A visitor asked:
“If people go into this community are they required to co-op everything? Co-ops are good. They have many benefits. The early days of the [LDS] church in Utah, co-ops are how people got out of poverty. You’d harness the buying power by team ups to get things that were normally out of reach, and then take turns each month getting an allowance towards what each family needs. This is a tool that LDS people and honest people of any type could start doing again. It has many ways of combatting poverty. But it also has vulnerabilities that have to be covered also. And people now tend to feel sorry for relatives when they steal from people and then end up covering up relatives problems rather than help victims of their relatives. This is one vulnerability of LDS communities in general, regardless of co-ops. One of the problems with co-ops is if you had like 12 families in a co-op and they were working towards something, if one of them decides not to go in with it and claims they can’t do their part, then the whole thing can be shaken by other people with the same temptation. Another disadvantage that I’ve seen is that today’s society is difficult to trust people and they may not know right away if others are trustworthy. This could affect a bee project. And other projects.”
No, as a resident of Riverbed Ranch, other than the Utah OSR Land Cooperative, you don’t have to join any of the “sub-co-ops” that will be created.
The co-op is recommending that all sub co-ops have written in their Bylaws, a Dissolution Clause outlining how the co-op will be dissolved if there are problems the members are unable to resolve.
Admittedly, being a member of a co-op requires one shoulder personal responsibility AND learn to get along with others with whom they may disagree at times. This is a good thing. We can’t have a functional society if no one puts forth any effort to learn to play well with others.