MODERN ECONOMIC GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT DISCOURSE: WHITHER THE ROLE OF CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETIES.

This paper investigates the rationality behind the expectations that Cooperative Societies should significantly lift their members from low financial levels to affluence. Using Content Analysis, this paper reviewed over fifty published works of which thirty are referenced here. The study observes that most of the articles report very impressive performances of Cooperative Societies only to recommend a ’salvation army’ mission to support cooperatives or to ensure their survival. The paper concludes that Cooperative Societies may be routes to relative financial comfort for members but not to prosperity, because cooperatives are subsistent endeavours whose objectives are to fraternize and cooperate to advance common objectives of which financial comfort is only one. The paper therefore recommends that cooperative societies should ‘brush’ themselves up a little, demutualize to attract finances from banks and capital markets, and go into core businesses where financial prosperity becomes parament.