Economic cooperation

“ We should bring into full play the coordinating role of our respective governments, mobilize and integrate the resources of governments, enterprises, individuals and international economic institutions and adopt a new approach of intensifying, expanding and enriching our cooperation and giving play to our respective advantage in a wide range of areas with focus on trade, investment, agriculture, resources exploitation, construction of infrastructure and human resource development. ”

“ We will adhere to the basic policy of opening up, open our dooreven wider to the outside world, improve investment and business environment, improve the legal system and build up a more open market system and participate in international economic and technological cooperation and competition in more areas, on a larger scope and at a higher level so as to effectively use international and domestic markets and resources in our quest for common development. ”

“ The freedom of exchange that is at the heart of every genuine economic transaction benefits all parties and builds competition, enterprise, prosperity, justice, cooperation, and social well-being as people achieve economic success by finding their fellowman's unmet needs and filling them well. ”

“ But further, they have a distinct social and economic aim, namely, to correct the present inequalities of wealth, and substitute for the competitive system an industry controlled by all in the common interest, and distributing on principles of equity and reason, mutually agreed on, the wealth produced. ”

“ Article I Convinced of the close community of their interests and of the necessity of uniting in order to promote the economic recovery of Europe, the High Contracting Parties will so organize and co-ordinate their economic activities as to produce the best possible results, by the elimination of conflict in their economic policies, the co-ordination of production and the development of commercial exchanges. ”

“ Under any form of society that can be foreseen in the immediate future, the need of close co-operation between the various parts of the world economic mechanism will tend to increase rather than to diminish, and it is therefore of great importance to have at hand a means of maintaining and facilitating the contacts between the different economic groups. ”

“ To the energetic, enterprising man, how tempting must be those prospectuses of schemes for the development of the vast and in many cases untried natural, industrial, and commercial resources of the country, which, combining in an eminent degree both pleasure and profit, invite his coöperation upon the joint-stock principle! ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ What first prompted me to this endeavour was my sense of the unsatisfactory way in which economists found separate “laws” to express rent, interest, profit, wages. In actual economic processes all the factors of production were required to co-operate, and that co-operation was an organic process which precluded the separate assignment of any part of the products to any one of them. Different kinds and quantities of land, capital, labour were needed for each of these acts of co-operative production. ”

“ On the domestic scene, as well as on the international scene, we must lay a new and better foundation for cooperation. We face a great peacetime venture; the challenging venture of a free enterprise economy making full and effective use of its rich resources and technical advances. This is a venture in which business, agriculture, and labor have vastly greater opportunities than heretofore. ”

“ For all the baffling difficulties which the enlargement of the area of trade has introduced into business, and all the parasitical expenses which have fastened themselves upon it, coöperation offers a remedy—a remedy, however, only to be applied as intelligence and trustworthiness advance. ”

“ The Parties shall in particular support development and cooperation in the field of capital investments, as well as industrial cooperation between enterprises. Special attention shall be paid to cooperation between small and medium-size companies and enterprises. ”

“ The same set of social principles which decreed local rewards and local punishments for initiative and enterprise, or for the lack of them, was built upon the theory that "competition is the life of trade." Thus, while the present economic system, in its earlier stages tended to stimulate initiative, its form made co-operation difficult or impossible.
The ideal economic unit would be one capable of generating its own driving power, and given a legitimate exchange of commodities and services with other units, one that could maintain its own energy and efficiency. ”

“ The increasingly strenuous nature of international competition and the constantly higher standards of international economic, technical, and political efficiency prescribe a constantly improving domestic political and economic organization. ”

“ Our courts of justice, our financial institutions, our methods of trade, and our schools of all grades are examples of social harmonies which found their form by long conflict, and settled down to smooth action by custom. The financial institutions and the methods of trade belong to the economic system. The system of production is modern and new. ”

“ Towards this end, public policies should learn from the experience of more advanced countries by encouraging the establishment of investment houses quite distinct from the mutual funds. This will further strengthen the financial basis of the economy and assure sources of long-term funds for desirable productive ventures.
D. Economic Nationalism and Trade
Even as we are making provisions for expanding production, we have attended to increasing outlets for our output. ”

“ In conclusion, there is presented as the solution of the difficulties of the present industrial situation, concentration, co-operation, and control. Through concentration we may have the economic advantages coming from magnitude of operations. Through co-operation we may limit the wastes of the competitive system. Through control by commission we may secure freedom for fair competition, elimination of unfair practices, conservation of our natural resources, fair wages, good social conditions, and reasonable prices. ”

“ Now lies before us the opportunity—with their stable governments and protection for enterprise and property, and our increased capital—now lies before us the opportunity to be allied to them also by the bonds of personal intercourse and profitable trade. ”

