The Belgian Co-operative Model: Elements of Succes and Failure

Europe has a long tradition of consumer co-operatives and historians have mainly focused on the success stories, as they often tend to do. This chapter assesses initiatives that proved successful as well as unsuccessful in the Dutch speaking part of Belgium in the period 1875-1914. It analyses the Ghent Vooruit co-operative, one of the most outstanding examples of a successful project, even by European standards , while contrasting it with De Werker(The Worker), an Antwerp co-operative which hardly managed to survive, and De Zon(The Sun) in the provincial town of Zele. The latter went bankrupt in 1903. Are there any lessons to be learned from these examples? And are they equally valid in other cases? In other words, is it possible to suggest some factors which contribute to the success or failure of consumer co-operatives in general?

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