Collective Labour in a Capitalist Market: The Historical Struggle to Secure a Place for Worker Cooperatives in the Canadian Political Economy.

This thesis seeks to understand the historical conditions that have relegated worker cooperatives to the periphery of the Canadian political economy. It begins with a theoretical exploration of the relationship between worker cooperatives and capitalism, highlighting two key dynamics: 1) worker cooperatives are a form of collective property that allow workers to secure their subsistence outside of the wage-labour market; 2) worker cooperatives can serve a wide range of interests depending on the subjectivities of the worker-members and the objective conditions of their political-economic environment. This framework is then used to examine subjective and objective considerations in the context of Canadian worker cooperatives, with a focus on the emergence of the contemporary sector in the 1970s and 1980s. Material need has at times produced upswings of grassroots momentum, but this momentum has struggled to sustain itself in the absence of support from major institutions of the Canadian political economy.

DOI: 10.22215/etd/2025-16717