Just wanted to flag that there are areas in the US that co-operative enterprises do flourish and have knock-on effects. This is biased by my food co-operative experience but just to show that there is an alternative to unfettered capitalism where businesses help each other thrive.

- The Minneapolis/St. Paul region has so many food co-ops that there's a co-operative warehouse dedicated to serving them (and other businesses too) https://www.cpw.coop/

- New England has a multitude of 30-40 year old food co-ops (along with startups like mine) and has its own association of food co-ops to help advocate for better state policy/governance http://nfca.coop/

- National Co-op Grocers is a US-wide group that helps co-ops buy food at cheaper rates and provides a ton of great branding food co-ops who are members get to use https://www.grocery.coop/

I'd love to see more tech co-operatives sprout up someday... there is an alternative to VC that keeps ownership equal, and it's been all around us this whole time!