Abstract
Economists have difficulty with the notion of cooperation. Hodgskin, while recognising the importance of cooperation and joint labour in production, found that ‘there is no principle or rule, as far as I know, for dividing the produce of joint labour among the different individuals who concur in production’.1 Hayek (1988, ch. 1) dismissed cooperation within groups as a primitive trait superseded by differentiation, individualisation and the ordering principle of the market. But he did not address the question of joint labour or the problems for distribution it raised. Generally, economists are suspicious of individuals who cooperate, suspecting that they are colluding against the public interest. They are even more doubting of institutional means of cooperation, joint action and collective security, which they suspect of restricting competition and reducing economic welfare.
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Wilkinson, F. (2000). Cooperation, the organisation of work and competitiveness. In: The Dynamics of Wage Relations in the New Europe. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-4445-6_22
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