"Can an experiment like Mondragon find fertile ground in the U.S.? This is a topic addressed in Cooperation Works! How People Are Using Cooperatives to Rebuild Communities and Revitalize the Economy by E.G. Nadeau and David J. Thompson. This work offers a survey of some 50 cooperative ventures in twelve different areas of the U.S. society, both historical and current—including agriculture, housing, business purchasing coops, credit unions, social services and power utilities—as well as worker-owned industrial coops.

The authors reveal two key points. The first is that cooperatives have a long, rich and varied history across the U.S, ranging from wheat farmers banding together to manufacture and market their own pasta products, to home health care providers building their own company to provide decent wages and benefits in an occupation that often suffers from poor conditions. The second is that none of these 50 case studies, successful or unsuccessful, has followed the Mondragon model of a three-in-one combination of school, credit union and factory—even though in a number of areas these three components exist nearby each other."