I'm generally more in agreement with Senator Blair on this. Even if cooperatives already have a decent success rate on their own, that in and of itself isn't a great reason to stop the government from promoting them further.
That said, Nix makes a good point about the economic role this would play and the fact that tangible benefits wouldn't necessarily come from this.
So I'm torn.
That's my key issue Senator, I don't believe it's our role to promote a particular form of business organisation. Which is why I agree with the Vice President that if anything, this could be a nil-sum game and we should just support the creation of cooperatives, if suitable, but not create artificial market forces and the expense of other businesses... which is what this Bill will do.
I would tend to agree, except where the market is dominated by a few providers or providers who are all offering bad service. Throwing another competing force in with better service would force the others to improve their quality of products/services offered. Electricity is thus one example where I would support co-ops for this reason, to give people a superior choice in terms of quality of service provided as well as the cost.
