Decline and Fall
By the late 1970s the RACS was in trouble. Greater customer affluence and competition from supermarket chains such as Sainsbury's were changing the society's market – its size & democratic ownership structure made it slow to adapt. Membership numbers declined, weakening the society's democratic basis. Reserves dwindled and dividend payments – for many, the Co-op's unique selling point – all but ceased. In 1985, after a century of expansion in size & scope the RACS avoided collapse by 'transferring its engagements' to the national Co-operative Wholesale Society. Many of the former RACS supermarkets and funeral homes remain as Co-op outlets.
Read more about this topic: Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society
Famous quotes related to decline and fall:
“We have our little theory on all human and divine things. Poetry, the workings of genius itself, which, in all times, with one or another meaning, has been called Inspiration, and held to be mysterious and inscrutable, is no longer without its scientific exposition. The building of the lofty rhyme is like any other masonry or bricklaying: we have theories of its rise, height, decline and fall—which latter, it would seem, is now near, among all people.”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)