Consumer cooperative

“ The producer cooperative seeks to return to its members the largest possible portion of the dollar necessarily spent by the consumer for the product with deductions only for modest distribution costs, without profit to the membership cooperative and with limited profit to the stock cooperative. ”

“ Next in importance to cooperative buying is the establishment of direct communication between the producer and the consumer through the parcel post. We know that if the housewife gives the farmer to understand very clearly that she expects to split the middleman’s commission with him, she will save ten per 226 cent. on her poultry, eggs, vegetables and fruit, and have better food on her table in the bargain. ”

“ As for saying that co-operative organisation abolishes the division of labour and brings us back to the primitive times when each man was constrained to produce for himself everything essential for his needs, it is true in so far as one can say that a consumers' co-operative society is an enlarged family which as was formerly the case, and is the case to-day on certain farms makes its own bread and jam, and which also spins, weaves, washes, &c. Yet it is not the consumer himself who does all that, but specialised workers, preferably members of the societies. ”

“ Consumer associations and consumer co-operatives are entitled, in accordance with the law, to the support of the State and to being heard on the questions concerning consumer protection. Article 61 Private Enterprise, Cooperatives, Industrial Self-Mmanagement (1) Private economic enterprise are freely exercised, within the framework set out in the Constitution and in the law, and with due account to the general interest. (2) Everyone is recognized the right to freely set up cooperatives, as long as the cooperative principles are observed. ”

“ To explain the theory on which our store and society are run, I will say that the requirements for this, as for all cooperative ventures, are an adequate organization of consumers to act in their own behalf, and a first-class plant. ”

“ We must recognise that it is the application of this rule which has ensured the successful development of consumers' societies, since it gives to each member a reward proportionate to his co-operative zeal, to his loyalty to his shop. Besides, it is founded on one of the most certain of economic laws, the law that the success of a business enter- prise depends less on its capital than on its customers. It is therefore just that the profits should belong to those who by their acts ensure the prosperity of the society. ”

“ Consumers' co-operation, above all when it is supported by strong purchasing federations, sweeps away all this misery. If a society aims at cheapness only it can sell goods well below current commercial prices, and even if, as is generally the case, it sells at the ordinary trade price, the consumers buy goods of better quality more nourishing food and more lasting clothes and also gain an increase in quantity resulting from just weights used for bread, for meat, for everything. ”

“ That among the consumers' societies there are many which do not set themselves out to increase their members' incomes, but simply aim at selling at a low price, or have one of the various other aims which we shall consider later ; That among the three million co-operators there are many who are only co-operators in name, and, since they never go to the shop, obtain no bonus. It is the nature and honour of free social institutions that they can be useful only to those who wish and know how to use them, and they cannot be asked to give their services to those who do not want them. ”

“ In its beginnings a consumers' co-operative society is satisfied with buying the requirements necessary for its members; it is a shopkeeper long before it is a manufacturer. Generally a beginning is made with the most important of all needs, the supply of foodstuffs, or in one of the particular branches of this general need, such as the supply of bread, wine, groceries. Thus, Monsignor von Ketteler, Archbishop of Mainz, said that the question of co-operation is summed up in the simple question of food supply ”

“ But, on the other hand, a co-operative society, having to provide for the needs of its members only, can do so with certainty, particularly if its members are conscientious and loyal in purchasing from the store. It has not to run the risks of bad speculation and of bad stock which must be sold at a loss. ”

“ You may laugh, but I firmly believe that in cooperation, or, at least, the cooperative store, lies our one sure hope of reducing the cost of living. It works two ways—it actually cuts down the price of foodstuffs, and it teaches the woman thrift through investment in stock. ”

“ What we want is a system which will safeguard the consumer, and also provide the worker with a natural, self-compelling inducement to help the industry with which he is connected. That system is provided by co-partnership. ”

“ It lends itself with marvellous ease to any social aim, even the most diverse sometimes, it must be avowed, the most antagonistic so that we must choose between them. As we shall see, one can seek in consumers' co-operation either cheapness or an increase of income, savings for the individual or the constitution of an inalienable fund for social benefits ”

“ In many fields the best means of ensuring justice to producers and consumers is the cooperative form of ownership. In such fields, every assistance will be given to form cooperatives and credit unions and to strengthen those already in existence. ”

“ The consumers’ theory maintains that all profit on price is abstracted from the consumer, and must be returned to him; while to him should also belong all capital and control, subject to such regulations as the state and the trade unions enforce. This theory is fully exemplified in the English Wholesale Society, and in some of the smaller federations for production, which employ workmen, whether co-operators or not, for wages only, and admit no individual, but only co-operative societies, to membership. ”

“ A co-operative organisation for the distribution of wealth which had as its foundation a competitive system of production would form a highly unstable, perhaps uninhabitable edifice. They also sought to find in co-operation an equitable division of wealth, enabling the consumers to keep for themselves all the gains of the enterprise. Their system is the inauguration of a new system of the division of wealth ; it would mean that capital would have no more profits. ”

“ If the store is his own, he can make sure that his goods are represented by a full line, he can dictate the price at which they shall be sold and the service that shall be given. Retailers have used coöperative methods in order to make their relations with production more direct, through buying clubs organized to accomplish specific purchases, through buying organizations of a permanent character which rival jobbing houses, through capital-ownership in wholesale houses, and in a few cases through manufacturing institutions. ”

