MAY 2018

people made aware that there is an
alternative to the often exploitative and
corrupt capitalist model, with
its fanatical and ruthless pursuit
of profit maximisation.
John Harrington
Via website
An obstacle to co-op education is that
food co-ops don’t want to distribute
the surplus, but want to ‘retain’ it,
permanently. They don’t want their
members to realize that the undistributed
surplus actually belongs to them; is their
personal property, which the co-op is
keeping, without asking. So the co-op
has a vested interest in keeping its
members ignorant. But, I agree: in the
long run, education would certainly be the
wiser policy.
Joshua Laskin
Via website
FAIRTRADE FORTNIGHT
I live in Ryde Isle of Wight and use the
Co-op Group store in Anglesea Street,
Ryde, as my regular shop because of its
pledge to use British Meat.
Is the Co-op planning to close this
store down? If not, they are doing a good
job of driving customers away by having
shelves bare of food. Every part of the
shop is showing lack of produce. People
are walking out of the store shaking
their heads.
Philip Spreckley
Isle of Wight
RESPONDING TO… BOOK REVIEW:
A CALIFORNIAN CO--OP STORY
(NEWS, APRIL 2018)
Once again the self-congratulatory nature
of California omits the LONG history of
co-operatives established by communities
of colour. Dr Jessica Gordon Nembhard
has reminded us that co-operatives were
the Reconstruction and Jim Crow survival
strategies of black communities living
in perilous economic circumstances.
Black co-ops existed long before hippies
figured them out as temporary ways to
stick it to the man. Black co-ops endured
where counter-culture ones proved
too much work for most white people
who had many other options. Co-ops
sometimes came into existence with
white sharecropper and tenant farm
communities – poor whites – as well.
But CA neither invented the ideas nor did
spectacularly well when they tried them.
A little humility in this history would
not be out of place.
Churchlady320
Via website
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Co-operative News
p Above: Dr Jessica Gordon Nembhard
CORRECTION & APOLOGIES
The learning and development manager
at the Co-operative College is Angela
Colebrook, not Holbrook, as printed in
last issue’s case study of the College
(page 38, April 2018).
MAY 2018 | 25