The Cooperative Commonwealth vision received its most mature political embodiment in the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation Party in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan and at the Canadian federal political level. The CCF, later called the New Democratic Party, was founded “to represent progressive farmer, socialist and labour forces, and to implement their agenda of nationalization of […]

Let’s see where the idea of the Cooperative Commonwealth originated. An American, Laurence Gronlund, seems to have invented the term, when he published The Cooperative Commonwealth in its Outlines. An Exposition of Modern Socialism in 1884. Gronlund described his vision this way: “The Cooperative Commonwealth … is that future Social Order—the natural heir of the […]

Last week, I discussed some of the roots of the effluoresence of social conscience in the world. These included the work of Thomas Barnardo, General William Booth of the Salvation Army, the founders of the YMCA/YWCA, the Settlement House movement, particularly in the founding of Toynbee Hall and Hull House, and the Social Gospel. I […]