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For sufficiently representative government, I think that government-owned and cooperatively-owned are synonymous. Especially for small towns, the overhead of having two separate organizations, each of which represents all people in the town, would be quite large.

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They definitely are not. A government owned enterprise is many steps removed from voters, and will be run by bureaucrats. This creates an internal constituency and an opportunity for several kinds of graft. A co-op involves your direct participation in operations, and probably an opportunity to be directly involved in decision making depending on the size of the co-op.

Maybe for a really small co-op, but beyond 100 to 200 folks, any co-op will have the exact same internal dynamics as city hall, just on a smaller scale.

Not really. A co-op can’t levy a tax on your home. A co-op can’t pass laws. A co-op doesn’t have a police force. Co-ops also have to comply with generally accepted accounting principles. Municipalities also have the backstop of the larger state if they become insolvent.

These are very different things.

Internal dynamics means the dynamics between the individuals within an organization.

I think the big difference is that government is mandatory, whereas belonging to a co-op is voluntary. Both are useful and important.

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