Winter 2019

Could Co-Ops Solve Income Inequality?

In the heart of Spain’s Basque country, the Mondragon Corporation—the world’s largest co-operative business enterprise—has thrived, despite significant setbacks, for half a century. Meanwhile, many other local economies continually struggle with widening income inequality, an increasingly itinerant labor force, and employees’ declining emotional investment in their work. Might “the Mondragon model” offer some useful lessons about how to respond to economic crisis?