Monopoly Bookstore Chains and Left Wing Magazines.

[G*rd*n]

Tom Waters:
> ... 
> Anyhow, the question is why coops would do this. In some ways, coops
> combine the most dangerous features of universities and trade unions: like
> universities, they are an environment where it's often not felt to be
> necessary to confront capitalism directly every day; like trade unions,
> they build up a reformist place in society that comes to seem worth
> defending with compromises. Not to mention the fact that they put people
> in the position of employers. But all of these institutions can be roads
> to accomodation, and when they don't serve this function it is generally
> because of specific interventions of radicals. 
> ...

In theory, though, just as a coop could facilitate the
movement of radicals toward liberalism, it could facilitate
the movement of liberals toward radicalism.  That is, the
liberals could find themselves in a well-functioning body
where non-capitalist relations were the rule, whereas they
would be unlikely to show up just to struggle against the
system which, after all, they probably sort of believe in.

My take on the situation is that coops work too well, which
decreases aggression; the coop becomes lazy about expansion
and proselytization, and is uninterested in producing the
surpluses necessary to energize such efforts.  Capitalist
organizations, by contrast, have aggression in their bones
and constantly attempt to expand and absorb.