Cooperative commonwealth

“ At the same time, the CCF also recognizes that in many fields there will be need for private enterprise which can make a useful contribution to the development of our economy. The cooperative commonwealth will, therefore, provide appropriate opportunities for private business as well as publicly-owned industry. ”

“ In restoring to the community its natural resources and in taking over industrial enterprises from private into public control we do not propose any policy of outright confiscation. What we desire is the most stable and equitable transition to the Cooperative Commonwealth. It is impossible to decide the policies to be followed in particular cases in an uncertain future, but we insist upon certain broad principles. The welfare of the community must take supremacy over the claims of private wealth. In times of war, human life has been conscripted. ”

“ That is to say, the co-operation of the commonwealth will be a mere automatic unanimity like that of insects, unless the citizen has some province of purely voluntary action; unless he is so far not only a citizen but a king. ”

“ However, supposing that the instinct of acquisition, of accumulation, and of property, which is found not only among all races of mankind but even among the higher animals, could be overcome, would human nature allow of the creation of a co-operative commonwealth based on voluntary co-operation, not on compulsion? ”

“ ARTICLE 156 The Commonwealth may by law, without impairment of the right to compensation, and with a proper application of the regulations relating to expropriation, transfer to public ownership private business enterprises adapted for socialization. The Commonwealth itself, the States, or the municipalities may take part in the management of business enterprises and associations, or secure a dominating influence therein in any other way. ”

“ Furthermore, in case of urgent necessity the Commonwealth, if it is in the interest of collectivism, may combine by law business enterprises and associations on the basis of administrative autonomy, in order to insure the co-operation of all producing elements of the people, to give to employers and employees a share in the management, and to regulate the production, preparation, distribution, utilization and pecuniary valuation, as well as the import and export, of economic goods upon collectivistic principles. ”

“ By presenting a model of one co-operative commonwealth, we may, and I believe will, sooner or later induce other states to follow our lead, and the entire sisterhood of states may form one great co-operative nation. But we should advance to the accomplishment of our purpose, in this state, with wisdom and caution.
“We must make as few mistakes as possible. Our endeavor must be to understand and strictly conform to the law. We must respect the opinions of those who do not agree with us. ”

“ Most Socialists are opposed to coercion, and when they openly proclaim their adherence to the principal of voluntary association they will remove the only barrier between them and those who wear the name of Individualists.
Our ideal of the co-operative commonwealth is one free from the blighting effects of authority; one wherein each is a sovereign of his own person, and where the association is that of free individuals. in short, we contend for a co-operative commonwealth organized by mutual consent, and maintained by mutual consent. ”

“ If we merely suppose an agreement, unanimous, of course, in those who concur in it, to be governed by one man, or by one council promising that they shall wield the force of the whole against anyone who shall contravene their commands issued for the public good, the foundation is as well laid, and the commonwealth as firmly established, as by the double process of a mutual covenant to constitute a people, and a popular determination to constitute a government. ”

“ It is a necessity of our policy if it is to bring about the co-operative commonwealth, that co-operators must adventure much more largely into production than they have hitherto done.
Now let us see what we have come to. There is a country movement which is not merely one for agricultural production. It is rapidly taking up the distribution of goods. There is an urban movement not merely concerned with distribution but entering upon production. They can be brought into harmony if the same federations act for both branches of the movement. ”

“ I know a million men and women are alive in America today, and millions more will soon be ready to help create the Co-operative Commonwealth, where men and women, great in soul and mind and strong in bodies and sure in life, 76shall be industrially free and realize the beneficence and uplifting power of Industrial Democracy. ”

“ Though the societies are non-political, and have refused to join the labour representation movement, they are usually centres of “progressive” ideas. There are of course many defects, and of their two million members a large, and many fear an increasing, proportion, attracted by the prosperity of the societies, think chiefly of what they themselves gain; but the government of the movement has, hitherto at least, been largely in the hands of men of ideas, who believe that stores are but a step to co-operative production, and on to the “co-operative commonwealth.” ”

“ They teach them that the only remedy for the present economic problem, is Socialism, and that the co-operatives are merely used as a preliminary education for the establishing of the co-operative commonwealth. ”

“ Without specific allotment of lands as on the feudal estate, or distribution of tasks as in a socialistic commonwealth, the community accomplishes a natural division of labor and diversification of industry, supports its own institutions by self-imposed taxes and voluntary contributions, and supplies its quota to the larger State of which it forms a democratic part. In spite of the constant exercise of individual independence and competition, there is at the foundation of every rural community the principle of co-operation and service as the only working formula for human life. ”

“ In the domain of economic and social welfare the party will foster the spirit of cooperation on as large a scale as possible. Instead of private and unorganised business enterprises, the party prefers cooperative union. ”

“ The Commonwealth has no more authority to construe the charter than the corporation. By becoming a party to a contract with its citizens the government divests itself of its sovereignty in respect to the terms and conditions of the contract and its construction and interpretation, and stands in the same position as a private individual. ”

“ But the private department stores, labor-saving machinery, trusts and monopolies, which continue to exact tribute from and oppress the people for private gain, are our unconscious and unintentional allies, and the thousands of good citizens who yearly move westward to avail themselves of the opportunities which exist in the Co-operative Commonwealths called into being by the success of the Co-opolitan Association do not fail by their correspondence to light the fires of the new and higher civilization in every city and hamlet of the nation. ”

