There Are Different Ways to Organize a Business: Learning Cooperation at School – The Case of Wisconsin in the 1930s

In 1935, Wisconsin adopted a law that made mandatory the teaching of cooperation (both agricultural and consumer cooperation) in the state public schools. This act testifies to a period of time when many U.S. progressives thought important to discuss the variety of forms that business organizations could take. While current progressives in the U.S. are said to draw part of their inspiration in terms of political economy from periods such as the New Deal, it does not seem that the active promotion of cooperative businesses is part of their repertoire yet. More generally, cooperatives as democratic forms of business have more or less disappeared from mainstream economics, economic education and public discourse. This article delves into the history of this 1935 law to study the political character and implication of its passage. While it seems to have been adopted in an atmosphere of consensus, the analysis of the way it was implemented shows that it touched upon controversial questions, regarding the role that the state should play in defining legitimate forms of businesses. After 1939, the law came under attack in a context of growing anti-communism, and it progressively fell into oblivion after the 1950s.