Earlier this week, Lee Romney wrote this story for the Los Angeles Times about cooperatives. As I mentioned in this post from last March, California had a strong proponent of worker cooperatives over a century ago in the person of none other than Leland Stanford who in 1891 said:

Co-operative societies bring forth the best capacities, the best influences of the individual for the benefit of the whole, while the good influences of the many aid the individual.

Senator Stanford even introduced this bill to provide for the formation of cooperative associations in Washington, D.C.

California also has a comprehensive Consumer Cooperative Corporation Law, Corp. Code § 12200 et seq. Despite the name, corporations may be formed under this law for any lawful purpose provided that they must be organized and conduct their business primarily for the mutual benefit of their members as patrons.