As the United States marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we should look not only at the words that launched the American experiment, but also at the institutions that have helped people live out its promises.
The founding documents gave revolutionary expression to liberty, self-government and popular sovereignty. The Declaration of Independence speaks of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” and of governments deriving “their just powers from the consent of the governed.” The Constitution begins with “We the People” and commits the nation to securing “the Blessings of Liberty.”
Those phrases are rightly remembered as political commitments. They also point to a way of engaging in society and the economy: people governing, building, organizing and solving problems together.
Across American history, cooperatives have offered one of the most important and practical ways for people to act on those ideas in economic life.
Where freedom and democracy meet
Cooperatives help Americans practice freedom by giving people a democratic way to own, govern and benefit from the businesses that impact their lives.
While freedom is sometimes described as independence from others, cooperatives remind us that freedom can also be strengthened through association with others. People often become freer when they join together to solve problems they cannot solve alone.
This is where democracy and freedom meet in the cooperative model. Democracy is not just a value cooperatives admire; it is built into cooperative governance. The 2nd Cooperative Principle is “democratic member control.” Members govern the enterprise. Members elect representatives. Members have voice. And the 4th Cooperative Principle, “autonomy and independence,” insists that cooperatives must remain controlled by their members, even when they work with governments, lenders or other partners.
Together, these principles make a distinct claim: people should be able to build institutions together and keep those institutions accountable to the people they serve. That is a deeply American proposition. And there is a real synergy: not only have the American notions of freedom and democracy influenced how people use cooperatives; people who are active in cooperatives apply these principles back into their civic life.
Not only have the American notions of freedom and democracy influenced how people use cooperatives; people who are active in cooperatives apply these principles back into their civic life.
An American legacy of cooperation
Even before American independence, Benjamin Franklin and his fellow Philadelphians were experimenting with this kind of practical freedom. In 1752, Franklin and others helped found the Philadelphia Contributionship, a mutual insurance company through which policyholders came together to share the risk of fire. It reflected an instinct that would become central to the cooperative tradition: people facing a common challenge can organize, govern and protect one another.
Franklin’s mutual fire insurer was not charity. It was organized self-help. Neighbors pooled risk, elected directors, inspected property, priced risk and built reserves so that one household’s catastrophe would not necessarily become a family’s ruin. That is a practical form of freedom: not the freedom to stand alone against every danger, but the freedom to build institutions that make people and communities stronger and more secure.
That same spirit has appeared again and again in American cooperative history.
For Black Americans, cooperative economics has often been a strategy for self-determination, institution-building and community control in the face of exclusion from markets, credit, land ownership and public protection. Through mutual aid societies, credit unions, purchasing clubs, agricultural cooperatives and community institutions, people used cooperation to build economic power where existing systems denied it.
Dr. Jessica Gordon Nembhard documents this long tradition in Collective Courage, showing how Black communities used cooperative economic strategies not as an abstraction, but as a practical response to discrimination and economic exclusion. These efforts were not separate from American ideals. They were demands that those ideals be made real.
Credit unions offer another example. As member-owned financial cooperatives, they put people over profit. By expanding access to savings, loans and other financial services, credit unions help make financial freedom more attainable. Access to fair credit determines whether families can buy homes, start businesses, manage emergencies, pursue education and build wealth over time. Credit unions are part of the infrastructure of opportunity.
Rural electric cooperatives tell another part of the story. In the early part of the 20th century, investor-owned utilities did not see enough profit to justify extending service to rural communities. The cooperative model helped people build and govern the infrastructure needed to transform work, education, health, communication and household life. Local democratic enterprise became a vehicle for practical freedom.
Agricultural cooperatives have played a similar role for farmers, helping producers buy supplies, market products, process goods, manage risk and gain access to markets. The point is not that cooperation replaces markets. It is that cooperation can help people participate in markets in ways that are fairer and where the members have greater control of their economic lives.
These examples make clear that cooperatives are not marginal businesses or remnants of history. Today, well over 150 million people are members of cooperatives in nearly every sector of the economy.
New challenges, a familiar solution
Co-ops are a recurring American answer to a recurring American question: how can people preserve freedom and agency in the face of systems too large to navigate alone?
That question is not behind us. It may be more urgent now than ever.
Housing is one example. As families and communities struggle with affordability, access and instability, housing cooperatives can create lasting affordability, preserve community and give residents a direct voice in the places they live.
The care economy is another. Childcare, eldercare and home care impact nearly every family, yet these sectors are often marked by low wages, high costs, worker shortages and stress for families. Cooperative models can give workers, families and communities more voice in designing care systems that are accountable, sustainable and yield better outcomes.
Meanwhile, data and artificial intelligence raise an old cooperative question in a new context: who owns, governs and benefits from systems built on people’s information, labor, creativity and participation? Cooperative models may help consumers, workers and creators organize for greater voice and capture more value from digital platforms that otherwise feel distant and unaccountable.
These challenges might be different from fire insurance in colonial Philadelphia, access to credit, rural electrification or agricultural markets. But the underlying question is familiar: when people face conditions they cannot change alone, can they build businesses they own and govern together?
A workshop for freedom and democracy
At the National Cooperative Business Association, we see this tradition every day: people using cooperatives to meet shared needs, build local capacity and keep ownership rooted in the communities they serve. That work is not separate from America’s civic tradition. It is one crucial way that tradition continues.
The 250th anniversary should not only invite Americans to look back. It should ask what freedom and democracy require today.
Cooperatives offer one answer. They remind us that democracy is something we practice—in the institutions we build, the enterprises we own and the communities we strengthen together.
If America’s founding documents gave language to freedom and democracy, cooperatives give those ideas a place to work.