• profit-making corporation owned by stockholders
• mutuals--profit-making corporation owned by the people it serves
• co-op--non-profit corporation owned by the people it serves
• nonprofits get tax breaks
• goal is directly to serve members, not to make a profit
• governments directly provide service eg. state power districts
  

• rural electrification was slowed because it became a low priority
• but it got some funding and materials on the grounds that electricity could increase farm productivity and reduce manpower needs

Farming becomes more efficient with the help of technology

• you need fewer people working in farming
• one family could farm more land--farms get bigger
• small farms are at a disadvantage as the efficiency of the big farms lowers prices
  

Rural electrification did not keep young people on the farm
the goal of industrialization meant fewer larger farms

REA had played a large role in rural electrification--co-ops served 61% of electrified farms in 1954, 70% in 1959 (220)

1950s attacks on co-ops as socialist

• government role (but remember the government just provide loans and organizational help to non-profit co-ops owned by members (or mutuals, which were owned by members but did seek to make a profit)
  
• area or universal coverage seemed socialistic--serve as many people as possible rather than do what makes good business sense
  

rural telephone systems did not keep up
industrialized farmers preferred to buy services rather than contributing work to local co-ops
How did the debate about how to organize rural telephony come out differently than the REA?

• AT&T (profit-making company) cooperated more than the power companies had
• Hill-Poage Act favored profit-making companies then co-ops, forbid governments providing services

AT&T (originally American Telephone and Telegraph)

• profit-making corporation founded in the late 19th century
• Bell created the Bell Telephone Company, which became American Bell
• in 1885 American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) was created as a subsidiary of American Bell to provide long distance service
  
• this was a regulated monopoly
  
• broken up into 8 companies in 1984 to replace that regulated monopoly with competition--AT&T was then one of the 8, others include Verizon and Bell South