This article aims to contribute to the discussion in the area of Solidary Economy. Based on the ideas of Guerreiro Ramos and Maurício Tragtenberg, the work analyzed the difficulties found by individuals to be inserted in the cooperative logic. In order to reach its objective, a case study was made in COOPETEX, in which were analyzed aspects like the existence of the cooperative principles, the participation and the automanagement, as well as the presence of the values and characteristic practices of the capitalist model of production. It was possible to identify a devaluation of the principles which guides the cooperative movement and that automanagement exists only as a discourse. Also, it was perceived that capitalist values and methods are widely used, which makes the cooperative a reproduction of the conventional enterprises. From the obtained results, it was possible to conclude that cooperative members need to change their way of acting in order to provide legitimacy for cooperative's functioning.
Solidary Economy; Cooperative; Critical Theory