Rita Rhodes Empire and Cooperation - Second Edition: How The British Empire Used Cooperatives In Its Development Strategies 1900-1970

Cooperative businesses, run by their own members, apply the principles of equality, mutuality, democracy and economy. Empire and Cooperation traces how and why the British Empire came to promote cooperatives as part of its development strategies in its dependent territories, and the global impact that this subsequently had. The book describes how cooperative development policies were implemented in widely varied settings and the results achieved It also discusses the positive involvement of international non-governmental organisations such as the International Cooperative Alliance and the Plunkett Foundation. By the 1970s cooperatives had become the major alternative business form to investor-led businesses, and their global reach has been attributed to the fact that they are versatile and universal. The British Empire, the largest the world has known, helped them to become universal by taking them to the four corners of the world.Rita Rhodes gained a degree and a PhD from the Open University. She has held educational posts at the Cooperative Union Ltd, the national Cooperative Development Agency and the International Cooperative Alliance, and has undertaken a number of cooperative assignments in Malaysia, Egypt, Sri Lanka and Mongolia for the International Labour Organization and the European Union.