2012, The Year of the Workers' Cooperative

The United Nations recently deemed 2012 the International Year of Cooperatives [link]

As opposed to corporations, which are organized via a top-down structure and state-owned enterprises, which are organized in a similar manner, workers' cooperatives are organized in a more egalitarian manner with workers collectively owning and running the firms they work as opposed to the corporate model in which a firm is run by a CEO or by the state. Once primarily associated with the radical left, workers' cooperatives have become a mainstream alternative to corporations.

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