Cooperative society

“ Although my present strong convictions are in, favor of cooperative Association rather than of communities of property, I look with an indescribable interest on every attempt to redeem society from its corruptions, and establish the intercourse of men on a basis of love instead of competition. ”

“ There are multiplied thousands of others who, like myself, have come to realize that before we may truly enjoy the blessings of civilized life, we must reorganize society upon a mutual and cooperative basis ”

“ The International Cooperative Alliance was originally founded to reduce the cost of living for the underpaid working classes. From a sociological and economic experiment, it has grown to be the soundest and most democratic organization of its kind in the world, numbering among its shareholders men and women from all walks of society. ”

“ This then was the American tradition, that private enterprise manages better all that to which it IS equal. Anarchism declares that private enterprise, whether individual or cooperative, is equal to all the undertakings of society. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ From the beginning, therefore, this kind of social coöperation is a conscious coöperation, and a coöperation which is not wholly a matter of choice—is often much at variance with private wishes. As the organization initiated by it develops, we see that, in the first place, the fighting division of the society displays in a more marked degree these same traits ”

“ It was the spirit of co-operation which in the the Middle Ages raised the working middle class to so high a level of culture and prosperity, of power and consequence. The re-awakening of the spirit of co-operation in our day will bear similar and still more precious fruit, not for one class alone but for the whole human society. ”

“ But as we have repeatedly had occasion to point out in this book, their training in constructive work, in political organisation, in trade unions, and co-operative societies has been vastly more efficacious. Most promising of all; as we have seen, is the co-operative movement, because it best combines the collective use of the means of production and exchange with individual freedom and responsibility. In the vast and ever-widening co-operative movement we can see a new society rising in the midst of the old. ”

“ There was a community of thought and action in the Co-operative movement which was bringing out much that was noble and sympathetic in human nature. The social gulfs which lay between the various classes in society would never be bridged over by the competitive system, because that system was the cause of these gulfs. ”

“ A glance at the past rôles of dominance, competition, and coöperation in the institutions of government, religion, and commerce and industry, will aid us to consider coöperation in relation to present international problems. ”

“ In light of the production miracles performed by private industry in spite of a militantly unfriendly administration, it is interesting, even though futile, to speculate what might have been done under an inspired leadership that had faith in the cooperative process, understood the technique of the voluntary method, and was determined to give it a friendly opportunity to perform. ”

“ This communal organization of society continued for thousands of years and its vestiges still exist amid the highest enlightenment, as the foundation for business corporations, partnerships, and, indeed, all commercial and other coöperation,—communism—the greatest good to the greatest number, being the basis of all civilized laws. ”

“ The art of co-operation, that great engine of achievement, depends on learning through social contact how to think and feel sympathetically. Finally, there is the product of social organization. Chance meetings and temporary assemblies are of small value, though they must be noted as phenomena of association. More important are the fixed institutions that have grown out of relations continually tested by experience until they have become sanctioned by society as indispensable. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He came to look forward to a co-operative organization of society in which a man would learn to "dig and weave for his country," as he now is prepared to fight for it, and in which the surplus products of industry would be distributed among the producers. ”

“ On the other hand, that coöperation which unites the actions of individuals for a purpose immediately concerning the whole society, is a conscious coöperation, and is carried on by an organization of another kind, arising in a different way. When the primitive group has to defend itself against other groups, its members act together under further stimuli than those constituted by purely personal desires. ”

“ By their means, working men are enabled to secure the results of economy at a comparatively small cost. For, mutual assurance is economy in its most economical form; and merely presents another illustration of that power of co-operation which is working out such extraordinary results in all departments of society, and is in fact but another name for Civilization.
Many persons object to Friendly Societies because they are conducted at public-houses ”

“ Eventually, and in perhaps a less remote future than may be supposed, we may, through the co-operative principle, see our way to a change in society, which would combine the freedom and independence of the individual, with the moral, intellectual, and economical advantages of aggregate production ”

“ The state strengthens and develops the socialist cooperative economic system and gradually transforms the property of cooperative organizations into the property of all the people on the basis of the voluntary will of the entire membership. ”

“ There results this type characterized throughout by that same individual freedom which every commercial transaction implies. The coöperation by which the multiform activities of the societies are carried on, becomes a voluntary cooperation. ”

“ The units of a co-operative society, are sound and healthy to the core. Co-operation, insures self-employment. Self-employment brings freedom, ambition, independence, self-respect, leisure and education; with all the comforts and refinements of life. With these insured, the co-operator cannot be bought or corrupted by wealth. Each co-operator becomes a citizen, who without fear and without restraint, may speak, write and vote, in accordance with the highest dictates of conscience. A healthful degree of honorable, self-sustaining labor for all, is the key-note of this social organization. ”

