On paper, the cooperative looks like the perfect answer to inequality.
A system where every member is an owner.
Where profits are shared fairly.
Where power is distributed, not concentrated.
From the members, by the members, for the members.
No dominant capital crushing the weak.
No worker pushed to the margins.
This is people-centered economics in its most democratic form.
Historically, cooperatives were born from resistance.
From farmers exploited by middlemen.
From workers marginalized by industrial capital.
From communities seeking dignity in economic life.
In Indonesia, this spirit was carried by Mohammad Hatta.
He called cooperatives the “soko guru” of the economy, as the main pillar.
For Hatta, cooperatives were not merely business entities.
They were instruments of social justice.
They were a pathway for ordinary citizens to access economic power
without surrendering to concentrated capital.
It was not just about profit.
It was about fairness.
Yet today, we must confront reality.
Many cooperatives struggle to grow.
Some exist only as nameplates.
Some become vehicles for government programs.
Some survive, but without direction, without innovation, without scale.
Why does such a noble idea often stagnate?
I have a hypothesis.
One of the quiet structural weaknesses of many cooperatives, especially in tier two and tier three cities, is excessive homogeneity among members.
Take a farmers’ cooperative as an example.
Most members are experts in production.
They know how to plant.
How to harvest.
How to process.
But who handles marketing?
Who builds branding?
Who negotiates distribution contracts?
Who manages legal compliance?
Who designs financial strategy?
Too often, the answer is no one.
Because everyone shares the same expertise.
This creates an innovation bottleneck.
Everyone can produce.
No one can scale.
Everyone understands one point in the value chain.
Very few understand the entire chain.
And business success requires diversity of function.
You need producers.
But you also need marketers.
Strategists.
Financial managers.
Legal thinkers.
Operational leaders.
In many cooperatives, the principle of equality
is misunderstood as uniformity.
Because everyone is equal, everyone is expected to do everything.
And when everyone does everything, no one becomes excellent at anything.
Without specialization, competitiveness weakens.
There is another challenge.
Leadership ambiguity.
In a system where every member has one vote, decision-making can become slow.
Direction becomes blurred.
Consensus is valuable.
But without decisive leadership, momentum fades.
Compare this with private companies.
They may not always be fair.
But they are structurally clear.
Roles are defined.
Accountability is direct.
Decisions are faster.
Speed often determines survival in modern markets.
And we must be honest.
Not everyone is ready to lead.
Leadership requires vision, resilience, and responsibility.
It requires the ability to make unpopular decisions for long-term sustainability.
Equality in ownership does not eliminate the need for structure.
Cooperatives are not weak because the idea is flawed.
They struggle because the system demands organizational maturity.
It demands diversity of skill.
It demands clarity of roles.
It demands governance discipline.
It demands members who are willing to grow beyond their original expertise.
A cooperative risks becoming not a pillar of the economy, but a symbol of unfulfilled promise.
The dream is still relevant. But dreams require design. And justice requires structure.
