It was hard to pack all the background into 150 words, but I didn't think anyone would bother reading to the end if I wrote a longer piece.

But it does seem to me that while cooperatives should be a far more prominent feature of our mixed market economy, they are maybe better at just picking up an existing business model or product type, than creating something new, precisely because the dependability, reliability and consensus that make them much better employers and social corporate citizens, also mean that they can't or won't choose to take the risks on which innovation often depends.

Maybe a new concept of 'venture cooperative' is needed.