In 20th century Britain, much of the rationale behind the co-operative faded with the rise of the Labour Party, which focused on public ownership, through nationalisation, rather than employee ownership through the co-operative. Workers’ housing, medical help and pensions became far less important for benevolent employers when the state began co-ordinating welfare provision.
The oversight of Christian influence also has something to do with the successful evolution of the co-operative model in British business. The most prominent example today is the John Lewis Partnership, established in 1929 when John Spedan Lewis converted his father John Lewis’ business into a trust that distributes all profits to the firm’s employees, or partners. His motivation however was a desire to produce a different and better form of capitalism rather than to practise any creed[16].
There are also different models for co-operative ventures, which tend to either foreground the interests of the employee (as in the partnership model of John Lewis) or the interests of the consumer (as in the payment of dividends to the consumer along the lines of the modern-day loyalty reward card). Both are sound business practices without any need for a theological rationale. The largest consumer-focused co-operative in Britain, the Co-operative Group, can trace its roots all the way back to the Rochdale pioneers via a series of regional and national mergers. It retains something of a faith heritage today, a mixed blessing considering the 2013 scandal that engulfed the group following revelations that its chairman and Methodist minister Rev’d Paul Flowers was a habitual drug user[17].
Far greater religious influence can be seen in the development of co-operative businesses in southern Europe from the mid-20th century onwards, particularly in Catholic-majority countries where religious inspiration has been pivotal. Examples in Spain, particularly Mondragon, founded by a Roman Catholic priest, and in Italy are discussed in the section on co-operatives.
And finally there is an emerging sector known as ‘social enterprise’. The term was first used in 1978 by the academic Freer Spreckley, of Beechwood College near Leeds as a new term for worker and community co-operatives[18]. This term was first used by the British government in 1999, and was discernible in the concept of the Big Society proposed by the Conservative Party leader and later prime minister David Cameron in 2010. The term has been applied to a range of modern enterprises, several of which have an explicit Christian remit such as Traidcraft plc, the Methodist Housing Association, and some credit unions[19].