Esbozo histórico de las cooperativas de consumo

Over the last decades of the XX century, many once outstanding consumer co-operative movements disappeared without trace, beginning with Holland (1972) and Belgium, affecting more than half the French movement in 1985/86, and even including giants such as the German Coop AG in 1989/90. The article carries out a critical analysis of the evolution of consumer co-operatives and, in the light of the co-operative life cycle theory, places special emphasis on the factors which have contributed to the crisis of the classic consumer co-operative movement in Europe.