An increased interest in cooperative organization in the last couple of decades is attributed to a large extent to the undisputable failures of neoliberalism as well as new forms of capitalist exploitation of labour and resources, such as platform capitalism's manipulation of gig workers, or extraction and commodification of the commons. Rising discontent with existing economic systems, policies and their outcomes reflected in social inequities and ecological disasters have given rise to the search for an economic paradigm accompanied by an enterprise model fit for humans and the planet.

In the search for a new economic paradigm, cooperative enterprise has a lot to offer. Rooted in economic democracy and built on ethical values, the cooperative model provides an alternative to the supremacy of capital and individual ownership of equity as the foundation of a presumably efficient and well functioning capitalist market economy. In the neoclassical model, capital and labour mobility is required for efficient functioning of respective capital and labour markets. The ‘externality’ produced by this quest for efficiency, however, includes a rupture in communities, since labour is not a commodity and cannot be separated from the human being and their social relations. Further to negative community impact, voiding economic transactions of social and ecological concerns has resulted in broad-based discontent, giving rise to multiple social movements and actions of civil society attempting to change the course. Therefore, the ‘new economics’ now sought by many theorists and practitioners ought to be concerned with its impact on the planet and on human beings and their communities. It ought to internalize human rights and enhance human dignity. In the same vein, a model which understands work as the foundation of human expression and personal development, rather than merely an input in production, is resonating with current generations. Interest in social solidarity enterprises such as co-operatives has re-ignited from these movements.

The cooperative model can be thought of as a benchmark for enterprises in the social solidarity economy espousing ethical values. It is an association, jointly owned and controlled by members who join the enterprise for its use value as consumers, workers, producers, or supporters of its purpose. Democratically governed, it is people (instead of capital) centred, but not anthropocentric.