Cooperatives, International Development, and American Visions of Capitalism, 1941-2000

FAIN: FT-279219-21

Nicole Sackley
University of Richmond (Richmond, VA 23173-0001)

Researching and writing one chapter for a history of cooperatives in American business after World War II.

This project reveals an important but unknown history of 20th-century Americans who debated US capitalism and furthered their own economic development dreams through international cooperative ventures. During the Cold War, debates about economic models and ideologies occurred within an international landscape where the cooperative model seemed to offer a malleable “middle way” between American “free enterprise” and Soviet and Chinese “collectivism.” International cooperative models attracted a diverse range of Americans. While some US cooperators hailed “co-op” capitalism as an ideal “American way” to be exported around the world, others saw in cooperatives blueprints to remake global capitalism and opportunities for international solidarity. My project inserts new actors, new ideologies, new hopes, and new failures into the scholarly understanding of how Americans participated in international development and how development visions came home to shape US culture and society.