A fundamental aspect of the antagonistic environment that pcs confronted, and which was discussed in the literature of the 1970s and 1980s, was the general caste of mind created by their relative rarity. For that produced a strong tendency to see only capitalist enterprises as offering stability and security and to view pcs as precarious experiments born of visionary ideals. And, as we shall see, it was often the case that only in extremis, when “conventional” capitalist alternatives had been exhausted and the dole queue beckoned, that workers were prepared to risk the expedient of co-operatives. This in turn meant that pcs not only entered a hostile capitalist world, but were also frequently constructed from the wreckage of enterprises which capitalist competition had already destroyed and stigmatized as bankrupt. It is true that some such “phoenix co-operatives” did survive, but, at the very least, their inauspicious birth militated against a flying competitive start in the economic race and, in Britain, most met the fate of the short-lived Meriden, kme and Scottish Daily Newspcs of the 1970s.

Also seen as inimical to the formation of pcs were the prevailing values and associated aspirations of a capitalist society. Where ruthless competition, acquisitiveness, material success and self-realization through consumption were seen as moral and behavioural norms, then it was likely to be difficult for pcs to secure workforces whose behaviour would be informed by the radically different value systems which distinguished such enterprises.