By: Harper’s Notes

Harper’s Notes — Wed, 02 May 2018 14:25:00 +0000

The Berkeley Consumers Co-op, the largest such co-op on the West coast with 9 stores in the early 1980′s, was expanded from the original co-op founded in the 1930′s by persons of Swedish background. Worker co-ops are common in Southern Europe but for consumer co-ops Sweden has generally been the society built more around them than any other. What is described in this article is a cooperative venture, and perhaps bears some close resemblance to a housing co-op (still in existence as mostly dorms around large progressive universities), but to my mind would be better described as a joint venture, or perhaps a joint homesteading venture. Homestead Acts (by coincidence I lived on such a homestead as a young child in the last large mostly successful one in Alaska) .. Homestead Acts are government land grants but in many ways what is described above is a homesteading joint venture– lotteries as to specific parcels and minimal acceptable improvements to the land to make it ready to inhabit and grow crops successfully. Those were the general requirements to get the land granted in homestead acts, along with minimum residency requirements like 270 of the 365 days of the year for two years.

Comments on: The Origins of Anaheim

By: Harper’s Notes