It was rare for an issue of L'Esercente not to contain an attack on the consumer cooperatives during the late 1880s and 1890s. These articles always complained about the tax concessions granted to the cooperatives, but a good deal of the resentment may be ascribed to the general regard in which shopkeepers held their competitors in this period. In fact the most successful cooperatives did not enjoy the privileges which the shopkeeper movement protested against so strongly. None the less the issue played a crucial role in realigning shopkeeper sympathies, a political shift resulting from a more developed perception of the esercente's status in society. This chapter will examine first the nature of the privileges enjoyed by the consumer cooperatives and their influence on the competition between these institutions and the shopkeepers, before analysing the esercenti movement's campaign against these privileges and its influence on shopkeeper politics.

CONSUMER COOPERATIVES: PRIVILEGED COMPETITORS?

Most of the early consumer cooperatives were set up to benefit specific groups of workers, usually artisans and they often functioned under the auspices of friendly societies (Societa di Mutuo Soccorso). They cut out the esercente by buying in bulk and then distributing goods amongst the membership at prices which did not include the profit component charged in ordinary shops. The Socialists shunned these early cooperatives, believing that economic amelioration would obscure for longer the class contradictions that would eventually bring about the collapse of capitalism. The elite classes, however, welcomed the movement for precisely this reason.