Kaupfélag

Kaupfélag Vestur-Húnvetninga in Hvammstangi .

A Kaupfélag is a form of company organized as a cooperative (literally a sales association ) in Iceland .

history

Kaupfélag Þingeyinga, founded in Húsavik in 1882, was the first to bear this name. The aim of the foundation was to improve the conditions for foreign trade for the farmers. It was not primarily about achieving better prices, but above all about creating more opportunities for co-determination and reducing the dependence on mainly Danish middlemen. The company worked with a dealer in Newcastle upon Tyne , England . In the period that followed, similar societies emerged in other places. Many of them joined together in the 20th century to form the Samband íslenskra samvinnufélaga . This association ran into financial difficulties in the 1980s. Kaupfélag Þingeyinga also had to file for bankruptcy in 1999.

literature

• Jane Simmonds: Iceland. Langenscheidt Publishing Group, 1999, ISBN 978-0-88729-176-0 .
• Gunnar Karlsson: Iceland's 1100 years: the history of a marginal society. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 2000. online

Web links

Commons : Kaupfélag  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ Svalbarðseyri - Town - North East Iceland on www.enjoyiceland.com, accessed March 31, 2011.
2. ^ Karlsson, p. 146
3. ↑ cf. Simmons p. 116