ECONOMIC PARTICIPATION OF SHAREHOLDERS IS THE MAIN FACTOR OF CONSUMER COOPERATION DEVELOPMENT
The purpose of the article is to prove the need to change the activities of cooperatives, taking into account the achievement of privileges for shareholders. The authors state a systematic decrease in the number of shareholders and consider this tendency as one of the reasons for the reduction in the total volume of activities and practically all branches of the cooperative economy, the decrease in the presence of cooperatives in the consumer market of rural areas. Based on the methodology of the dual nature of cooperation, the dual control system, the authors use the method of logical construction of chains of interconnection of phenomena and processes that take place in the production relations of consumer cooperation. Scientific novelty is the rationale for the need to create a new branch "Socialization of membership". The purpose, subject, function, its attribution to the non-production sphere is determined, it is proved that without a sectoral approach to organizing the economic participation of shareholders, the consumer society loses its cooperative identity and the advantages of the cooperative economic model. The author considers the structure of a cooperative as an association of shareholders, which includes the apparatus of the chairman of the council, organizing the economic participation of shareholders in the activities of a cooperative organization; conditions under which the socialization of membership is transformed into a really functioning industry that generates income for the cooperative and shareholders. The authors assign a primary role in improving economic relations to information and cooperative educational education, increasing adherence to cooperative principles and values of the international cooperative movement.