“ In the main the remedy lies in distribution and marketing. Every proper encouragement should be given to the cooperative marketing programs. These have proven very helpful to the cooperating communities in Europe. ”

“ In agriculture, as already mentioned, the primary producer can receive a larger net revenue through cooperative organization of purchases and marketing. Similarly in retail distribution of staple commodities such as milk, there is room for development both of public municipal operation and of consumers' cooperatives, and such cooperative organization can be extended into wholesale distribution and into manufacturing. ”

“ The essential thing is that business be put on the basis of public service rather than private profit. When that principle is recognized as being the only sound basis of our economic system, then the methods of business organization will be determined by what experience shows to be most advantageous to the community, and it may well be that true "coöperative competition" between individual merchants and coöperative stores may exist side by side with advantage to all concerned. ”

“ The so-called industrial and transportation trusts, the banking rings and investment pools, the labor unions and cooperative societies, and the associations of commission men and retail merchants are simply concerned in seeking to acquire the advantages of exclusion and organization. In each instance, united action for the elimination of waste and competition is the initial motive. "Cooperative efficiency in production" is the shibboleth of industrial organization ”

“ From the point of view of unity of the general system of distribution of necessaries, the Congress deems it necessary to put into practice in full measure the participation of labor cooperation in the matter of distributing the products so that, in the course of time, and labor, all the united system of distribution may be organized after the pattern of a single type of consumers’ communes.
Workers’ cooperative societies must become the chief distributors of products among the workers. ”

“ We will improve consumption policies and the consumption environment. We will accelerate the project to encourage retailers to open stores in more townships and villages, and encourage commercial chains to open more outlets in rural areas. We will intensify the development of consumption facilities and service networks in both urban and rural areas, rectify order in the market, and safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of consumers. We will promptly work out and introduce policies and measures to encourage consumption, and vigorously develop consumer credit. ”

“ The number of persons capable of managing a small retail store is vastly greater than the class fit to assume control of the very complex duties involved in the care of wholesale houses—or, at all events, of mills and factories. Distributive co-operation has its origin in the fact that the expenses of a middle-man between the producer and consumer may be entirely dispensed with, and in the fact that more capital had collected in the business of distribution than could economically be so employed. ”

“ It is true that selling to the public is not practised by all co-operative societies, and is even generally dis- couraged, as we shall see. But, even though the society sells only to its members, the system of selling at cost price has another drawback, namely, it tempts certain members to buy goods for their friends and neighbours, and even perhaps to make a profit thereby as middlemen. ”

“ THE immediate aim of co-operative societies is to satisfy the needs of their members better and more economically than is done by existing institutions ; for example, if the need be bread, to furnish it of better quality, juster weight, and more cheaply than the bakers can supply it. ”

“ The manufacturers know their business ! This law cannot act in the present economic conditions, because a thousand obstacles under the form of legal or actual monopolies obstruct it, but if under an imaginary regime of absolutely free competition all these obstacles were removed, the sale price and the cost price would be identical. So that, paradoxical as such an assertion appears, it may be said that if co-operation were universal the end which is vainly imagined under free competition would be attained. ”

“ It is clear that the greatest fairness for consumers can be achieved through the active cooperation of business, government, and consumers themselves working to insure equity, increased competition, and safety in our free market economy. ”

“ It has made co-operation a sort of patronage, different from capitalist patronage but employing the same methods, and we might even say using methods which no other patron would dare to do to-day ; for instance, the member has to pay for his bread in advance each week by buying counters, which means that the society borrows from the workman funds for its working expenses and, moreover, the member must pay an addition of one-third of its real price for his bread. ”

“ BENEFITS OF COÍPERATION.—While no longer considered a far- reaching industrial reform, the co÷perative movement brings with it many benefits. Co÷peration in retail trade, credit, and marketing cuts down the waste between consumer and producer, and thus helps substantially to reduce the cost of living. Co÷peration in production, though it fails to reach its chief objective, has the virtue of demonstrating to groups of workmen that the entrepreneur is of far more value in our industrial life than they might otherwise have realized. ”

“ The rapid development of chain-store systems under single ownership and control is almost certain to accelerate the growth of this kind of coöperation of retailers in their buying activities. From the other end of the distributive chain efforts are being made to unite consumers in the ownership and control of retailing and even wholesaling establishments. Coöperative stores have had a most successful development in Europe but have not done well in America. In the United States there have been successive waves of interest in coöperation. ”

“ To sum up, selling to the public should be allowed only as a means of attracting members and making the society known to the public, and not as a permanent practice. Every purchaser should be, if not actually a member, at least a candidate for membership. In every place where this principle is understood and applied the sale to non-members is a negligible quantity 4 per cent, to 5 per cent, of the total sales in England, 7 per cent, to 8 per cent, in France. ”

“ The ultimate ideal of enthusiastic co-operators does not, however, stop short of a mere saving in price. The goal is stated as follows by the Right Relationship League of America, which has several co-operative stores in the Northwest: Consumers’ co-operation is merely the first step which “will lead next to co-operative production, next to public ownership of natural resources and finally to complete industrial and economic equality, social and political right relationship—the Kingdom of God on Earth.” ”