Actually cooperatives emerged in the England in the 1830 as a reaction to the industrialization of the time. The early promoters, often referred to by the communists as utopian socialists, did believe that cooperatives would gradually, over time, transform capitalism into socialism.
As you know, they believed the only way to transform society was for the organized working class to take over the state in order to transform capitalism. What has happening is that coops have benefited their members for over 200 years all around the world but have not transformed capitalism. A major reason for this as you mention is that capitalist states have imposed rules and regulations on cooperatives that prevent them from developing economically. A good case in point are credit unions, which are a form of cooperative. The commercial banking sector has made sure that there are considerable restrictions on how much capital they can accumulate so that they do not compete with the private banks.

Thanks for your comments SPN and apologies for not replying sooner. My reading of both Henriet and Lauridan’s cautionary intervention is that working people who buy into a housing or producer’s co-op begin to identify as property-owning petit bourgeois and by extension with capitalism. As a result they would switch class allegiances and would no longer be working class. They would only be interested in propping up the system as they were benefiting from it and so would no longer be motivated to change it. This is why they stressed that cooperatives could only be a vehicle to develop socialism/communism after a working class lead revolution took over of the state. In that case the ideology and production would be oriented to the needs of the working class and not to profit as it is under capitalism. This was Lenin’s position that he outlined in early 1923 as well as noted below.

@SPN

Yes, your idea is noteworthy, but you failed to pick up the point that Lenin stressed; which was that before a worker co-opt is introduced there must be state-revolution because the existing capitalist framework would not allow for such a cooperation to exist or flourish. Also, the intra-rivalry in cooperatives is a very real and a major stumbling block. Look no further than to the Soviet example.

I would respond to Henriet but saying that if class consciousness is required for a workers’ revolution then worker cooperatives are the best way to do that. By allowing people to put socialism into practice this would create consciousness more than a union would because workers in unions don’t actually run the business. After consciousness has reached a critical mass, a workers’ party could be elected, and I hope they dismantle and bury the state and allow communism to reign immediately.