“ But it is, of course, equally obvious that they have grown up in a society which supposes free competition in every part of its industrial system; that co-operative societies, so far as the outside world is concerned, have to buy in the cheapest and sell in the dearest market; that the rate of wages of their members is still fixed by competition; and that they encourage habits of saving and forethought which presuppose that each man is to have private ends of his own. In what sense, then, can co-operation ever be regarded as really opposed to competition? ”

“ The arrangement of industry was planned in detail, a co-operative system was organized that would keep every man busy at useful labor without working him too hard, would take away the profits of the middleman by a well-planned system of distribution, and would allow liberty in social relations as far as consistent with the general good, but would subordinate the individual to the community. ”

“ To share in the general benefit, he must voluntarily contribute time and money to the general good. The necessary machinery of society will, of course, exist — courts to settle disputes and police to keep order — but they will be maintained by voluntary co-operation. ”

“ The cooperative movement offers the greatest opportunity for the country minister for definite service in the farmers' economic progress. The principle underlying the movement is "Each for all, and all for each." Instead of the capitalist and laborer being in opposite camps under the necessity for bargaining, and each doing as little as possible and getting as much as possible for their respective shares of the product of the industry, the cooperative movement brings them into harmony for production of goods, in the belief that all are to share fairly in what is produced. ”

“ It is often said that there would be less poverty if the various charitable agencies would everywhere organize and work in association. The independent temper of Americans makes it difficult to work together, but co-operation is a sound sociological principle, and experience proves that such principles must be obeyed. If the principle of combination that has been applied to business should be carried further and applied to the problems of society, there can be no question that results would speedily justify the action. Perhaps the greatest need in the city to-day is a union of resources. ”

“ But I need hardly say that individualists, as well as their opponents, may legitimately sing the praises of co-operation. Nobody was more forward than Mill, for example, and Mill's followers, in advocating the principles of the early co-operative societies. He and they rejoiced to believe that the co-operative societies had revealed unsuspected virtues and capacities in the class from which they sprang; that they had done much to raise the standard of life and to extend sympathy and human relations among previously disconnected units of society. ”

“ In which sentences there is involved the abstract proposition that in proportion as men are long held together in that mutual dependence which social coöperation implies, they will become less fit for mutual dependence and coöperation—the society will tend toward dissolution. While, in proportion as they are habituated to antagonism and to destructive activities, they will become better adapted to activities requiring union and agreement. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For people who, carrying on their private transactions by voluntary coöperation, also voluntarily coöperate to form and support a governmental agency, are, by implication, people who authorize it to impose on their respective activities only those restraints which they are all interested in maintaining—the restraints which check aggressions. ”

“ It can effect great savings for our workingmen, and can secure them food and other necessaries of the best quality. If nothing further arises, the spread of co-operation may simply induce a new form of competition between these big societies; but no one can study the history of the movement without becoming persuaded that there is a moral development carried on which will, in some way as yet not seen to us, lead up the organization of those societies into some higher generalization, securing harmony. ”

“ Working people who independently perform activities with their own personal labour and with resources in citizens' ownership may form a cooperative and in it, in accordance with the principles of equality, pool their labour and means of labour and jointly dispose of the income earned by the cooperative. ”

“ Co-operative association brings with it the hope of moral progress ; but in abolishing the pursuit of profit as the only real motive of economic activity substituting for it the sole aim of satisfying needs whilst abolishing advertisement, lying, cheating, and inducements to extravagance, co-operation will succeed in establishing in business a reign of truth and justice ”

“ If will mean society organized upon a co-operative basis, collectively owning the sources of wealth and the means of production, and producing wealth to satisfy human wants and not to gorge a privileged few. ”

“ 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 co-operative society or association for the ordinary purposes of industry.—Co-operation for some time made comparatively little progress in production, but when we consider the low point from which the movement started, only about sixty years ago, and how painfully capital, experience, and skill had to be acquired by the poor workers, we should rather be surprised at the advance that has been made in so many progressive countries. ”

“ The purpose of the joint pursuit in organization characterized by dominance may be either the exclusive good of the master or the joint good of the whole organized group, but in any case it is a purpose formed and kept by those few who know. The group may share in its execution and its benefits, but not in its construction or in the estimating and forecasting of its values. The purpose in coöperation is joint. ”