Ben Waber reviewed The Practical Utopians by Steven Leikin
A Fascinating, Important History
5 stars
This is an incredible dive into the brief, shining moment of the cooperative movement in the US in the late 1800s, analyzing its fascinating roots, strong entanglements with the Knights of Labor, and its ultimate dissolution. In the heyday of industrial capitalism's ascendency, this somewhat nebulous approach to building organizations that operated and delivered profits in a truly unique way is an amazing example of the classes of economic exchange that one could experiment with. The challenges of making this model work are also instructive, with worker, customer, and organizational incentives often clashing in ways that were unable to be resolved. The tight coupling of these cooperatives with the Knights of Labor and their somewhat competing social goals also shows tantalizing clues about how this might be made to work in the future. It's rare that you see truly unique economic models, and this book provides great insight into one …
This is an incredible dive into the brief, shining moment of the cooperative movement in the US in the late 1800s, analyzing its fascinating roots, strong entanglements with the Knights of Labor, and its ultimate dissolution. In the heyday of industrial capitalism's ascendency, this somewhat nebulous approach to building organizations that operated and delivered profits in a truly unique way is an amazing example of the classes of economic exchange that one could experiment with. The challenges of making this model work are also instructive, with worker, customer, and organizational incentives often clashing in ways that were unable to be resolved. The tight coupling of these cooperatives with the Knights of Labor and their somewhat competing social goals also shows tantalizing clues about how this might be made to work in the future. It's rare that you see truly unique economic models, and this book provides great insight into one that doesn't get a lot of attention. Highly recommend