We treat economic growth as an automatic win for society, yet trust in our institutions is collapsing while wealth is buried in opaque offshore accounts. For too long, ordinary people have been told that their role is to work, consume, and stay out of the way.

In this episode of Builders of the Broken Bazaar, Dr. Tabish Zaman is joined by Rose Marley, CEO of Co-operatives UK, to dismantle the myth that "bigger automatically means better". Rose shares her journey from the music business in Manchester to leading a movement of 7,000 cooperative businesses that prioritize people over profit margins.

Together, they discuss why the cooperative model is suddenly so relevant in an age of burnout and inequality, the radical regeneration experiment happening in Middleton, and why ownership is the ultimate tool for agency. This is a conversation about economic design—refusing to be managed by tools and instead building the tools that work for us. Because when communities own the systems they depend on, they don't just survive; they thrive

🎙 “We made shiny buildings, but where was the fishing rod?”

👉 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@buildersofthebrokenbazaar

Host: Dr. Tabish Zaman Guest: Rose Marley (CEO, Co-operatives UK) Editor: Liam Gadsby. Research and Impact Officer: Mohammad Alauthman.