This paper focuses on the British state’s attitude towards co-operatives, focusing mainly on the Thatcher (1979–1990) and Cameron (2010–2015) governments. After the 2008 crisis, the Cameron-led government, under the umbrella of its Big Society project, developed measures to shift responsibility on British society for the development of the co-operative model as a contribution to self-help, the pursuit of economic growth and the rebuilding of social bonds. We trace the origins of these efforts to the Thatcher governments, where these attitudes towards workers’ cooperatives were consolidated. In so doing, we find the concept of ordoliberalism rather than neo-liberalism alone, particularly useful for explaining the nuances of the governments’ relationship with the cooperatives; including the symbolic backing of co-operatives for their perfect embodiment of self-help and the entrepreneurial spirit, integrating them into a social policy of total competition and economic growth and the constant legislative and financial control of state support. This exemplified and operationalized a larger governmentality later also pursued by the coalition, aimed at entrenching a competitive order and the bourgeois spirit of self-sufficiency through the deployment of the agenda of popular capitalism. Both the Thatcher and Cameron governments, in the spirit of ordoliberalism, instrumentalized cooperatives as part of a project that sought to govern through society to reshape and depoliticize it. This was an attempt to simultaneously eliminate British society’s political demands while recasting the role that the state is expected to play in social and economic policy.

本文关注英国政府对合作社的态度，主要关注撒切尔（1979–1990）和卡梅伦（2010–2015）政府。在2008年危机之后，由卡梅伦领导的政府在其“大社会”项目的保护下，制定了措施，以转移对英国社会的责任，以发展合作社模式，从而为自助，追求经济增长做出贡献以及社会纽带的重建。我们将这些努力的源头追溯到撒切尔政府，在那里对工人合作社的态度得到了巩固。这样一来，我们发现纯粹是民主主义的概念，而不是新自由主义的概念，对于解释政府与合作社之间关系的细微差别特别有用。包括合作社对自助和企业家精神的完美体现的象征支持，将其纳入全面竞争和经济增长的社会政策以及对国家支持的持续立法和财务控制中。这是联盟后来追求的更大的政府性的体现和运作，其目的是通过部署大众资本主义议程来巩固竞争秩序和资产阶级的自给自足精神。撒切尔和卡梅伦政府本着寡头主义的精神，将工具化的合作社作为一个项目的一部分，该项目旨在通过社会进行治理以使其重塑和去政治化。