“ They have shown under widely different conditions the power of nationalizing their economic organization; and in spite of the commission of many errors, particularly in this country, a system of national economy appears to make for a higher level of economic vitality than a system of international economy. ”

“ Economic enterprises and associations may, by legislation, be combined into autonomous organizations in order to ensure the collaboration of all working elements of the nation, to give workers and employers a share in the management, and to regulate production, manufacture, distribution, utilization, prices, as well as import and export of commodities along the principles of collective economic interests. ”

“ And they have brought to light the fact that this inevitable internationalizing of economic production must be accompanied by a co-operative internationalizing of economic distribution, if murderous chaotic conflict is to be avoided. ”

“ There is, indeed, ample room in the natural economy of production for the services of all nations, and none need stand idle. Co-operation, not hostility and jealousy, should be the watchword of modern industrial enterprise. ”

“ I saw a business system which had grown up under free competition and equality of opportunity passing into trusts and other combines derived from the acquisition of lands containing the best supplies of coal, iron, oil, and other important raw materials, supported by railroad and banking connections and by tariffs directed against outside competition. ”

“ In the long run, one of our prime needs is stability and continuity of economic policy; and yet, through treaty or by direct legislation, it may, at least in certain cases, become advantageous to supplement our present policy by a system of reciprocal benefit and obligation. ”

“ The obvious answer is that they can be transacted through some organization in which all of the groups participate on a footing of economic equality.
Common, interests will sooner or later compel common action, or action through a joint board. The point has been reached in the economic history of the world where some such common action of the producing groups is vitally essential to their continued well-being. ”

“ That, while providing revenue for the support of the General Government by duties upon imports, sound policy requires such an adjustment of these imposts as to encourage the development of the industrial interests of the whole country; and we commend that policy of national exchanges which secures to the workingmen liberal wages, to agriculture remunerating prices, to mechanics and manufacturers an adequate reward for their skill, labor, and enterprise, and to the nation commercial prosperity and independence. ”

“ Despite political obstacles, economic integration has proceeded with giant strides, especially during the past hundred years. Under a well developed world political federation the world economy could be integrated and used to provide the necessaries, conveniences and minimal comforts for the entire human family. ”

“ If practical coöperation becomes a part of our plan of international organization in the future, we shall see many problems in applied economics and industry taken up for far more serious consideration than has been possible hitherto. ”

“ Where the whole is favored before any part there is a possibility of co-existence and even of cooperation. Placing a part before the whole involves competition all the way from the marketplace to the chancelleries where the fate of nations is discussed and decided.
The above five propositions or axioms result from preoccupation with material incentives: profit and power for managers, disciplined co-ordination for subordinates, affluence, comfort and recognition for the favored few. They provide the ideological background for twentieth century western civilization. ”

“ The only remedy we can discover is the wise cooperation of producers, the determination to put the production of goods in careful and just relation to the means possessed by the community for exchanging for them.
We hear recently a great deal of the example of France, and Prof. Price is among those who point admiringly to her in this crisis. Now, as every one knows, the savings of people in England, Germany, and America, are deposited in banks, whence they are loaned and become utilized as capital; in France the peasants hoard their savings in old stockings and secret corners. ”

“ The State, acting independently or through the Trade Unions, shall check all disloyal competition in the realms of production, as well as those activities that hamper the normal development of the national economy, and shall encourage, on the other hand, all efforts aimed at improving the national economy. ”

“ 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 ”

“ By limiting the distributors to the number really required for making the commodities accessible to the consumers—which is the direct effect of the co-operative system—a vast number of hands will be set free for production, and the capital which feeds and the gains which remunerate them will be applied to feed and remunerate producers. This great economy of the world's resources would be realized even if co-operation stopped at associations for purchase and consumption, without extending to production. ”

“ It is constantly and rightly said that business can never dispense with that which makes the secret of capital's success in large industry and trade, namely, generalship. Co-operation can, it is admitted, capitalize labor for the small industries, in which it is capable of making workingmen their own employers, but it is said it can never, through committees of management, carry on large industries or trade. ”

“ We may, moreover, reasonably expect, that these sources of mutual benefit and intercourse will increase, and that new products of agriculture and manufactures will arise under some propitious accident or kindness of nature, will extend the mutual dependence of the states, and proportionally multiply the bonds of union. Each state will be important to the rest for its useful products, and they in turn will be valuable to it, both for affording a market, and for the products they give in exchange. ”

“ And when, with diminution of warfare and growth of trade, voluntary co-operation more and more replaces compulsory co-operation, and the carrying on of social life by exchange under agreement, partially suspended for a time, gradually re-establishes itself; its re-establishment brings the possibility of that vast elaborate industrial organization by which a great nation is sustained. ”

“ Many lean and hungry peoples are being integrated into the global economy. Competition is particularly fierce for trade and investments. And the countries most likely to capture these investments are those that set out the appropriate policies. ”