ABSTRACT
The Italian cooperative sector’s continued growth demonstrates that a democratic economic alternative is not only desirable, but already exists. The sector has grown despite political and economic crises in Italy, increasing globalization and the GFC. In 2011, 61,398 active cooperatives with a turnover of approximately 130 billion euros employed 1.3 million people. They employed 7.2 percent of the total workforce and produced 8.5 percent of the GDP. If one considers the number of self-employed people that rely on cooperatives for their livelihoods (for example, farmers) and the indirect employment they create, the figures rise to 10 percent of the GDP and 11 percent of the workforce. The cooperative sector is a pillar of the Italian economy and quite remarkably created 29.6 percent of all new jobs in Italy from 2001 and 2011 (Fondazione Censis 2012; Borzaga 2015).
