Awakening the Sleeping Giant: Interstitial Transformation and the Cooperative Movement

31 Pages Posted: 1 Aug 2011 Last revised: 24 Aug 2012

See all articles by Mark J. Kaswan

Mark J. Kaswan

University of Texas Rio Grande Valley; Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations

Date Written: 2011

Abstract

Erik Olin Wright’s recent new book, Envisioning Real Utopias, is an important contribution to an expanding literature that attempts to articulate both a vision for a radical egalitarian and democratic society as well as a strategy for achieving it. The cooperative movement is often given an important role in this literature, although it is rarely considered in a thorough or critical manner. Wright’s book is no exception to this. This essay seeks to deepen the discussion of the cooperative movement by historicizing it so as to reveal its ideological foundations, and providing both a fuller and a more critical account of the contemporary movement than Wright provides.

Keywords: Erik Olin Wright, cooperatives, William Thompson, socialism, radical democracy, egalitarianism

Suggested Citation

Kaswan, Mark J., Awakening the Sleeping Giant: Interstitial Transformation and the Cooperative Movement (2011). APSA 2011 Annual Meeting Paper, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1899868

Mark J. Kaswan (Contact Author)

University of Texas Rio Grande Valley ( email )

1201 W. University Dr.
Edinburg, TX 78539
United States
956-882-8877 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://https://utrgv.academia.edu/MarkKaswan

Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations ( email )

Piscataway, NJ 08854
United States

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