Th e cooperative movement exploded during the Italian “red biennium” (1919– 1920). It was “a form of reaction against the abuses of capitalism” (Buff etti 1921, 360) that off ered an overcoming of private capital accumulation and traditional wage relations. Workers were members of the cooperative; thus they owned their means of production and shared in their surplus.

Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, loc. 424