 In the context of Co-operative Economics, Mathews supports distributism and strongly favours worker cooperatives as the basis of a left-wing economic model.Mathews' Co-operative Individualism, coupled with his strong Fabian Socialist beliefs, has led to some criticism by other academics.For instance, Jocelyn Pixley has attacked Mathews for his (apparent) support of the Cain Government's Co-operative Development Program, on the basis that Beatrice Webb, a founder of the Fabian Society, was a prominent member of the Federalist school of Co-operative economics, which supports Consumers' Co-operatives linked through co-operative wholesale societies, and was a harsh critic of Workers' cooperatives.