Between capitalism and socialism: Tugan-Baranovsky on cooperatives

Mauro Boianovsky and Denis Melnik

Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2024, vol. 48, issue 4, 589-616

Abstract: This paper provides a comprehensive discussion of Tugan-Baranovsky’s (1916) seminal study about the working of cooperatives in a capitalist environment, which, due to historical and linguistic circumstances, has left only a limited trace in the subsequent economic literature in the Western world. He claimed to have provided the then only full analytical and historical account of economic cooperation in its several forms, especially producer and consumer cooperatives, and their impact on their members’ welfare. It was not until the 1950s and 1960s that cooperative organisations gradually occupied again the research agenda of economists under the guise of ‘labor-managed firms’. Tugan’s treatise on cooperation has been mentioned in that literature to a limited extent only, in connection with the issue of the life-cycle of producer cooperatives. Tugan’s economic treatment of cooperatives is discussed here as part of his broader social and political views of capitalism and socialism.

Keywords: Tugan-Baranovsky; Producer cooperatives; Consumer cooperatives; Limits to cooperation; Welfare (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/cje/beae015 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:cambje:v:48:y:2024:i:4:p:589-616.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Cambridge Journal of Economics is currently edited by Jacqui Lagrue

More articles in Cambridge Journal of Economics from Cambridge Political Economy Society Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().