Considerations on the essence of cooperative property and owners during the transformation of the Polish cooperatives

Abstract

Experiences of the past in the transformation of Polish cooperatives have concerned mainly the area of ideas and law-organisational concepts. The most important was democratic and voluntary spirit and the real value of members’ shares, which had consolidated the position of members as owners of co-ops. The inspiration was a search in the inter war period democratic tradition of the II Republic and its cooperative law passed in 1920. This tendency was strong in particular at the beginning of the transformation and later on, after solving the most urgent problems and legal issues, the consideration of cooperators turned in the middle of the 1990ties into the adaptation of UE solutions in every area of public life. A perspective on the past was replaced by observation of current state of cooperatives in UE and high developed countries as well as of tendencies toward further perspectives in global economy.