“ Nothing but this institutionalization will save them from being scattered away from each other again, and it can be achieved only by such averaging and concessions and co-operations as are the price of all union. ”

“ As was pointed out at both Cooperative Congresses, the absolutist system of establishing cooperative societies and unions hampers the great work of organizing the economic forces of the country. A new law concerning the formation of cooperative societies is imperatively demanded by the existing conditions. ”

“ The wisdom of the few may be the light of mankind; but the interest of the few is not the profit of mankind nor of a commonwealth. Wherefore, seeing we have granted interest to be reason, they must not choose lest it put out their light. But as the council dividing consists of the wisdom of the commonwealth, so the assembly or council choosing should consist of the interest of the commonwealth: as the wisdom of the commonwealth is in the aristocracy, so the interest of the commonwealth is in the whole body of the people. ”

“ In starting this little Co-operative Commonwealth, I am reminded by those who are always at a man's elbow to fill him with forebodings of ill, to look at the failures, which I have just referred to, which make up the history of the attempt to realise ideal commonwealths in this practical workaday world. ”

“ The regulation of the organization and duties of the workers' councils and of the economic councils, as well as their relation to other social bodies endowed with administrative autonomy, is exclusively a function of the Commonwealth. ”

“ Where mutual co-operation is essential or desirable or where it is required to guarantee equality of opportunity or access to a government service, the powers should be allocated concurrently to the national government and the provincial governments. ”

“ But association, simply, is not enough; nothing materially great can be accomplished without union and coöperation. It is only when aggregations of families intermingle with other aggregations, each contributing its quota of original knowledge to the other; when the individual gives up some portion of his individual will and property for the better protection of other rights and property; when he intrusts society with the vindication of his rights; when he depends upon the banded arm of the nation, and not alone upon his own arm for redress of grievances, that progress is truly made. ”

“ This person (including of course an assembly as well as individual) is the sovereign, and possesses sovereign power. And such power may spring from agreement or from force. A commonwealth by agreement or institution is when a multitude do agree and covenant one with another that whatever the major part shall agree to represent them, shall be the representative of them all. ”

“ But your commonwealth is founded upon an equal agrarian; and if the earth be given to the sons of men, this balance is the balance of justice, such a one as in having due regard to the different industry of different men, yet faithfully judges the poor’ And the king that faithfully judges the poor, his throne shall be established forever;, much more the commonwealth, seeing that equality, which is the necessary dissolution of monarchy, is the generation, the very life and soul, of a commonwealth. ”

“ Moreover, beginning with exchanges of goods and services under agreements between individuals, the principle of voluntary coöperation is simply carried out in a larger way by any incorporated body of individuals who contract with one another for jointly pursuing this or that business or function. And yet, again, there is entire congruity between the representative constitutions of such private combinations and that representative constitution of the public combination which we see is proper to the industrial type: the same law of organization pervades the society in general and in detail. ”

“ At present we only wish to show from this requirement that, in a commonwealth, the agreement should be one of all with all, and that, although the possessions of all on the surface of the earth may be in part, that is, in a certain respect, divided amongst the individuals, still in another respect, which the agreement must also determine, there must be a sphere of action for all ”

“ The United States presents a plan which is sufficiently elastic, an area sufficiently extensive, and opportunities sufficiently varied and abundant, to make it proper that one state should be devoted to the development of the co-operative system. ”

“ In this way they say the co-operative system may extend indefinitely without sacrificing either individual responsibility and freedom, or a general unity and control, so far as these are necessary to secure the common interest. On the other hand they hold that the opposing system tends more and more to centralization and bureaucracy, and divorces the individual workman from all personal interest in his work, and from any control over its conditions. ”

“ Just as the system of voluntary co-operation by companies, associations, unions, to achieve business ends and other ends, spreads throughout a community, so does the antagonistic system of compulsory co-operation under state-agencies spread, and the larger becomes its extension the more power of spreading it gets. The question of questions for the politician should ever be, "What type of social structure am I tending to produce?" ”

“ Fifthly, that it is the government, which, attaining to perfect equality, has such a libration in the frame of it, that no man living can show which way any man or men, in or under it, can contract any such interest or power as should be able to disturb the commonwealth with sedition, wherefore an equal commonwealth is that only which is without flaw and contains in it the full perfection of government. ”

“ Lastly, That the Governor of this Commonwealth be, and is hereby, authorized and requested to communicate the preceding resolutions to the legislatures of the several States, to assure them that this Commonwealth considers union for specified national purposes, and particularly for those specified in their late Federal compact, to be friendly to the peace, happiness, and prosperity of all the States; that faithful to that compact, according to the plain intent and meaning in which it was understood and acceded to by the several parties, it is sincerely anxious for its preservation ”

“ Wherefore if the senate have any further power than to divide, the commonwealth can never be equal. But in a commonwealth consisting of a single council, there is no other to choose than that which divided; whence it is, that such a council fails not to scramble—that is, to be factious, there being no other dividing of the cake in that case but among themselves. ”