperative banks. While they are, technically, consumer cooperatives of a sort, they are treated differently in many analyses due to the nature of the product they sell- banking services (ChiCommons, 2022 and Credit Unions Online, 2022).
The large number of credit unions can be explained by an old saying about them: “Everyone can join a credit union, but not everyone can join the same credit union.” Many of these credit unions have particular membership requirements, such as employment at a particular firm, an address in a certain location, or even enrollment at a particular school.
A full list of these firms can be found in the appendix.
Analysis
Being involved with a cooperative in Chicago is positively associated with voting rates and civic engagement. However, the engagement levels appear to be highly affected by both education levels and what type of cooperative the person is involved with. Many people also acquire certain skills in cooperative environments, which appear to be transferable to other parts of their lives, including other democratic and civic organizations. While it is possible to gain new skills as a result of living and working in a cooperative, it is not a universal benefit of living or working in a cooperative environment.
This study was neither intended nor designed to show causality between working in a cooperative environment and certain kinds of civic engagement, but the relationships shown here suggest that a cause and effect relationship may exist. Further investigation by a larger study is warranted.
Discussion
There are a number of possible areas for further study and reasonable speculation within the context of these findings.
It appears that there is a connection between the stated benefits a subject claims a cooperative has provided and the level of engagement with the cooperative that they have or are required to have. Consumer cooperative members, who needn’t be highly involved at all, reported the lowest levels of engagement with the cooperative and civic institutions and claimed to have gained the fewest new skills or understandings as a result of their membership.
Another point to consider is one brought up by Robert Putman in Bowling Alone but reformulated for the current situation. Dr. Putnam argues in his work that one of the possible reasons for the decline in civic engagement in the United States is the entry of women into the workforce and an increase in total hours worked (Putnam, 2000). While the accuracy of this interpretation of the data is a question for another time, we may see a similar notion at work here. One of the interview respondents explicitly stated that they were too engaged with their cooperative to be highly involved elsewhere (Interview Subject 1). Other interview subjects did not express an inability to be involved outside their co-op but did remark on a very high level of involvement (Interviews 1,6,8). It is possible that the level of involvement for a cooperative could be high enough to begin to reduce the overall level of involvement after a certain point. This will also have to be considered in a future study.
It might also be the case that, since the publication of the Pew data, Americans have grown less involved in civic groups. This notion is supported by both the general decline in American civic engagement between 1972 and 2004 and the differences in the rate of engagement between the 2004 GSS report and the 2017 Pew report.
If community involvement has continued to decline at a similar rate as seen in the GSS data since the publication of the Pew data from 2017, then cooperative members are, in an unqualified manner, more engaged in civic organizations than their peers. As shown by this graph which combines the data for the two, the rate of increase for the percentage of Americans not engaged in any civic institutions before 2018 was fairly steep. movement has continued to decline at a similar rate as seen in the GSS data since the publication of the Pew data from 2017 then cooperative members are, in an unqualified manner, more engaged in civic organizations than their peers. As shown by this graph which combines the data for the two, the rate of increase for the percentage of Americans not engaged in any civic institutions before 2018 was fairly steep.
Exhibit 6: A combination of the exhibit on GSS survey data and the 2017 Pew Charitable Trust Survey. As can be seen, the percentage of the population reporting total unengagement- not being in a single organization- rose rapidly after the turn of the millennium. (Work of the author with data from GSS and Pew Research Center)
Extrapolating from this data- and ignoring the possible effects of the pandemic- the general population should be two percent less involved in 2022 than they were in 2017. If this is the case, then the effect of cooperatives on civic engagement would be even more substantial. However, this cannot be proven and should also be included as a topic for future studies. At the very least, the next study to cover this topic area should have access to more recent data.
Lastly, and perhaps most obviously, a further study on this should take steps to include a wider array of subjects. This study’s subjects were overly white, educated, and centered on housing cooperatives. This is a particular pity, as interview subjects reported that a fair amount of activity in the Chicago cooperative sector is centered around non-white communities (Interview subject 3). While the data does point to interesting findings for members of the worker and consumer cooperative communities, it must be taken with some salt.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this study finds a positive association between cooperative membership and engagement with civic institutions and voting rates. However, the level of civic engagement is not higher than for those with a college education, though it does differ in certain ways. It also finds that a majority of cooperative members attest that they have gained certain skills and experience from being in a cooperative that they can apply elsewhere in their lives, including in democratic organizations such as community groups. Lastly, it finds that the voting rate among survey respondents is astronomical.
These findings lend themselves to certain recommendations.
Due to limitations in the study, the first recommendation to be made is that a larger, more extensive version of this study be undertaken as soon as conceivably possible. This should be geared towards establishing a cause-and-effect relationship between being a cooperative member and the various items considered in this study, as well as getting a much larger and more diverse group of survey respondents.
This will likely take a fair investment of time, manpower, and money. Studies centered on cooperative members are known to have low response rates (Interview subjects 2 and 6. One recent study is said to have a response rate of approximately two percent (Interview Subject 6). This was an issue in the current study and could be corrected with a combination of more direct measures of recruitment, including more consistent emailing, advertising, and direct outreach, as well as financial incentives for those who do participate. If the number of questions is kept low, this could be a minor sum of money- perhaps five dollars per participant after the initial rush of support by the most enthusiastic of potential test subjects.
This should ideally take place on a timeline of no more than three months; given both the known contact information for most Chicago cooperatives and the simplicity of filling out a survey or having a zoom call, it seems unlikely that the investment of time after a quarter of the year will be fruitful, especially if the initial investment of time and manpower is substantial.
The corollary to this is the possibility of a comparative study between two groups of individuals- one entering a cooperative and one not- being followed for some time and interviewed with similar questions as seen in this study to determine if there are differences in their engagement, voting rates, skill sets, or other notable factors after a period of years. This could easily be done with the university-oriented housing cooperatives in Chicago- a set of University of Chicago students who enter into the cooperative and one that does not would be a fine pair. This study, while being more time, manpower, and financially intensive, would also likely have a strong claim for demonstrating cause-and-effect relationships.
If the basic findings of this study hold after a larger version of it has been completed, then the general policy recommendation from this study is to establish more cooperatives where they are feasible and where they might do good by encouraging community involvement among the local population.
A simple version of this would be to create a program or series of programs under the authority of the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity that would assist in educating the public about the cooperative option when they are establishing businesses and providing resources allowing them to be properly financed. Another idea that is frequently proposed is that the state could make options for employee takeovers of businesses about to close due to retirement for failure to sell available, such as grants or low-interest loans for the purpose.
Such a program need not cost any more than any other program the state is currently carrying out to support the foundation of new small businesses, though it may require more initial outreach. In terms of manpower, it is reasonable to expect this to be similar to any other small business program overseen by this office. Such a program would likely need years to determine its effectiveness, though even a brief trial run of three years should be enough to establish if the program is at all effective in doing what it hopes to do.
Lastly, the findings can be used to support more localized development schemes that seek to promote not only economic but also social growth. The tendency to provide the skills needed and disposition required to join and participate in a democratic society makes cooperatives an appealing tool for helping to reestablish social capital in areas where it has declined and where existing institutions prove ineffective at reversing the trend. Importantly, this point could be raised both by city-wide economic planners and by local activists looking to encourage certain kinds of development in their communities.
i Interestingly, while everyone agrees that this study exists and what it concludes, nobody can seem to produce a copy of it or the journal it was in.
Authors Note: Any readers who got this far and want the appendix data are encouraged to email me through the contact section of the website.