Tom Waters wrote: "... only that buying through coops is less individualistic than buying at for-profit stores because coop buyers are buying co-operatively and making decisions collectively..."
We probably do not have any difference in principle here. I too see the breaking of individualist illusions (at many levels) as a core concern -- and that principle is central to my dislike of those kind of reforms (personified on this list by Burford) which essentially consist of petitions to the ruling class to be nice to us, and hence do not involve workers in collective struggle of any sort. But I also see, as in a way the most dangerous form of individualism, anything which gives a false impression that the individualism imposed on us, willy nilly, by living under capitalism, is some being painlessly dissolved.
I don't have more time at present to give to any of the issues raised in your post and this one, but I did want to indicate that (at least on the basis of this exchange) there is no antagonistic contradiction involved.
Carrol