The initial seed of consumer co-operativism in Greece: the case of Self-Help by the People (1869–1871) and the influence of J.S. Mill

Abstract

ABSTRACT Recently, the history of consumer co-operatives attracted scholars’ attention. J.S. Mill is one of the first political economists to anticipate the importance of consumer co-operatives. In his Principles of Political Economy (1848), he narrates the history of the Rochdale Pioneers, the most successful example of consumer co-operatives during the nineteenth century. In Greece, the constitution of the Greek kingdom during the mid-1820s’ accelerated the overdue capitalist transformation of the Greek economy. This slow transformation was associated with a hesitant introduction of European practices and the diffusion of classical and radical economic ideas. The Rochdale experiment and Mill’s co-operative ideas heavily influenced the formation of Self-Help by the People, the initial seed of consumer co-operativism in Greece, in 1869. In discussing the birth, development and decline of Self-Help by the People, we delineate the role of co-operative economic ideas in influencing the co-operative movement during Greece in the nineteenth century.