Cooperatives

In a cooperative two things coincide that are usually apart: whoever works or buys is also an owner. Almost the whole vocabulary follows from that — el socio instead of a shareholder, un socio, un voto instead of votes by capital, el retorno cooperativo instead of a dividend. Two entries of this list use the same adjective for two different things. In la aportación al capital social, social means « of the company »: el capital social is the share capital, la sede social the registered office, la razón social the company name — none of them has anything to do with society. Further down, el balance social means exactly what English would expect: the account of what a business does to the world around it. Spanish uses one adjective for both, and only the noun beside it says which one is meant.