Alternatives in rural production systems: An entrepreneurial approach to production co-operatives in a developing economy

Abstract

Notwithstanding the dismal failure of rural organisational strategies adopted for poverty eradication and socio-economic transformation in developing countries, the plethora of alternative paradigms proposed have almost always implied as sacrosanct the fundamental socialistic ideology of collectivism and various forms of it. This paper dismisses this formula as artificial and lacking in realism, but adopts, as an alternative, an ‘entrepreneurial approach’ to the poverty problem. It introduces a concept of co-operation that stresses entrepreneurial sovereignty, individualism and decision-making, all of which are features that are markedly missing in conventional co-operative models.