Cooperatives

“ Without prejudice to the framework of the Plan, and provided that the cooperative principles are observed, there shall be no restrictions on the creation of cooperatives, which may freely group together into unions, federations and confederations. ”

“ The state shall take measures in keeping with national and economic interests, to promote the development of cooperatives, which shall be primarily designed to increase production and protect consumers. ”

“ These cooperatives are now effectively channeling credit to small farmers, introducing new farm technology, procuring and distributing production inputs, unifying marketing, and forming capital. They are gradually integrating upwards to the processing and marketing activities and downwards to production and will eventually move to such strategic areas as banking, insurance, housing and other desirable enterprises. ”

“ The co-partnership party answer that labour at least helps to make the profit, and that competition, as yet almost insignificant between their societies, can be avoided by federating them (a process long ago begun) for buying and selling in common, and for other common purposes, while leaving each the control and responsibility of its own internal affairs. They further advocate the eventual federation of the productive wing of co-operation with the distributive, for settling prices and all matters in which their interests might conflict. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Most important again is the growing co-operative movement, including as it does co-operatives for both production and distribution. And finally, we have the labour and professional organisations, that are growing, changing, and becoming more complicated and elastic all the time: trade-unions, federations of unions, central trade committees, federations of trades, and federations of labour. ”

“ A fifth tendency is towards a realization of the fact that all who share in industrial processes should participate in the benefits resulting from their work, that “perpendicular” rather than “horizontal divisions” in labor should be the aim in all industry. This is seen in the various efforts made to introduce productive and distributive co-operation, profit sharing, and other measures intended to give employees a share in the results of their labors, and thus to take a personal interest in their work. ”

“ The societies have also benefited by other private beneficence and public help. As to the Government aid, it must be remembered that in France the state helps all forms of industry in ways unknown to us, and the French co-operative producers always declare that what is done for them is a trifle compared to what is done for other manufacturers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ TRUE co-operation means a collective effort to secure the greatest good for the greatest number. The measure of its efficiency, therefore, may be measured by the number of people benefitted by its operation. The greater the number the greater its efficiency.
For example, when 100 shoemakers form an organization to produce collectively, they eliminate the profit which otherwise goes to the manufacturer. One hundred people are benefitted by this form of co-operation. Despite its small number, such an organization is still entitled to be called a co-operative. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They contend, moreover, and it is indeed admitted that, in spite of the great advantages which consumers’ production has in its command of a market and of abundant capital, only a small part of industry can ever be carried on by associations of the persons who actually consume the produce. Outside this small part, therefore, voluntary co-operation is impossible except as some form of co-partnership. ”

“ In France, which Englishmen are apt to speak of as preeminently the country of co-operative production, the agricultural is the most important branch of co-operation; and the source and mainstay of agricultural co-operation are the Syndicats Agricoles. These are not Co-operative agriculture in France and other countries.technically co-operative societies; they are rather trade unions, not indeed of wage-earners only, or mainly, but of cultivators. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The co-partnership theory, on the other hand, maintains that the workers actually employed in any industry, whether distributive or productive, should be partners with those who find the capital, and those who buy the produce, and should share with them the profit, responsibilities and control. The consumers’ party contend that societies of producers make a profit out of the consumers, and thus are never truly co-operative, while as they multiply they must compete against each other. ”

“ In no other country so much as in Great Britain do we find the tendency for all branches of co-operation to federate in one union and to help one another by mutual trade. Yet everywhere the instinct of co-operative societies is to federate with others—at least with others of their own particular shade; so that Wholesales and other federations are found more and more in many countries. ”

“ I dare say we shall never return to the old order of individual competition and that the organization of business upon a great scale of coöperation is, up to a certain point, itself normal and inevitable. ”

“ On the whole, therefore, the development of industry and commerce is characterized by the extensive and intensive application of the personal system of association. During the early days of the craft and merchant guilds the cooperative system included all classes of producers, the apprentices, the journeymen and the guild masters. Later on when the wage system was established there was a differentiation of cooperative groups, the apprentices and Journeymen cooperating henceforth as industrial laborers, and the masters combining as capitalists in partnerships, companies and corporations. ”

“ Our Co-operative movement is, in a simple way rationing its buyers, by regulating supplies, and it is in voluntary work of that kind, which is going on extensively, and in the people's own efforts and economies that our great hope lies. ”

“ As this support we must understand the support of co-operative intercourse in which real masses participate. Granting a premium to the peasant who takes part in co-operative intercourse is doubtless correct. But this participation must be tested for its consciousness and its quality—and that is the heart of the question. When the co-operator comes to a village and there opens a co-operative store, the inhabitants, rigidly speaking, take no part therein. But impelled by their own profit, they will however hasten to participate in the venture. ”

“ It hands down and publishes these decisions therefore in the hope that with the needed coöperation they may help to give the workers a strong, loyal, constructive organization, and the Company a period of peaceful, harmonious and efficient administration and production which will compensate for any disadvantage which the preferential experiment may impose. ”

“ In uniting the population into such co-operative communes the already existing co-operative societies will be of great importance. The wider the sphere of work of the co-operatives, the wider the circle of the population included, the more organised will the distribution of products become, and the more frequently will these co-operatives be changed into organs of supply for the whole population. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As if anticipating a modern theory which grows in favour with the wiser sort of mercantile men, he suggests that co-operation—of course I use the word in its etymological rather than in its technical sense—should be substituted for competition. "Two are better than one," he argues; "union is better than isolation; conjoint labour brings the larger reward" (ver. 9) . To bring his suggestion home to the business bosom of men, he uses five illustrations, four of which have a strong Oriental colouring. ”

“ That is to say, in shipping a carload of strawberries the farmer gets a better price when the car is filled with one kind of berry than he would receive if the car was made up of a number of separate consignments under different names and of different varieties. Co-operation has been better for the individual than competition. ”

“ The enormous commercial success of the great co-operative societies, and the absolute no-effect of that success on the social conditions of the workers, are sufficient tokens of what this non-political co-operation must come to: “Nothing—it shall not be less.” ”

“ Distributive co-operation is at once the simplest and the most successful form, not merely because it requires less for capital than any other for its inception, but also because it calls for less business and executive capacity. ”

“ PIET VLAG TO THE CO-OPERATORS
COMRADES AND CO-OPERATORS:
Here is your magazine. It is human. It is attractive. It is inexpensive.
The MASSES PUBLISHING COMPANY was organized at our instigation; it has no capital to speak of; it is dependent upon your support—and that is sufficient.
Co-operation has to be studied. We must have a means of reaching all the people interested in co-operation. Then we will eventually centralize to such an extent that the middleman will be eliminated. ”

“ One may guess that in each nation all the Boards and communal authorities will ultimately be represented in some central Executive, or Industrial Ministry; that the Minister of Agriculture, of Mineral Industries, of Textile Industries, and so on, will have relations with similar officers in other lands; and that thus, internationally as well as nationally, co-operation will replace competition. ”